On a hot June evening in 1854, a group of liberal Christians met in the Odd Fellows Hall in downtown Exeter to vote the Universalist Society out of existence. Out of the meeting, the First Unitarian Society of Exeter was born.<\/p>\n
There had been a small Universalist presence in the town for decades. Rejecting the notion of predestination, universalist teachings granted salvation to everyone and not just a chosen few. Followers had formed into a congregation in 1831 and by 1841 had built themselves a fine church on the corner of Front and Center streets. But the mortgage on the building was high and they didn’t have enough members to support themselves.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Second Parish Congregational Church was leaking members to the growing Unitarian movement. Unitarians rejected the idea of the holy trinity and had elements of universalism tempering those beliefs. Like margarine and butter, the Universalists and Unitarians were similar, but not quite the same. Still, they had enough in common to bring them all together for the meeting at the Odd Fellows Hall. They banded together and quickly paid off the mortgage.<\/p>\n