historic churches

First Parish Church, Wayland // 1814

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The First Parish Church of Wayland, Massachusetts, is an iconic church that displays the typical early 19th-century meetinghouse form with Federal-style elaboration. Built in 1814, the church is two-stories with a five-bay gabled-front structure with a projecting enclosed portico of three entrance bays, and a four-stage bell tower that rises above the façade. Today known as Wayland, the town was originally called East Sudbury, after it split away from the western parish in 1780. In 1835, members of town meeting voted to rename East Sudbury “Wayland” in honor of Dr. Francis Wayland, a temperance advocate, abolitionist, and then president of Brown University. The First Parish Church of Wayland was built by Andrews Palmer of Newburyport, who used an Asher Benjamin design. The bell was cast by Paul Revere and Sons and first lifted into the bell tower in 1814. The property also includes the historic, twelve-bay horse/carriage sheds where parishioners would “park” their horses and carriages while attending services.

Derby United Methodist Church // 1894

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The former Derby United Methodist Church (now the Ghana United Methodist Church) is located at the northern edge of the Town Green in Derby, Connecticut, and is a great example of a ecclesiastical building constructed in the Romanesque Revival style. Its large round arches, tall square tower, and heavy detailing in brick and brownstone place it in the Romanesque Revival mode, all with stained glass throughout. The church was built in 1894 and dedicated in early 1895. The stately church building was designed by George Washington Kramer (1847-1938), an architect who designed many Methodist churches in the midwest and east coast.

Bow Bog Meetinghouse // 1835

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The Bow Bog Meetinghouse in Bow, New Hampshire, was built in 1835 for the First Methodist Episcopal Church and Society in town. Designed in the Greek and Gothic revival styles, the traditional form and paired entries with two stage belfry is adorned by finials and pilasters, showcasing an elegant blending of these two styles. built by George Washington Wheeler for the First Methodist Episcopal Church and Society of Bow in 1835. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Church, mentioned Reverend Orlando Hinds as a contributor to her early religious teachings. She maintained close ties with this Church, donating funds for the bell in 1903. The Church provided religious instruction and social activities for 116 years and in 1951, the Church was closed and the Bow Bog Meeting House Society acquired the building. In 1970, they restored it to nearly its original condition, and it was acquired by the town in 1985.

Swedenborgian Church of Lancaster // 1881

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Built in 1881, the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in Lancaster, Massachusetts, is a handsome Victorian-era chapel that has been well-preserved for nearly 150 years. The Queen Anne/Shingle style church was designed by architect Francis Ward Chandler of the firm, Cabot & Chandler, for the local Swedenborgians in Lancaster, some of which likely spent summers in Lancaster from Boston. The membership of the church dwindled in the early 20th century, and the congregation sold the church to a local women’s social group, the Current Topics Club in 1923. The women’s club met in the old church and maintained the building for nearly a century until the building sold to private owners in about 2007, who converted it to a residence, preserving the unique architecture we still see today.

First Church of Lancaster // 1816

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Built in 1816, the First Church of Lancaster is one of just two extant church buildings designed by famed American architect, Charles Bulfinch, and is said to be one of the finest churches in the Federal style in the United States. The fifth meetinghouse of the Unitarian First Church of Christ in Lancaster, this building was constructed of local brick, slate, and lumber from master-builder, Thomas Hearsey. Hearsey is said to have modified Bulfinch’s design, which had proposed one tall center arch flanked by two lower arches to reflect the unequal heights of the three vestibule doors behind them; instead going with three, identical arches. Other than this change, the church remains substantially as originally built, even without artificial lighting or central heat inside. Besides the iconic arched portico, the two- stage brick tower topped by a beautifully proportioned wood cupola surrounded by Roman Ionic columns, and fronted by a giant arcuated portico, is especially noteworthy. The congregation, which dates back to 1653 as a Puritan congregation was the first parish established in Central Massachusetts and remains active to this day.

