History

We are Seattle’s first church, founded in 1853, two years after the Denny party first landed at Alki to homestead Seattle. The first worship service was held in a log cabin. The church survived the great Seattle Fire of 1889, and it grew dramatically during the prosperous years surrounding the 1897 Gold Rush.

A Walk Through Time – 1853 to the present

It was November 21, 1853, just six months after the official founding of the Town of Seattle, when a Methodist Episcopal minister named Rev. David Edwards Blaine, with his new wife Catharine, landed at Alki Point. The biggest industry was Yesler’s Sawmill. Rev. David Edwards Blaine was sent to this mission outpost of the Oregon Mission Conference by Rev. Benjamin Close of Olympia. The young couple were newlyweds from New York State who had traveled via steamer to the Isthmus in Panama, crossed overland, then sailed north by ship up the Pacific Coast. When the Blaines landed at Alki, the area was populated by 17 Duwamish villages and a handful of Euro-American settlers. That Sunday first Sunday after arrival, Rev. Blaine gave a sermon to around 30 people in the log cabin home of Samuel Russell. A generous $12.50 was raised.

The best way to travel in those days was not by land, but by water. The following Monday, Rev. and Mrs. Blaine were taken in canoes paddled by the Duwamish across the bay to the location of present-day downtown Seattle. They were met by Arthur and Mary Denny, who had arrived at Alki Point two years previously. The Dennys invited the Blaines to room with them the first few days they were in town. The following Sunday, December 4, 1853, the first ever Seattle Methodist Episcopal Church service was held at the house of Guthrie Latimer, where the fledgling congregation would meet for the next year and a half. The four founding members were Arthur and Mary Denny, John Nagle, and Catharine Blaine.

Immediately, Rev. Blaine set to work building a home for himself and his new wife. Catharine Paine Blaine was an educated woman from Seneca Falls, New York who, at age 18, had signed the first U.S. Women’s Rights document, the 1848 “Declaration of Sentiments.” In 1854, within three months of her arrival, Catharine Blaine was commissioned by Seattle’s residents to teach school, making her the first school teacher of the pioneer town.

For over a decade, Seattle’s Methodist Episcopal Church struggled, a new pastor or lay minister arriving almost every year. Rev. Daniel Bagley, a Methodist Protestant minister, preached from the pulpit for a time before moving on in 1865 to found the “Little Brown Church” of the Methodist Protestant denomination. (In 1939, in a three-way merger, the Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, and Southern Methodist denominations would unite to become the Methodist Church.) In 1874, with the appointment of Rev. Albert Atwood to Seattle’s Methodist Episcopal Church, the “Little White Church” began to receive new members almost every week. By 1876, there were 275 members on the rolls.

The congregation grew as the city grew. When the railroads came to Seattle in the 1870s, so did many Chinese immigrant families. First Methodist Episcopal Church set up a mission school for  Chinese immigrant families in the basement of our building During the 1886 labor unrest against the Chinese workers, rioters threatened  to burn down the “Little White Church” for their helping the immigrants. Rev. Denison and two others – a minister known as “Brother Mack” McNemee and Civil War veteran A. J. Smith – stood vigil on the steps of the church for three days and two nights to prevent it from being burned down, until the Home Guard was able to restore order.

In 1880 the population of Seattle was 3,533. By 1888, the same year as the founding of the First Evangelical United Brethren Church, Seattle’s population had more than quadrupled to 19,000. Eighty-nine years later, in 1967, First Methodist Church and First Evangelical United Brethren Church would merge to become The United Methodist Church, a merger that occurred among individual churches, and at the national level as well. (The “United” part of The United Methodist Church comes from the name the Evangelical United Brethren.)

The original Seattle Evangelical United Brethren Church was a German American congregation that later merged with First Methodist Church of Seattle. The first worship service was held in Felix J. Rose’s store room on the west side of First Avenue between Virginia and Stewart Streets on July 29, 1888. The sermon was in German. J. Bowersox was presiding elder. Twenty persons were present. In the evening Elder Bowersox preached in English. The following Sunday, Rev. August Ernst preached and was soon requested to hold regular services. He organized a church with 18 members on Sunday, September 23, 1888.

Soon after First EUB’s founding, a lot was purchased at the corner of Burch (later named Taylor) and Harrison Streets at half price, namely $1,000.00, from D. T. Denny. Money for the purchase was borrowed from the Missionary Society. Due to the big fire on June 6, 1889, and the hard times following, it was necessary to borrow further funds to finish the building. The First EUB Church, erected on the present day site of the Seattle Center, was dedicated by Bishop Thomas Bowman, as Zion Church of the Evangelical Association of North America on May 7th, 1890. The congregation would worship at that site until 1907, when a new church building and parsonage were erected a little to the north, at 2nd Avenue North and Valley St.

Due to the city’s growing pains of quick development and a regrade of Third avenue that created a significant obstruction at the entrance of the church’s building at Third & Marion, the congregation sold the building and purchased property up the hill at Fifth and Marion. In the interim years it took to build the new sanctuary, the congregation held worship in a sawdust-floored tent tabernacle. T. S. Lippy and his wife Salome were generous donors to furnishings for the new sanctuary.

Church groups such as the Epworth League for young men and women, and the Ladies Aid Society flourished in the first half of the 20th century.  Back in 1854-1856, Catharine Blaine initiated women’s work for the church by requesting that the women in the community save books, magazines, and newspapers so they could be donated to Doctor and Mrs. Maynard’s hospital lean-to, set up along one side of the Maynard’s log cabin, making it possible for young men receiving treatment to have reading material. The “library” of that hospital is considered the start of Seattle’s YMCA. 

