Northampton's first meeting house was built by Puritan settlers in 1655 near the present-day Courthouse, and Eleazar Mather became the town's first minister in 1658. A new meeting house was built farther up what became known as Meeting House Hill in 1661. After Mather died eight years later, Solomon Stoddard was called to the pulpit and preached his first sermon there in 1669. Until his death in 1729, he held an influence that extended well beyond Hampshire County, and his doctrine of the Halfway Covenant left a lasting imprint on New England Puritanism. Stoddard's chosen successor was his grandson Jonathan Edwards, and during Edwards's ministry the third meeting house was built in 1737. There George Whitfield preached in 1740, helping spark the Great Awakening that Edwards reported in his widely published Faithful Narrative. In 1812, the church built in Jonathan Edwards's era was replaced by a classical revival structure designed by Asher Benjamin and built by Northampton architect Isaac Damon. Seating more than 1,000, it also hosted secular events, and Jenny Lind performed there in the 1850s. After dominating Main Street for more than half a century, the Old Church burned in 1876. The present church, built in 1877 as the fifth meeting house on the site, was designed by Peabody and Stearns, with a gothic revival sandstone exterior and a rich Victorian interior lit by several Tiffany windows.