First Parish in Wayland was founded in 1640 and met in several different buildings before the current building was erected in 1814. Under the leadership of Reverend John Burt Wight, the church adopted its Unitarian position in the 1820s.
The hymn "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" was written for the First Parish Sunday School by the church's minister Edmund Hamilton Sears. A plaque in the church commemorates the event.