First Universalist Chapel, 1866

Early in 1866 a Universalist conference was held in Rochester at the Congregational Church. Attendance was low due to a big winter storm. However, The Rev. Silas Wakefield of Elkader, Iowa (120 miles south) made it to the conference with difficulty, driving his team "battling snow drifts and cutting wintry winds."

The meeting aroused interest in having Universalist meetings locally on a regular basis. Rev. Wakefield was asked to visit as his travel schedule allowed, and serve as the group's minister. That spring a meeting was held and a constitution for the new church drafted. The congregation was officially organized on March 12, 1866. Mr. Wakefield was officially called by the new congregation and agreed to serve as minister in Rochester.

Services that first year were held in the upper room of the Courthouse, near the current location of the Avalon Hotel building. Lots were then purchased in the central city area (the current site of the Mayo Clinic Siebens Building). At a cost of $2200, a small frame Gothic-style structure was erected: the First Universalist Chapel.

A sermon of dedication was delivered November 21, 1866, by the Rev. D.P. Livermore, a prominent Universalist minister from Chicago. He was a crusading temperance worker and the husband of the social reformer and advocate for women's suffrage, Mary A. Livermore.