Category: Gothic

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Northampton (1893)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Northampton

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Northampton was established in 1826. The original wooden church was located on on Bridge Street and was designed by Thomas Pratt, a noted local builder. His son, architect William Fenno Pratt, later added the steeple and served as the church’s organist and choir director from 1836 to 1861. A new stone church, the gift of philanthrophist George Bliss of Brooklyn, New York, who was originally from Northampton, was built on Elm Street, adjacent to the campus of Smith College, in 1893. The church was designed by R.W. Gibson of New York and was built by the Norcross Brothers of Worcester.

First Congregational Church of Amherst (1868)

by Dan//Amherst, Churches, Gothic

The Congregational Church in Amherst dates back to 1739, when the future town was still a part of Hadley. There have been four successive meeting houses for the church. The original meeting house, built around 1740, stood on the hill where the Amherst College Octagon would later be built. It was replaced, on the same site, by a more elaborate building, completed in 1788. The third meeting house was built across South Pleasant Street in 1829; since remodeled, it is now owned by Amherst College and is known as College Hall. The current First Congregational Church was built of Monson granite in 1867-1868. The architect was George Hathorne of Springfield and the local contractor was C.W. Lessey, who lived nearby; neighbor William Austin Dickinson supervised the construction. The same team would then begin construction of Walker Hall at Amherst College in 1868. Since its construction, the church has been much altered over the years, both inside and out.

Grace Episcopal Church, Amherst (1865)

by Dan//Amherst, Churches, Gothic

As related in The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts (1896):

Sept. 20, 1864, a number of men residing in Amherst met at the residence of Mrs. Mary H. Jones, to consider the practicability of forming in Amherst a parish of the Protestant Episcopal church. […] Rev. Frederick D. Huntington, at that time rector of the Emanuel church in Boston, was present at the meeting: it was largely owing to his efforts that the parish was formed. Being invited to give a name to the parish, he selected that of “Grace church.”

At a meeting on May 26, 1865,

it was voted that the parish build a stone church, a committee of five being appointed to have charge of the work. Work on the building was begun that year, and was carried on so rapidly that the parish held a meeting in the basement of the church, April 2, 1866. The building was consecrated by the Bishop of the diocese, July 17. It was designed by Henry Dudley of New York, the type of architecture being 13th century English. It was built of a gray gneiss, quarried in Leverett.

The tower, part of Dudley’s riginal plan, was added to Grace Episcopal Church in 1868.

Wesley Methodist Church, Amherst (1878)

by Dan//Amherst, Churches, Gothic

In 1972, architect Tullio Inglese and his wife Judith rescued the old Wesley Chapel, at 592 Main Street in Amherst, and converted it into their home and studio. Today, the former church houses the offices of TIA Architects and the Nacul Center for Ecological Architecture. According to The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts (1896):

The Methodist church at Amherst center was organized in 1868 as a branch of the church at North Amherst. It was composed, in part, of members of the latter organization, together with a few members from the church in Pelham. It was organized as a separate society in August, 1875, when the first quarterly conference was held.

A church was soon constructed:

The cornerstone of the church was laid. Oct. 17. 1878, and the work progressed so rapidly that services were held in the vestry, Jan. 26, 1879. In 1880, a committee was appointed to superintend the building of sheds on the church lot. In 1886, the grounds about the church were graded and improved. A bell was procured in 1887.

The United Methodist Church serving Amherst is now located at 98 North Maple in Hadley.

Sutton-Peirson House (1847)

by Dan//Gothic, Houses, Peabody

The Sutton-Peirson House in Peabody is a Gothic Revival cottage built in 1847 by General William Sutton as a wedding gift to his daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Abel Peirson Jr. An officer in the Massachusetts State Militia and a state senator, William Sutton was a wealthy wool merchant. In 2009, the house was donated to the Peabody Historical Society and moved from its original location on Aborn Street to 33 Washington Street, next to the Osborne-Salata House. The house is being restored and will house the expanded Ruth Hill Library and Archives.

First Church in Cambridge (1871)

by Dan//Cambridge, Churches, Gothic

Merry Christmas from Historic Buildings of Massachusetts!!! Today, Let’s look at a church with a long history. The current church, or meeting house, of the First Church in Cambridge, is the congregation’s sixth and was built in 1871. The first meeting house was built in 1632 at Mount Auburn and Dunster Streets. This congregation eventually left for Hartford, Connecticut under Rev. Thomas Hooker and a new congregation was gathered in Cambridge in 1636. A second meeting house was built in 1650 in the center of Harvard Square and was replaced by the third, at the same location, in 1706. The fourth was built at the corner of Church Street and Massachusetts Avenue in 1757 and was used until 1829, when there was a split in the congregation between Congregationalists and Unitarians. The Congregationalists, taking the name of the Shepard Congregational Society, built their own separate fifth meeting house (the Shepard Memorial Church), at Mount Auburn and Holyoke Streets in 1831. Outgrowing this, they built the current church, at Garden and Mason Streets, in 1872. In 1899, the two churches agreed to be separately known as the First Church in Cambridge (Congregational) and the First Church in Cambridge (Unitarian), now called the First Parish Cambridge. In the 1920s, a Parish House with a chapel, offices, classrooms and meeting halls were added to the Congregational Church. The church has a brass cockerel weathervane, which was made by famed coppersmith Shem Drowne in 1821 for the New Brick Church, known as the Cockerel Church, on Hanover Street, Boston and was purchased for the Cambridge church in 1873. Continue reading “First Church in Cambridge (1871)”