At intervals a Methodist class meeting had been held at Mrs. Hawley's on Prescott street, beginning in 1864, under the leadership of Jacob Emerson, and connected with the Medford church.
There had been organized the Mystic Sabbath School by the efforts of a ‘mothers' meeting,’ and several of the mothers were Methodists. This took its name from Mystic Hall, where it was held. This school was undenominational, and as an outgrowth of it the villagers of the ‘west’ end began a Sunday preaching service, securing the services of Rev. Melville B. Chapman, then a student in the School of Theology in Boston.
Prior to 1870 the western section of Medford's population was almost wholly to the east of the railroad. In March of that year a large tract of land westward changed ownership and building operations began thereon and also in the other portion.
In April of the same year Mr. Chapman removed and was succeeded by Rev. Louis Charpiot (a Congregational preacher of ability, but out of fellowship with his order, and employed on a Boston newspaper). A goodly number attended the ‘Union Services’ as they were called, and also the Sunday-school; but the ‘Union’ was in no sense a church organization, and no one so considered it. It was simply a neighborhood or village effort to sustain public preaching, and there was no bond of church fellowship whatever.
At the opening of its third year (April, 1871) it was announced that the new owners would donate a lot of land if a meeting-house could be built, and soon after Mr. J. H. Norton offered to build one if the material was provided. The ‘Union's’ executive committee made effort to accomplish this end, but with no success, though several public meetings were held with such end in view. During the summer Mr. Charpiot had several weeks' vacation, and the ‘Union’ service was suspended until his return. Very soon after Mr. Charpiot resigned and left town.
