First Church of Houlton planning Bicentennial celebration

Edwin Smith Elder was the fifth settled minister of the Houlton First Church Unitarian Society. One hundred and forty years ago, Rev. Elder held his services in the Old Meeting House located on North Street in Houlton.
    Edwin Elder was born on Dec. 12, 1837 at Milton, N.H. and shortly after became an orphan. At six years of age, he was adopted by Peter and Ada Elder in South Windham. Edwin was a bright young boy and enthusiastically attended the district school in South Windham. At 18, he became a teacher. Over the next 10 years he taught in local schools and nearby towns. He established his own large flourishing school and taught the higher levels of students in the local area. He also served on school boards and held various public offices during the years he was a teacher. This experience in education was a benefit to Houlton schools while he served as minister at the Unitarian Church.
Under the influence of Rev. A.D. Wheeler, a Unitarian missionary in Maine, Edwin decided to enroll as a student of theology at Harvard in Cambridge. He completed his studies in 1869 and chose Houlton, Maine as his first pastorate.
Comments made about Edwin at that time was that his joy of conviction and straightforward humanness was well suited to the citizens of Houlton. He said that the shaggy seriousness of the great woods was akin to his own nature and Houlton made it a fit place for his secluded novitiate.
On July 1870, he was the first minister to be ordained at the Houlton Unitarian Church. He followed the practice of previous Unitarian ministers in Houlton, and augmented his meager ministerial salary by teaching in the local Houlton schools.
Rev. Elder, his wife, and three children had three happy years in Houlton. He captivated his church members as well as the Houlton community as a valued speaker. The Elder family remained in Houlton until October 1873 when he accepted his second pastorate at the little octagon Unitarian Church at East Lexington, Mass. He later served Unitarian churches in Keokuk, Iowa and Franklin, N.H.
Rev. Elder died in October 1906 after suffering from crippling rheumatism. Elder’s friends in Houlton and elsewhere said of him he revealed a love of ideals, strong-hearted endeavors, endurance, and a singing patience.