First Congregational Church, Moline
Organized 1844. First pastor, Reverend A. B. Hitchcock, a Yale
graduate, and a man of great influence in the community. The first
chorister was Anson M. Hubbard, and who organized the first brass band in
the three cities. He developed a strong chorus choir, the parent of all
Moline's later musical organizations. The first church building was a
small wooden structure, now occupied as the freight depot of the
Burlington railroad. A brick structure was erected at Seventeenth Street
and Fifth Avenue in 1869, and this was remodeled at an expense of $40,000
in 1900. The church is unusually complete in its appointments, having
parlors, a dining room and kitchen capable of serving three hundred people
at once, gymnasium and shower baths for the boys' club, etc. The church
has a magnificent organ of 1,500 pipes, built on the Bennett system, the
gift of Sarah M. Atkinson, in memory of her husband and son.
Among the pioneers in the church were John Deere, D. C. Dimock, Charles
Atkinson, Jonathan Huntoon, Joseph Huntoon, R. K. Swan, Thomas Merryman,
N. C. Tyrrell and W. H. Edwards. The church has given birth to three other
churches, the Second Congregational, now some eighteen years old, and the
Ridgeview and East Moline churches, organized three years ago. It has
given several thousand dollars to the work of these organizations. The
present pastor is Paul W. Brown, who has been with the church since 1904.
Churches of Rock Island County
Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908