Evangelical City Missionary Society (Worcester, Mass.)

The Evangelical City Missionary Society was organized in Worcester, Mass., in 1849 under the presidency of Ichabod Washburn (1798-1868). It was a layman's movement which eventually included representatives of all the Evangelical churches in the city, for the purpose of furnishing "to the destitute inhabitants of our own country, the means of Christian instruction and moral improvement." The group hired a City Missionary whose salary was paid by the subscribers and who helped create Sunday schools and aid societies. Washburn built for the Society the Mission Chapel on Summer Street in 1855. The records of the Society end in 1856 but the Mission Chapel expanded its functions in the city, especially among the new immigrants during the early twentieth century.