A legacy of faith: Hampton’s Rev. Deb. Knowlton retires after 21 years

HAMPTON — For 21 years, the message Rev. Deborah Knowlton brought to First Congregational Church of Hampton was that of God’s love. And even with her retirement, her message lives on in a strong, secure parish.

“I’m 82 years old and I’ve been going to church since I was a child and this is the most loving church I’ve ever attended,” said FCCH Woman’s Guild President Janet Stone. “And it all falls back to the tone that Rev. Deb set. This woman taught everyone how to love their neighbors, truly.”

“It is a loving church,” agreed Donald Bliss, head of the FCCH’s Board of Wardens. “Rev. Deb is very soft-spoken, and in that comes her power. She wraps her arms around you both spiritually and physically.”

The 40th pastor to serve the parish that began in 1638, Knowlton is the first woman to have her name on the plaque listing all the congregation’s prior pastors. The transition of religious thought carried by those ministers progressed as significantly as the centuries, Knowlton said.

“Those first pastors would have said, ‘We are all sinners in the eyes of God,’” Knowlton said. “I say: ‘No, you are God’s beloved. You are always God’s beloved.’”

Born in Hampton Falls, Knowlton, 69, graduated from Winnacunnet High School in 1969, and received her bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1973 from the University of New Hampshire.

With a strong religious faith developed at home and as an attendee at Exeter’s First Congregational Church, Knowlton would be among the first women in the mid-1970s to break into a calling once reserved for men when she entered Andover Newton Theological School in 1974.

“The class before us had seven women out of a class of 60,” Knowlton said. “My class had 21 women out of 60. Being a third of the class, the men didn’t have anywhere to go to get away from us, so they got used to us.”

Graduating in 1977, Knowlton said her first two jobs in Dover and Franklin were as Christian education ministers, an accepted role for women in the church. It was while she was raising her two young children while her former husband, Jeff Knowlton, was working at a church in Milford, Connecticut, that Knowlton ventured into the ministerial role. She became a part-time pastor for two Connecticut parishes.

After seven years in Connecticut, Knowlton moved back to the Granite State, becoming pastor at Manchester’s Brookside Congregational Church. Seven years later, when churches in Portsmouth, Exeter, North Hampton and Hampton were all seeking new church leadership, Knowlton thought it was time to make a move.

“They were the oldest Congregational churches in the state,” she said. “But after I met with Hampton, they liked me and I liked them, so I never applied anywhere else.”

Knowlton and the congregation never looked back. Before Knowlton’s arrival, FCCH had a problem keeping pastors for longer than a few years, but Knowlton’s union with her parish proved to be a blessed match. According to Bliss, Knowlton is the fourth longest-serving pastor in First Congregational Church of Hampton’s history.

Hesitant to accept the recognition, Knowlton said once parishioners “relaxed” about her willingness to stay, people began to step forward, “offering all their gifts,” of service and goodwill.

“She was our safety net,” Stone said. “It all falls down to her love of people. She treated everyone equally. She always saw the best in everyone.”

Knowlton credits her mom and dad, Vera and Charles Burwell, with giving her a foundation to look beyond society’s earthy restrictions about gender, age, race, sexual preference or anything people use to dictate what people should or should not do.

Knowlton said her mother taught her that all people are all spiritual souls created by God, which just happen to live in physical bodies, but those bodies don’t delegate what people can or cannot do.

“That gave me confidence,” she said. “God gave me a spirit that happened to reside in a female body. It was my spirit God called (to the ministry) and I answered God’s call.”

And growing up on the family dairy farm in Hampton Falls, Knowlton said her father taught her and her sister anything they wanted to do, whether or not it was considered a proper female activity. That taught Knowlton the value of everyone working together for the common good.

According to Bliss, Knowlton’s notion of everyone working together benefited the congregation significantly, spiritually and financially. First Congregational Church of Hampton has had a number of generous endowments in recent years, Bliss said, many of which can be traced to the kind and loving environment Knowlton helped establish. And a capital campaign a few years ago exceeded its goal, Bliss said, again, much due to Knowlton’s ability to inspire people to work together.

It wasn’t just at her church that Knowlton made an impact. According to fellow pastor Rev. David “Chip” Robinson of Trinity Episcopal Church, Knowlton’s impact on the Hampton community can’t be overstated. Robinson said Knowlton was on the boards of both Hampton’s library and Historical Society. And she brought together churches of all faiths annually during the winter holidays for the Epiphany Choir Festival.

“She’s a very articulate spokeswoman for her faith,” Robinson said. “She’s a wonderful, wonderful person.”

Settled now in Orono, Maine, Knowlton looks forward to being near her daughter’s family in retirement. And she looks back with joy at the years she spent working, teaching, learning and loving the people in the community she served.

“I’m completely happy with the people that I met at First Congregational Church of Hampton and the deep love we shared,” Knowlton said. “I am most happy with the children. They have done remarkable things.”