Edward A. Huebener Brick Collection no. 51 First Parish Church
No. 5226 First Parish Church, painting on brick. The painting on the brick represents the church building that was built in 1816 and burned in 1896.
Edward A. Huebener, a former Board member of the Dorchester Historical Society, was a collector of materials relating to Dorchester history including a very large collection of graphic materials, including prints and photographs, now owned by the Society. His very own contribution to this group of materials was the idea of taking a brick from a house that had been demolished and asking a local illustrator to paint a picture of the house upon the brick. The painted bricks may be viewed at the Dorchester Historical Society.
The First Parish Church has been located on Meeting House Hill since 1670.
The First Parish Church (Unitarian), Meeting-House Hill, Dorchester district, is the oldest religious society in Boston. It was organized in Plymouth, England, March 20, 1630, the eve before the embarkation of the first settlers of Dorchester in the Mary and John.
The Rev. John White of Dorchester, England, was the chief advocate of a settlement in Massachusetts to find a new home in which greater freedom could be secured for worship and the exercise of religion within the Established Church of England. The ship Mary and John carried with the colonists, John Maverick and John Warham as pastors of their church, which was transferred to America through the sailing of all its members.
The “trading men” settled at Rock Hill (Savin Hill) on which they built a fort. The farmers settled on Allen?s Plain near the intersection of Pond, Cottage and Pleasant Streets and built their first meeting house, about twelve feet high, constructed of logs with a thatched roof, surrounded with palisades (at approximately the location of Town Meeting Square). Military stores were deposited in it and guns mounted on it from fear of the Indians. The same building was used as a town house and school house. In the early years, the business affairs of the town were largely in the hands of the ministers. The meeting house was the place of public assembly.
Part of the Church membership moved to Windsor, Conn., in 1635 with the Rev. John Warham. John Maverick died in 1636 and was succeeded by Rev. Richard Mather. The first building was replaced by a new one in 1645 at the same location. This meeting house was moved by oxen to Meeting-House Hill, on the east side of Winter Street, in 1670.
No. 2752 Detail from 1899 atlas showing location of First Church
In 1669 the town had voted to build a house for the ministry of the Church “to be such a house as James Blak’s house is, namely, 38 foote in length and 20 foote wid and 14 foote betweene joynts gert worke.” The James Blake house still exists but the parsonage has been lost to history. In 1678 a new larger meeting house was built on the northwest corner of Church and Winter Streets. It was square in shape, two stories high, with a tower in the center containing a bell.
In 1743 a new meeting-house was built on what is now the Town Common. The eastern entrance was about where the Soldier’s Monument now stands. The building was 68 feet long, 46 feet wide, 104 feet to the top of the weathervane. Deacon Edward Pierce enlarged this church in 1795 by dividing it along the ridge, moving one-half of it 14 feet, and building new material to unite the halves. A new house was built in 1816. It burned in 1896, and again a new church was built in 1897, the one that still exists in 2002. It was designed by Cabot, Everett and Mead with references to Colonial models. It is one of the finest eamples of the Christopher Wren type in this country. This latest building is the one on the map labeled First Universalist Church.
No. 3933 Photograph printed in pamphlet with cover-title: Nathaniel Hall.
No. 3343 Photograph of the First Church, Dorchester, Mass. published in A Memorial of the Rev. Nathaniel Hall … Boston, 1876.
No. 5292 Postcard dated 1975, privately owned, showing the current church building and its similarity to the building it replaced.
Sources:
Chaffee, John R. The History of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts. (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1917). See p. 10-12 for material on the First Church.
King’s Hand-Book of Boston. (Boston: Moses King Corporation, 1889), 9th ed.
Orcutt, William Dana. Good Old Dorchester: A Narrative History of the Town, 1630-1893. (Cambridge: The University Press, 1908)
Stark, James H., comp. Places in Dorchester to visit during Old-Home Week, July 28 to August 3, 1907. (Dorchester, The Dorchester Historical Society, 1907)
Religious Properties Preservation: A Boston Casebook. (Boston: Historic Boston Incorporated, 1991)