A Congregational society was founded in 1662, and its old church, dating from 1702, stood until 1906.
The government of the church is chiefly according to the congregational principle, and the women have an equal voice with the men; but annual meetings, attended by the bishops, teachers and other delegates from the several congregations are held, and at these sessions the larger questions involving church polity are considered and decided by a committee of five bishops.
These two movements coalesced in a single Congregational Union in 1897.
From New England, as has been seen, Puritan settlers established Presbyterian churches (or churches which immediately became Presbyterian) in Long Island, on New Jersey, and in South Carolina; but the Puritans who remained in New England usually established Congregational churches.
The foreign missionary work of the General Assembly had been carried on after 1812 through the (Congregational) American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (organized in 1810) until the separation of 1837, when the Old School Assembly established its own board of foreign missions; the New School continued to work through the American board; after the union of 1869 the separate board was perpetuated and the American board transferred to it, with the contributions made to the American board by the New School churches, the missions in Africa (1833), in Syria (1822), and in Persia (1835).
