Theodore Parker is installed as minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society.

The lay-led ceremony, with no other ministers participating, is held at the Melodeon Theatre. Also known as the Free Church, the congregation was established in 1845 so Parker “shall have a chance to be heard in Boston.” It grows to some 7,000 members, the largest in the city, and includes Louisa May Alcott and William Lloyd Garrison. The congregation meets at the Music Hall from 1852 to 1859, back at the Melodeon in 1863, at the Parker Fraternity Rooms at 554 Washington Street in 1866, and at a new church building on Berkeley Street in 1873.* The congregation is dissolved in 1889.