The Ladies Aid Society, officially recognized in 1904, continued their good deeds through fundraising for the Seattle General Hospital and, during WWI, assisting the Red Cross. 

In 1919, the Seattle General Strike brought difficult financial times. As such, money had to be borrowed to keep the church’s ministries afloat. These ministries included Bible studies for Japanese and Filipino immigrants, and a very popular “Junior Church” that served over a hundred children. In 1927, weekly radio broadcasts began on KJR. While the Great Depression temporarily interrupted radio ministry, the broadcasts of Sunday services resumed in 1941 and continued into the 1970’s on KING radio.

During WWII, when the incarceration of Japanese Americans took place, local Japanese families were rounded up and put on trains. First Methodist Church members and others in the community who had been supportive of their Japanese neighbors went to the Tacoma train station to protest the loading of the trains.

In the post-WWII years between 1945 and 1963, First Church received 5,800 new members. Then pastor Dr. Albertson had a  vision for outdoor ministry, which led to the purchase of 35 acres on the Kitsap Peninsula. Camp Indianola served for many years as the home of a First Church camping program. In 2002, the property was sold to the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Money from the sale enabled First Church to afford the startup phase of its building redevelopment plan. Camp Indianola continues to be a thriving church camp and retreat facility for the region.

In 1958, under the leadership of associate pastor Rev. Chester Morgan, the Friendly Club for persons over sixty began. The program addressed the isolation of a high population of elderly residents in the downtown area. Columbia Club for seniors, which offered nutrition, exercise, activities, and health clinics, was an outgrowth of the Friendly Club that operated for the next 40 years. 

Due to its 80,000-square foot facility, the congregation was able to welcome numerous non-profit community groups, such as the Literacy Council, Alcoholics Anonymous, Seattle Men’s Chorus, Seattle Arts and Lectures, the Islamic Juma Prayer Group, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The high-domed sanctuary was an ideal setting for a myriad of concerts, lectures and programs.

In the early 1980’s, high-rise office buildings emerged on every side of the 5th and Marion building, reducing the number of low-income housing units and the population of low-income seniors formerly served by the Columbia Nutrition Club.  To create more low-income housing, First Church purchased an apartment building downtown, Pulliam/Wesley Haven, and managed its 26 units for the next 17 years before selling the building to Operation Nightwatch. That building is now used for low income senior housing purposes.

In 1991, First Church welcomed the Church of Mary Magdalene for homeless women to hold Saturday worship in our building. In 1997, services  expanded to provide a weekday program called Mary’s Place. In 1996, the congregation voted to open the building as an evening Severe Weather Shelter, run under the auspices of King County. A year later, the church installed a hygiene center, used by both Mary’s Place, and SHARE Safehaven, which began management of an on-going men’s evening shelter. The presence in our building of people in need prompted the start of Shared Breakfasts, an all-volunteer effort. At the start in 1997, the breakfasts were offered once a month on Sunday mornings. The program grew, and by 2010, hot breakfasts were cooked and served every Sunday morning by congregation members and friends to the homeless. ,  In 2001, the Lutheran Compass Center took over management of the evening men’s shelter. 

With the expansion of Seattle’s suburbs, First Church’s congregation began to spread throughout a larger geographical area. As downtown’s population declined, so did the membership of the church. In 2007 the church sold its Fifth and Marion building and purchased a new site at the corner of Second Avenue North and Denny Way to build a house of worship and a new urban outreach center. For two years, First Church’s new home and parking garage were under construction. During that time, the congregation worshiped on Sundays at the Seattle Children’s Theatre and continued serving Shared breakfasts out of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church on lower Queen Anne. 

The new First Church building was dedicated on January 31, 2010. The Blaine Center, a 60-bed men’s homeless shelter managed in conjunction with the Compass Housing Alliance began operations a short time later. The Center’s purpose is to transition men from homelessness into permanent housing. 

Since moving to its new home at 180 Denny Way, the congregation has continued vibrant worship services, Sunday School for all ages, and community outreach efforts, and has continued to offer Sunday morning Shared breakfasts entirely through donations and volunteers, and serving over 15,000 meals a year. The breakfasts temporarily ceased due to the COVID-19 crisis, but resumed November 15, 2020. 

Important Dates in First Church History:

1853 First Methodist Episcopal Church is founded

1855 Dedication of Second & Columbia “Little White Church”

1856 Battle of Seattle Indian war, church building is damaged by bullets

1885 Rights of Chinese defended during labor unrest

1889 Third & Marion Gothic Revival church dedicated

1890 Church joins Temperance Movement

1897 Alaska Gold Rush. Member T.S. Lippy strikes it rich, helps found General Hospital

1906 Third and Marion building sold. Organ from church given to University of Puget Sound.

1907 Church worships in sawdust-floored pavilion

1908 Congregation begins worship in lower level of Fifth & Marion building.

1910 Fifth & Marion sanctuary dedicated

1919 Seattle General Strike

1927 Weekly radio broadcasts on KJR begin

1941 Post-Depression, radio broadcasts resume on KEVR, predecessor to KING

1958 Camp Indianola purchased

1961 Bayview Retirement Community on Queen Anne hill is dedicated

1982 Pulliam/Wesley low-income housing opens

1985 Court battle begins on building plans

1988 Ethiopian Orthodox Church hosted in Chapel

1991 Hospitality program for homeless women and children begins