Browse the Maine Missionary Society records

The organization which would become the Maine Missionary Society was originally founded in 1802 as the Lincoln and Kennebec Religious Tract Society. It was reorganized as the Maine Missionary Society in 1807. Annual meetings were held in June and hosted on a rotating basis in different towns across Maine.

The Society predated, but became a part of, the American Home Missionary Society, an ecumenical Protestant organization designed "to assist congregations that are unable to support the gospel ministry, and to send the gospel to the destitute within the United States". AHMS was founded in 1826 as a merger of the United Domestic Missionary Society with state missionary societies from New England, including the Maine Missionary Society. In 1893, the AHMS became exclusively associated with the National Council of Congregational Churches and was renamed the Congregational Home Missionary Society.

In 1910 the Maine Missionary Society merged with the General Conference of the Congregational Churches in Maine to become the Congregational Conference and Missionary Society of Maine. It was reorganized again in 1931 as the Congregational-Christian Conference of Maine, and again in 1965 when it became Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ.

The collections below consist of the first two Maine Missionary Society record books, containing general administrative records and trustee records respectively. Subjects include missionary activities, formation of local churches and county conferences, and the operation of the state organization.

Materials in this collection have been digitized in partnership with the Maine Historical Society and have been made available through our New England's Hidden Histories project.