Churches

St. John’s Episcopal Church of Sharon // 1902

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The small yet architecturally significant St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sharon, Massachusetts, was built in 1902 from plans by one of the premier ecclesiastical architects of the early 20th century. Episcopalians in Sharon began demanding their own house of worship in the late 19th century, and by the turn of the century, had funding to erect their own chapel. Boston-based architect, Ralph Adams Cram, of the firm Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, designed the building, which fits within the scale of the residential neighborhood it is located within. St. John’s is an example of Neo-Gothic Revival architecture, a style which Cram became known for, with a fieldstone base, three feet thick, and stucco gabled facade above with tripartite windows with diamond-cut colored glass. The chapel was expanded at the rear, but maintains its rustic charm at the street.

Unitarian Church of Sharon // 1842

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Sharon, Massachusetts, is a small suburban community south of Boston that is lesser known than its neighbors, but the community has some great old buildings! The Town of Sharon was originally part of a 1637 land grant given by the Dorchester Proprietors to encourage new settlement in areas southward. In 1726, the lands of the present towns of Sharon, Canton and Stoughton, were separated from Dorchester and called the Stoughton Territory. Settlers in present-day Sharon found it difficult to attend mandated church services centered around present-day Stoughton and petitioned the General Court in 1739 to set off as a separate precinct. The request was granted and the Second Precinct was established, and incorporated as Stoughtonham in 1765, changing its name in 1783 to Sharon, named after the Sharon Plain in Palestine. In 1813, the local congregationalists split due to theological differences and formed a Unitarian church. The Congregationalists moved and built a new church and the Unitarians remained on this site, but the larger building was too large for their needs. They demolished the original building and constructed this church in 1842, which somewhat resembles the 1839 Congregational Church of Sharon a stone’s throw away. Like its neighbor, the Unitarian Church too retains an original bell cast by the The Revere Copper Company of nearby Canton.

First Congregational Church of Sharon // 1839

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Sharon, Massachusetts, is a small suburban community south of Boston that is lesser known than its neighbors, but the community has some great old buildings! The Town of Sharon was originally part of a 1637 land grant given by the Dorchester Proprietors to encourage new settlement in areas southward. In 1726, the lands of the present towns of Sharon, Canton and Stoughton, were separated from Dorchester and called the Stoughton Territory. Settlers in present-day Sharon found it difficult to attend mandated church services centered around present-day Stoughton and petitioned the General Court in 1739 to set off as a separate precinct. The request was granted and the Second Precinct was established, and incorporated as Stoughtonham in 1765, changing its name in 1783 to Sharon, named after the Sharon Plain in Palestine. In 1813, the local congregationalists split due to theological differences and some formed a Unitarian church. The Congregationalists moved down the street and built a new church in 1822 which was destroyed by fire in 1838 and replaced a year later by this edifice. Built in 1839 the First Congregational Church of Sharon is a vernacular and well-preserved example of a Greek Revival church building in the Doric order with towering pilastered steeple, monumental portico supported by four fluted Doric columns, and flushboard siding. The Congregational Church retains an original bell cast by the The Revere Copper Company of nearby Canton.

Former St. Casimir’s Church // 1872

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Built in 1872, this Victorian Gothic style church on Greene Street in the Wooster Square area of New Haven, Connecticut, has had a varied history that tells the full story of its neighborhood. The church was originally constructed as the Davenport Congregational Church and was designed by New Haven architect, Rufus G. Russell, who formerly worked many years for Henry Austin, the city’s leading architect, before opening his own firm. In the early 20th century, the neighborhood demographics shifted to a more diverse area of recently arriving immigrants who worked in nearby industry and the edifice was occupied by an Italian Baptist church. 1927, the church was purchased by a local Lithuanian congregation, who re-established the building as the St. Casimir Catholic Church. For nearly 100 years, the church remained an active use anchoring the iconic Wooster Square park until the congregation closed, leaving the building’s fate unclear. Luckily, developers purchased the property, which is located within a local historic district, and converted the church into residential units.

Trinity Episcopal Church of Wrentham // 1872

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Overlooking the Town Green in Wrentham, Massachusetts, the Trinity Episcopal Church of Wrentham stands as the town’s finest example of Victorian Gothic architecture and the community’s oldest Episcopal church. Episcopalians in Wrentham first began worshipping in 1863 and in less than ten years, quickly grew in numbers from just two members to so many that a church building was needed to house the congregation. The site on East Street was purchased and architect, Shepard S. Woodcock, was hired to furnish plans for the new building. Completed in 1872, the Victorian Gothic design features all of the hallmarks of the style, including the steeply pitched roof, pointed arch windows and entry doors, buttresses, and towering steeple.

