Image: No. 4150 Postcard. Channing Church, Dorchester, postmarked December 28, 1907.
Now known as Little House, the Channing Unitarian Church was organized in 1900 and was located on East Cottage Street, near Dorchester Avenue.
The former Channing Church at 275 East Cottage Street was built in 1900-1901. Designed by Walter Atherton, it originally had a 2-story gable and a small entryway with gable on the east side. The line drawing from the Boston Globe, April 11, 1901, shows the original design. In the mid-20th century a second two-story gable was constructed, and the entry was moved to the north end of the building. The Little House social agency came to this location when they moved from South Boston in the 1940s.
The Boston Globe March 9, 1901, stated, “Rev. Henry Hallam Saunderson, Harvard ’98, began the earnest and energetic work of establishing Channing Church in October of last year, holding meetings in the old Atheneum Hall, close by the new church, at historic ‘Five Corners.’
The main audience hall, with its connecting Sunday school room will comfortably seat 500 people. Behind the rail-less platform and pulpit is an elevated space for the choir, and behind that is the handsome double manual pipe organ. To the right of the platform is an entrance to the choir room, connecting with basement, auditorium and separate entrance. To the left is a doorway, leading to the minister’s study.
The Sunday School wing has separate entrances front and back. In the rear arrangements for footlights and all accessories for concerts, lectures and entertainments, the second story being devoted to a handsomely furnished ladies’ parlor. The whole length of one side of the basement is devoted to a boys’ and girls’ gymnasium, with special electrical and other arrangements for evening exhibitions. …
The building is of gothic architecture, with plastered sides, granite underpinning. Two large and many smaller stained glass windows afford the principal lighting for the audience rooms, which are well equipped with incandescent globes along the walls and in the vaulted roof.”