The First Congregational Church, built in 1855-56, was popularly known as the “Goose Pond” Church because its site had once been a water-filled area where wild geese and ducks gathered. It became a meeting center for groups seeking to improve life in the booming “New Town” that was rising along the tracks of the recently completed Illinois Central Railroad. The congregation and its minister strongly opposed American slavery and worked openly and earnestly to eliminate it during the ante-bellum period, gladly accepting the name of the “Abolitionist” Church. Among the notable anti-slavery speakers there were Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyred journalist Elijah P. Lovejoy. The congregation’s openness to those dedicated to ending slavery was shown when a community-wide memorial service was held there on December 11, 1859, in honor of the hanged abolitionist and insurrectionist John Brown of the Harper’s Ferry incident. As the congregation grew, it moved to a larger sanctuary in 1866. The Goose Pond Church was then sold to the Baptists, who later sold it to the German Catholics, and the building was moved to 23 South Locust Street, where it became St. John’s German Catholic Church.