Wrentham Congregational Church // 1834

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The Wrentham Congregational Church is the oldest house of worship in the suburban community, and the fourth consecutive meetinghouse for the congregation at the town center that was originally established in 1692. The frontier town grew slowly as a largely agricultural community and three houses of worship were built nearby the town common until 1833, when it was decided that a church worthy of its historic congregation be built. It is not clear who designed the Greek Revival church, but timbers were transported to town in 1834 for the new edifice which was completed that year. Over the following century, the church was expanded and modernized, all-the-while retaining its historic character. The four-stage steeple toppled during the New England Hurricane of 1938, and was rebuilt. The congregation remains active in the community and is a visual landmark at the town center.

Hopedale Unitarian Church // 1898

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The Hopedale Unitarian Church, also known as the Draper Memorial Church, is located in the former industrial village of Hopedale, Massachusetts, and is one of the finest examples of the Neo-Gothic style in the state. The church was funded by brothers George Albert and Eben S. Draper of the Draper Corporation, the largest employer in town, offering to build the new edifice as a memorial to their parents, George and Hannah Draper. The church replaced an earlier, wood-frame church, built on the site in 1860 by supporters of Adin Ballou, a founder of the Hopedale Community, a utopian community that eventually failed. The Drapers hired Boston architect, Edwin J. Lewis, an active Unitarian who had designed several churches around New England by this time. His plan was “English Gothic of the Perpendicular period” made of Milford granite with Indiana limestone trimmings and a roof of green slate. At the interior, roof trusses were left exposed “as in the old English Parish churches” with oak finishes and flooring and memorial stained glass windows by prominent artists. The church remains a visual and historical landmark for the community with an active congregation who preserve the significant building.

Clara Hall Elliott Memorial Church // 1909

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This handsome stone church in South Willington, Connecticut, was commissioned in 1909 by Gardiner Hall Jr., a terminally ill industrialist, in memory of his late daughter Clara, who tragically died in 1899 at the age of 30. The church was used by area residents, many of which included mill workers hired to work at Mr. Hall’s factory nearby and lived in mill housing just behind this church. Following the construction of this Memorial Church in South Willington, Baptist and Congregational Churches of Willington merged to form the Federated Church of Willington, which has worshiped at this location ever since. Neo-Gothic Revival in style, the church is constructed of multicolored random ashlar sandstone with limestone trim and features a corner clock tower with belfry, buttresses, stained glass windows, and limestone tracery. The church was designed by Boston architect, Thomas Marriott James and was completed by 1911.

Charles Street Meeting House // 1807

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The Charles Street Meeting House at the corner of Charles and Mount Vernon streets in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood is one of the finest examples of a Federal period meeting house in New England. The building is thought to have been designed by architect, Asher Benjamin, due to its similarities to his Old West Church on Cambridge Street built a year prior. At the time of construction in 1807, the church stood near the banks of the Charles River, but is now a distance away from the Charles following a land-filling campaign to expand buildable land in the city. The Charles Street Meeting House consists of a two-story gable-roof main structure with a three-story tower on the south (primary) elevation that supports a clock tower and wooden cupola with double Ionic pilasters supporting the domed roof. The building was constructed for the Third Baptist Church congregation, who used the nearby Charles River for baptisms. In the years before the American Civil War, it was a stronghold of the anti-slavery movement, and was the site of notable speeches from such anti-slavery activists as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Tubman and others. The Baptists sold the structure to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1876, which was part of the first Black independent denomination in the United States. The AME Church sold the building in 1939 to the Charles Street Meeting House Society, and after a period of use as an Albanian Orthodox church, it was sold to the organization that is now, Historic New England, who were required to keep restrictions to preserve the building’s exterior. It served as a Universalist church from 1949 to 1979 with rented space inside to tenants, including a LGBT newsletter, Gay Community News, which was founded in the building in 1973. In 1980 the Meeting House was purchased by the Charles Street Meeting House Associates, who worked with the architectural firm of John Sharrat Associates to restore the building and adaptively reuse it into four floors of offices, with retail on the ground floor.

Church of the Advent // 1878

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The Church of the Advent in Beacon Hill, Boston, is a landmark example of a church designed in the Victorian Gothic style with strong English influence. The congregation, established in 1844, purchased a large corner lot at Brimmer and Mount Vernon streets on the newly made filled land west of Charles Street in Beacon Hill Flat, to construct their new church. In 1875, John Hubbard Sturgis, a Boston architect and parishioner, began designing the red brick with sandstone-trimmed church set on a corner lot with dominant corner tower and octagonal steeple. Construction began in phases beginning in 1878 and took years until the steeple was completed in 1888. Before its completion, John H. Sturgis died and his nephew, Richard Clipston Sturgis, oversaw the completion of the church, which became somewhat of a memorial to his late uncle. Following the completion of the Church of the Advent, Sturgis’ widow, extended family and clients donated a major portion of the interior art, stained glass windows, and furnishings. The polychromatic exterior in red and charred brick mixed with sandstone trim appears to have been inspired by his designs for the original Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1876, demolished in 1911.) The Church of the Advent in Boston is one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in New England and is the master-work of one of America’s great architects.