Vicki Keller will never forget the first time she walked through First Congregational Church of Naperville.
The year was 1969 and Keller, now 79, had moved to Naperville from Clay Center, Nebraska, her small town of less than a thousand people. She was looking for a church to join and while she came from an Evangelical background, she looked at First Congregational Church of Naperville as an option.
“The minute I walked into that church, I had a feeling and it was warm — kind of like somebody was wrapping their arms around me,” Keller said. “Standing actually in the back of the church by the stained glass windows is where I had this feeling and I thought, ‘This is the place for me.’”
More than 50 years later, she is now leading an effort to secure landmark status for it. The Naperville Historic Preservation Commission will review the application Thursday.
First Congregational is the oldest organized church in DuPage County and the oldest Congregational church founded in northern Illinois.
Among its one-time members were people influential in building Naperville into the town it is today, including businessman James L. Nichols, who bequested the funds to build the city’s first library, and Naperville Village Board Trustee George Martin IV, whose tile and brick business helped rebuild Chicago following the 1871 fire.
Since its founding, congregation members have been active in social justice movements, from the national abolitionist effort in the 1800s to the current campaign to push Naperville away from using coal-fired energy.
“It is just so rich with the history of Naperville and it feels like a living history because it still has the same congregation and type of congregation that it had when it was founded,” said Diane Diamond, a church member helping in the landmarking process.
A plaque outside of the First Congregational Church of Naperville on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. The plaque says that the church oldest church in DuPage County and the oldest Congregational church founded in Northern Illinois. (Carolyn Stein/Naperville Sun)
The origins of the church
The church was founded as a Presbyterian organization on July 13, 1833, a few years after New England families descended from Puritans settled along the banks of the DuPage River, according to the church’s landmarking application.
The day after it was founded, people from all around the settlement came to worship beneath the shade of oak and hickory trees. Of that meeting, one of the church’s founding pastors, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, wrote: “It was a cheering scene. Few had dared to expect such a scene at this early period in the settlement of our frontier. The grain of mustard seed will, we trust, become a great tree so that the multitudes shall yet rest under its delightful shade.”
The phrase “multitudes shall yet rest under its delightful shade” and a picture of a large tree have been symbols of the church ever since.
Although they established a Presbyterian organization, Porter and many charter members were Congregationalists. They chose the Presbyterian form of governance in part because it was believed Presbyterian governance was better for frontier life.
The church eventually switched to Congregational in 1834 and would formally become First Congregational Church of Naperville. Other churches branched off from the original, including First Presbyterian Church of DuPage in 1844.
The inside of the First Congregational Church of Naperville on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. When it was founded, the church was a Presbyterian organization. (Carolyn Stein/Naperville Sun)
Building a house of worship
As the church grew in size, it was determined in 1838 that the congregation needed have its own building. Capt. Morris Sleight donated land at the northwest corner of Center Street and Benton Avenue in 1845 on two conditions: the church always have a bell tower and never have a burial ground.
In 1846, construction of a frame structure was completed. Sixty years later, the congregation replaced it with the Gothic revival-style building that stands at Benton Avenue and Center Street today.
Architectural features include pointed arch windows and doors, stained-glass windows and limestone quarried from Joliet. Other buildings have since been added to the site, including a parish hall in 1930 and a community room and basement classrooms in 1979.
When the new church was dedicated on May 6, 1906, nearly 700 of the city’s then 3,000 residents attend. The same number came out for an evening ceremony on the same day.
A sign outside of the First Congregational Church of Naperville on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Since its founding, the church has been active in social justice causes. (Carolyn Stein/Naperville Sun)
A legacy of activism
Since the beginning, church members have been active in social movements. Israel and Avice Blodgett, two of the church’s charter members, were outspoken abolitionists.
Newspaper articles from the Western Citizen anti-slavery newspaper detailed Israel’s participation in abolitionist activity in the 1840s and 1850s. According to an autobiography written by the couple’s son Henry Blodgett, Avice reportedly refused to give water to a presumed slave catcher who visited their farm with two captured Black men.
Other social justice activities included sponsoring a Vietnamese family fleeing Saigon in the 1970s near the end of the Vietnam War and the launch of a recycling program in the 1980s that was later taken over by Naperville Recycling.
Today, the church shares its space with the Community Access Naperville, which a congregation member helped organize to provide support to developmentally disabled young adults. Some church members have been instrumental in establishing the Say No To Coal consortium, which is pushing for Naperville to find clean energy sources for city’s electricity supply.
The chancel on the inside of the First Congregational Church of Naperville on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Vicki Keller, who is leading the church’s preservation efforts, wanted to landmark the church building after seeing other preservation efforts in Naperville. (Carolyn Stein/Naperville Sun)
Move to landmark
Keller said she was inspired to seek landmark status for her church after seeing other Naperville preservation efforts, including the those for the old Nichols Library and Beidelman Furniture, the oldest business in DuPage County. It’s proximity to downtown made it all the more important, she said.
“I was involved with trying to save old Nichols, and that really had an effect on me,” Keller said. “I was very, very sad (with the outcome of that effort). Even though the outside was saved, to me, it’s still not saved with buildings being put around it. I didn’t want that to happen to our church.”
She pitched the idea to the church council last year, and a task force was formed to gather information on the the building’s history.
“One of the things I felt really strongly about was that we involve the congregation in knowing about the landmarking process,” said Diamond, a task force member. “Every week we did this thing called ‘Landmarking Bits and Bobs.’ And it was just little facts about the building or little facts about the history.”
The process has brought the church’s congregation closer together, she said.
“The whole process made me look more closely at everything within the church,” said John Klein-Collins, church council moderator.
As an eighth-grade teacher at Kennedy Junior High School, Klein-Collins typically takes his students to Naper Settlement to learn about the Underground Railroad, which includes a reenactment of people involved in the DuPage area.
One day when he was at church sitting in the back, he leaned over to look at a plaque of the church’s founding members.
“I’d never really looked at it closely, and it had many of the names of the people from Naper Settlement, the individuals who participated in the Underground Railroad,” he said. “All the way back then church congregants were fighting for marginalized communities.”
It was one of those “a-ha” moments that made him proud to be part of the church and invigorated to continue that legacy, he said.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/28/first-congregational-church-naperville-landmark/
