The Great Seattle Fire Erased Our Roots

The late fire created sad havoc among sundry localities around which clustered associations precious to many a memory. The first distinctive gatherings of what subsequently crystallized into a Congregational church were in spots over which the breath of the devouring element has passed in its obliteration of human handicraft. The two last Sabbaths of October, 1870, Rev. John F. Damon, the first Congregational missionary on Puget Sound, held service in a hall embracing the entire upper part of the building on the southwest corner of Mill and Commercial streets, occupied at the time of its destruction by J.F. Kellogg as a drug store. The service was regularly continued at the same place until it became too small and inconvenient—in fact, the parties then occupying the store below were apprehensive lest the floor would give way under the weight of the crowded congregation. Hon. Henry L. Yesler kindly permitted Mr. Damon to hold his service in what was then known as Yesler’s Pavilion, subsequently raised up and a story finished below for the bookstore of Lowman & Hanford, southeast corner of Cherry and Front. Soon after the removal into the latter place, Hon. Arthur A. Denny gave the Plymouth Congregational church the lot which they now occupy on Second street. In November, 1871, the organization of the Sabbath school had been perfected in the little old schoolhouse built on the triangle between Mill and Jefferson and below Third street. The Plymouth Congregational church was organized at the residence of its first deacon, John H. Sanderson, and the first communion was celebrated on the following Sabbath, January 10, 1871. Thus were constituted the third Protestant church and fourth Protestant Sabbath school in Seattle.