Built in 1816, the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House you see here, long called the Brick Meeting House, is the oldest remaining place of worship established by European settlers in Burlington, Vermont. Built in 1816, this meeting house sits on the northern side of the intersection of Pearl Street and the Church Street Marketplace. It still houses the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Northern New England District.
The building contributes to the Head of Church Street Historic District alongside the Masonic Temple, built in 1897, and the Richardson Building; that district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 15, 1974. Your presence here connects you with a story that begins even earlier: the Congregational Society organized on February 23, 1805, and by 1810 it had divided into the Trinitarian or Calvinistic Society, which embraced the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Unitarian Society, which rejected it.
Listen for the echoes of those debates and the steady, civic calm of a place in continuous community use since 1816. Pearl Street meets the Church Street Marketplace right here, and the Masonic Temple of 1897 shares the district with the meetinghouse.