Baptist – Page 3 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

First Baptist Church of Weston (1924)

by Dan/January 17, 2010January 31, 2010/Churches, Colonial Revival, Weston

The Baptist Society in Weston was formed in 1784 and the first church building constructed on the north side of South Avenue in 1788. Until 1825, the Baptists were required to pay taxes to support the First Parish Church, although they frequently protested this at town meetings. The original church was replaced by a larger church on Boston Post Road in 1828. This wooden building remained in use until it was replaced by the current First Baptist Church of Weston, constructed on the same site and completed in 1924.

North Congregational Church, Springfield (1873)

by Dan/July 27, 2009January 22, 2020/Churches, Romanesque Revival, Springfield

In 1868, H.H. Richardson won a commission to design the North Congregational Church in Springfield. Originally intended to be built where the congregation’s preceding church building was located, the plans for construction did not go through until a new site had been purchased, on the corner of Salem and Mattoon Streets in 1871, and the initial plan had been revised. Built in 1872 to 1873, the church was constructed of red Longmeadow sandstone and was one of Richardson‘s first works in the Romanesque style. The North Congregational Society disbanded in 1935 and the church was sold and renamed Grace Baptist Church. It is now called the Hispanic Baptist Church. UPDATE: The church was later called the Cristian Biblical Church and then Iglesia Apostolica Renovacion. The building was for sale in 2019.

Baptist Meeting House, Storrowton (1822)

by Dan/February 28, 2009April 7, 2009/Churches, Federal, West Springfield

In 1806, the members of the Baptist church in Suffield, Conn who were living in Southwick, Mass decided to form their own church, which was later formally incorporated in 1826. The Baptist Meeting House was built around 1822. It was moved to Storrowton, at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield in 1930. In 1957, the Meeting House was attached to the Atkinson Tavern to double the size of the popular Storrowton Tavern restaurant.

Charles Street Meeting House (1804)

by Dan/July 29, 2008/Boston, Churches, Federal

Designed by Asher Benjamin in 1804, the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood began as the Third Baptist Church of Boston (it was built on reclaimed land near the Charles River where baptisms could be performed). In the 1830s, abolitionist members, led by Timothy Gilbert, challenged the church’s segregationist seating arrangements and went on to found the integrated Tremont Temple Baptist Church. In the years before the Civil War, the church became a center of abolitionism, with many notable speakers addressing audiences there, including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. From 1876 to 1939, the building was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1920, the church was moved ten feet west to accommodate the widening of Charles Street. With the departure of the African-American community from the north slope of Beacon Hill, it served as an Albanian Orthodox Church and lastly a Unitarian Universalist Church to 1979. In the 1980s, the Charles Street Meeting House was converted to secular use as offices. The building is on the Black Heritage Trail.