NAHANT — The Village Church will celebrate the 200th anniversary of church services in town on Sunday, kicking off a summer of community events ranging from a pet blessing to a country-music concert.
“Because of COVID, we were not able to celebrate the huge occasion of the arrival of church services in Nahant in 2020,” Church Deacon Chris Stevens said. “Rev. Scott Elliott, our new minister, encouraged us to celebrate it this summer and we readily agreed.”
In the summer of 1820, Rev. Samuel Joseph May, a recent Harvard Divinity School graduate, was invited by Nahant summer residents to provide the town’s first Christian worship services. 10 years later, May made a name for himself as a preacher and joined the abolition movement. He helped found the New England Anti-Slavery Society, the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the New England Non-Resistance Society.
According to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, Rev. May preached for racial equality, not just abolition, and assisted hundreds of fugitive slaves in Connecticut and Syracuse, N.Y. as president of the Syracuse Fugitive Aid Society.
“I decided to preach on Rev. May when I read about his exceptional and prophetic life,” Rev. Elliott said. “He credited his time in Nahant as important training for the pulpit, and I plan to set out a summary of the amazing work he accomplished from the stepping stone of Nahant.”
Rev. Elliott will begin the festivities Sunday with a sermon dedicated to the life and achievements of Rev. May. On July 15, the church will give away various items and sell chairs at Market by the Sea. Rev. Elliott will hold a pet-blessing event at Marjoram Park on Aug. 6 and a community yard sale on Aug. 19.
The summer-long celebration will end with an open house on Sept. 30, featuring an evening concert from former American Idol contestant Ayla Brown and her husband Bob Bellamy. Tickets are available for purchase on the church’s website.
