Category: Churches

West Granville Congregational Church (1778)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Granville, Greek Revival

In 1778, residents of West Granville volunteered many hours and much labor to construct a Congregational church. The long distance required to travel to the meeting house in Granville Center had led the people of West Granville to decide to form their own parish, which was officially established in 1781 as the Granville’s Second Congregational Church. Around 1845, the church was remodeled so that it has a transitional Greek Revival/Gothic Revival exterior.

Old Meeting House, Granville (1802)

by Dan//Churches, Federal, Granville, Public Buildings

Granville‘s first Congregational meeting house was built in 1747 and replaced by the current Old Meeting House in 1802. The gable-roofed structure, which lost its steeple in a gale in 1840, was remodeled in 1890. The present front columns were most likely added in 1862 or during the 1890 remodeling. The first permanent town hall was built in 1927. In 1937, the First Congregational Church is joined with the Baptist Church to form the Granville Federated Church. Since 1976, the Old Meeting House has been owned by the town and the restored building is rented out for various events. Continue reading “Old Meeting House, Granville (1802)”

First Congregational Church of Natick (1876)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Natick

The earliest Congregational Church in Natick was founded in 1651 by John Eliot and served the Natick Praying Indians, who were settled in what is now South Natick. After the retirement in 1799 of Rev. Stephen Badger, last pastor to the Praying Indians, a new First Congregational Church was organized to the north in 1802, with construction of a meeting house having already been started in 1799, in what is now the center of Natick. As described in the History of Middlesex County, Vol. I (1890):

The congregation having again outgrown the meeting-house, this was sold to a Universalist Society, which later, becoming extinct, sold the house to the Roman Catholic denomination. This, enlarged, is the Catholic Church of the present day in the centre of Natick. The Congregational Society then erected a third meeting-house upon the site of the one removed, during the years 1853-54, which was dedicated Nov. 15th of the latter year.

Disaster struck on January 13,1874 when, again quoting from the History,

nearly all the business portion of Natick was laid in ashes, including every hall in the place and the Congregational Church, just enlarged and improved at the cost of about $13,000. This loss of the sanctuary rendered necessary the building of a temporary tabernacle, which, in a rough way, was made ready for religious and other purposes as soon as possible, at the cost of about $1700. Additional land was purchased upon the east side of the old church lot, and the erection of the present beautiful brick church edifice commenced, and so far completed that the vestries could be used for public worship April 30, 1876.

The church, built in 1875-1880 and attributed to J.B. Goodall, is an an example of High Victorian Gothic, with a distinctive polychromatic steeple.

Pilgrim Church, Southborough (1806)

by Dan//Churches, Federal, Italianate, Southborough

In 1727, the residents of Southborough established a new town and separated from Marlborough. A meeting house was constructed on the area known as “holy hill,” on three acres set aside for a meeting house, burying ground and training field. The original meeting house was replaced by the current church in 1806, built under the supervision of Moses Newton. When the state disestablished parish churches, Unitarians soon came to own the church. In 1831, Trinitarian members of the congregation broke away from the town church. Forming the Pilgrim Congregational Church, they built their own meeting house in 1834, but in 1857 purchased the old meeting house building from the Unitarians. The original church was then renovated and expanded, including the addition of a new and higher steeple with a new bell. That steeple was tipped (but not toppled) by the 1938 hurricane. It was repaired in 1953, so that the bell could again be rung. There is a history of the church (a pdf document) available at http://www.pilgrimchurch.us/Documents/The%20Pilgrim%20Church%20of%20Christ%20in%20Southborough%2018311.pdf.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Southborough (1862)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Southborough

The first Episcopal service in Southborough, the baptism of a daughter of Joseph Burnett in 1850, was held inside the Pilgrim Congregational Church. Burnett, a prominent businessman and Episcopalian, sought to establish the first Episcopal church in town. With services being held, for the time being, in private homes and, after 1860, on the upper floor of a stone mill on Deerfoot Road, Burnett and his colleagues acquired land west of the Southborough Town House for the construction of a church. Built in 1862-1863, the Gothic stone St. Mark’s Episcopal Church was designed by Alexander Esty. The church was expanded several times, with the bell tower being added in 1890 and the sanctuary being renovated and expanded eastward in 1905, in memory of Joseph Burnett. Behind the church is the Burnett family cemetery. Burnett also founded St. Mark’s School, an Episcopal preparatory school in Southborough.

Sacred Heart Church, Natick (1889)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Natick

While Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Oldtown Folks depicts life in South Natick at a time in the late eighteenth century, when Congregationalists still dominated New England towns, other denominations would be established in the course of the nineteenth century. The first Catholic Church in Natick was Sacred Heart, constructed between 1873 and 1889 on Eliot Street. Services were held in the church before it was finally completed, with members meeting in the basement, sitting on plank and barrel benches, on Easter Sunday 1874. Sacred Heart Parish continued for 130 years, but was closed at Christmas 2004. The Archdiocese of Boston announced the closing of several parishes due to a shortage of priests and dwindling attendance and, perhaps, the financial impact of the priest sex abuse scandal. Most members of Sacred Heart soon joined other parishes, but others protested the decision. The appeals of Sacred Heart and nine other Boston-area parishes were denied by the Vatican earlier this year, although vigils continue at many closed parishes.