Chester Baptist Church // 1835

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The Baptists of Chester, Vermont, first built a wood-frame meetinghouse in 1788 for meetings and worship. The congregation here was established a year prior by Aaron Leland (1761-1832), a successful pastor and preacher, who settled in town with the task of building up a church there. Active in politics, Leland served in local offices including Town Clerk and Selectman, and was Windsor County Assistant Judge for eighteen years, he was later elected into the Vermont House of Representatives and served as Lt. Governor. After his death, the Federal style building was outgrown and sold by the 1830s. The original meetinghouse was moved to its current location across from the town’s Congregational Church and planning began for a new house of worship. The current Baptist Church, an impressive brick edifice in the Gothic Revival style, features a high slated spire that was likely added in the early 1870s, replacing a more traditional wooden crenelated tower. The 1870s spire was destroyed in 1953 and reproduced in 1999. The congregation here remains active and maintains the church well.

Chester Congregational Church // 1828

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A significant landmark in Chester, Vermont, the Congregational Church of Chester is a sophisticated interpretation of ecclesiastical Federal architecture. Built in 1828, the soaring, five-stage clock-and-bell tower with bellcast cap and weathervane rises above a pedimented three-bay entrance pavilion with semi-elliptical fanlight, a common motif in the style. It is believed that local carpenters, Comfort Carpenter Dresser and his son, Charles Dresser, built the church, likely from planbooks for specific details. The church originally served as the Union Meeting House for Congregational, Methodist, and Universalist parishioners until around 1848, when other churches set off to build their own structures, after this, the Congregationalists remained here. Today, due to years of dwindling membership and a small population in the surrounding area, the church is “replanting” to reactivate membership and realign with community needs. Hopefully this significant church will be preserved in the future, possibly through preservation grants!

St. John’s Church, Portsmouth // 1807

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St. John’s Episcopal Church is located on Chapel Street, atop Church Hill near the historic commercial center of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A church has been located on this site since 1732, when British Anglicans built Queen’s Chapel here. It was named “Queen’s Chapel” after King George II’s wife, Queen Caroline, who donated many fine gifts to help the new parish. The congregation increased in growth alongside the community until a tragic fire on Christmas Eve in 1806, which destroyed over 300 buildings in Portsmouth including the original wooden structure of St. John’s and most of its contents. The parishioners immediately began to raise funds to erect the present brick church, with its cornerstone laid in June 1807. The Federal style church was one of the first known buildings by architect-engineer, Alexander Parris, in the time before he moved to Boston, designing many iconic buildings there. St. John’s Church of Portsmouth stands as the oldest Episcopal Parish in New Hampshire and was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

First Parish Church, Kingston // 1851

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The original Congregational Church of Kingston was part of the established, tax-supported church of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and was built in 1718, after present-day Kingston established itself as Plymouth’s North Parish. The church was replaced in 1798 with a more substantial building with two steeples. In 1833, when the separation of church and state was finalized in the Commonwealth, two new religious societies formed in Kingston and established churches. The 1798 church, which had been built as the only church in town, was now too large for its diminished population and suffering from structural difficulties. In the spring of 1851, the 1798 church was taken down, and the present church, the third on the site, was constructed. The church blends Greek Revival and Italianate styles, both popular for ecclesiastical buildings of its time, and the structure looks much like it did when built 175 years ago. The congregation here is Universal Unitarian.

Westborough Unitarian Universalist Church // 1850

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The Unitarian Universalist Church of Westborough, Massachusetts is architecturally significant as an excellent example of a ecclesiastical building in the Greek Revival style, but it is also significant historically as it tells a richer history of the community and New England as a whole. The Congregational Church has its roots in the first church in Westborough, established in 1724 under Reverend Ebenezer Parkman. The Religious Freedom Act of 1811 and the official separation of church and state in 1825 encouraged a diversity of religious views in Westborough and a branching out from the first church both spiritually and since churches needed new houses of worship. As a result, the local church in Westborough split due to differing beliefs, with the Congregationalists building a church and a few years later, the Unitarians building this church, both in variations of the same architectural style. The UU Church in Westborough was built by 1850 and was expanded as the congregation grew. The building remains nearly identical to when it was built except for the steeple, which in 1921, was in such bad repair that it had to be removed. Less than a decade later in 1930, member Isadore Forbes donated the funds to have the steeple rebuilt and a bell installed.