Our Building
Founded in 1833, First Congregational is the oldest church in DuPage County. Our first congregants gathered under a tree for worship, before meeting in a succession of homes, barns, schools, and even a tent. The congregation completed construction of a frame church in 1846, on land donated by Capt. Morris Sleight. His gift was made with the stipulation that there never be a burial ground on the site and the church always have a bell tower. The frame church was replaced with the current beautiful stone structure and dedicated in 1906.
A parsonage was added in 1884 and removed in 1929 to make room for a new Parish Hall adjoining the church. This was dedicated in 1930, with Sunday School classrooms on the ground floor and housing for the pastor’s family on the second floor. Further expansion in 1979 included the Community Room and basement classrooms.
Stained Glass “Who’s Who”
Many of the stained glass windows honor noteworthy Napervillians who belonged to the congregation and shaped the city in its early years. The largest and grandest window, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, was created in memory of member George Martin, whose daughter Caroline Martin Mitchell donated the land that became Naper Settlement, Centennial Beach, Central High School, and the Naperville Cemetery, among others.
Another honors Judge Hiram H. Cody, Sunday school superintendent for 25 years. He figures prominently in the story of the midnight raid that settled the contested relocation of the DuPage county seat from Naperville to Wheaton. In 1863, a band of Civil War veterans from Wheaton came to take the county records and set fire to the courthouse. Legend has it that Judge Cody ran across the street wearing only his nightclothes to urgently ring our church’s bell and alert the townspeople as to what was happening.
James Lawrence Nichols is also remembered with a window. A German immigrant who was orphaned and abandoned at age eight, he went on to become a student and then a popular professor at what is now North Central College. His wife, Elizabeth Nichols, fulfilled his dying wish to fund a library in Naperville, “so that no boy or girl should be without books, as he had been.”
