An interview of our committee with the owners of Mystic Hall on the next day revealed plainly the situation. They felt themselves bound by the verbal statement (made two years before to the Christian Union's committee), ‘Yes, have the free use of it as long as you want it.’
One of the owners evidently recognized what the ‘Union’ then was, as he remarked: ‘You don't propose to build a church and the Congregationalists do. It's better for us to let them have it.’ And so the effort we had made, and organization effected, seemed to many a sort of April-fool joke.
Our preacher, Rev. G. C. Osgood (afterward well known in Medford), was given another charge and we continued our weekly class meetings as before. It is well to say just here that it was not our intent to organize a Sabbath School until the time and circumstances should make it advisable. Neither was it our thought to erect a meeting-house at once, much as we would have desired to profit by the offer (made the year before by the land owners) of a gift of land. Our class leader McLean's reply, on February 26, was to that effect, when questioned as to our intent or purpose in that line. Nothing was known by others of our people of the movement of our Congregational brethren till after that date.
The writer commends to all a careful perusal of the excellent paper read last spring before this Society and just now published in the Register. Its author gives valuable information as to the western village and its residents, and concedes the early efforts there of Methodists in religious work. Because of this I have been brief in my earlier reference to the ‘Union’ and Sabbath School.
