After a fire destroyed the original meetinghouse in 1817, the Northington Ecclesiastical Society had to decide where to rebuild. Two hundred years ago, on March 2, 1818, the vote leading to the establishment of the Avon Congregational Church was taken. The Society voted, 43-37, to put its new meetinghouse on the west side of the Farmington River in West Avon. Those 37 in the minority, however, considered the vote to be an “act of tyranny.” They had wanted the meetinghouse to be built in the commercial center. They separated from “the Second Church in Farmington” and formed what became the Avon Congregational Church, known then as “The United Religious Association of Farmington. (Incorporated October 1818 by an Act of the General Assembly.)
