Catholicism in what is now Putney was first heralded among the Sokoki Abenaki (indigenous in this immediate area) and other Algonquin people by Jesuit French missionaries and trappers who lived and traveled on this land through much of the 1600s. Well before the French and native Americans raided Nehemiah Howe’s frontier settlement on the Great Meadow in the 1740s and the Putney Fort in the 1750s, operating out of Montreal and St. Francis/Odanak (Calloway, 1990), Catholicism was firmly established as a predominant religion and heirarchical means of settling disputes, “paving the way toward peace among the Wabanaki Confederacy and the Catholic Iroquois of Montreal” (Baker, 1976, p. 20).
Religious Organizations
Putney Federated Church/United Church of Putney
In 1919 a ‘union of good faith and economy’ created the Putney Federated Church, now the United Church of Putney, bringing the Methodists (established in Putney in 1832) and the Baptists (dating to 1787) together with and in the Congregational Church, which had been established in Putney in 1772. The groups maintained denominational ties and kept separate membership lists, but formed a Women’s Association, joining women from the different denominations.
The church building dates from 1841, on land sold to the Congregational Church Corp. by John Black, owner of the Putney Tavern, on March 10, 1841, with an additional 1/8 acre purchased from Stearns A. Houghton on March 24 (PLRv.8p.496; v.9p.194).
Overview of Religious Organizations in Putney
Religion and Spirituality In Putney, Vermont
By Stuart Strothman, 2002, with funding from the Vermont Humanities Council
On Sunday mornings, Saturdays, and holy days, people of Putney and the surrounding communities have attended meetings for worship, and for spiritual growth. With motor vehicles in common use, many people attend services outside Putney, at St. Michael’s Episcopal, St. Michael’s Catholic, All Souls Unitarian Universalist, the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community, the Windham Community Chapel in Dummerston, the Westminster West or Dummerston Congregational Churches, the Guilford Community United Church of Christ, or elsewhere. In this section of our website, we have descriptions from all the Putney churches, based on interviews of experienced members.