From www.linkstothepast.com /waukesha
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF THIS CHURCH
The three men who founded the village of Mukwonago in 1836, Sewell Andrews, Martin Field and Henry Camp, were of the Unitarian and Universalist faiths. As young New England Yankees who arrived here while it was still an Indian village, they stayed to settle the village of Mukwonago.
Forty years later, two of the men were still living and helped to build this church. Andrews was a Universalist and Field was a Unitarian. Thus the two denominations joined together in one endeavor eighty years before the Unitarians and Universalists formally merged, in 1961.
The Yankee settlers of Mukwonago liked to build churches that resembled the churches of New England and New York state. The Baptist church across the street was of the same style, and so was a third church, Congregational, on Main Street, corner of Blood. All three white frame churches had steeples which were struck by lightening and taken down. This church is the only remaining New England gothic style church in Mukwonago. In 1987 it was honored to be on the National Register of Historic Places. The only other building so designated in Mukwonago is the Andrews house on the square, now the Mukwonago Museum.
You may wonder about the double stairway and the decision to place the sanctuary on the upper level. This was a style favored by the Universalists in the 19th century, and can still be observed in some of the Universalist churches of New England. It had a practical intention and that was to earn income from renting out the community hall on the first level, which originally had a stage where the furnace room now stands.
In the early years, the "U & U Hall", being the largest in the village, was used by government bodies for auctions, elections and livestock sales, and by civic organizations for socials, dances, lectures, etc. In some years the church made more money from such revenues than it did from the contributions of its own members.
In recent years a smaller kitchen, nursery, two bathrooms and a minister's office have been partitioned off, but long time members can still remember a large kitchen at the rear of the church and a large club room above. Food was carried to the club room by way of a dumb waiter, and many people were served upstairs during the annual church bazaar.
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