No. 9047 Fist Baptist Church on Chickatawbut Street, 19th century.
No. 1924 First Baptist Church at the corner of Ashmont and Adams Street, photograph January, 2003.
In 1907 the Church moved to its present location at the corner of Adams and Ashmont Streets. On December 28, 1938, the building was wrecked by fire, but it was rebuilt and improved.
The pastors and their periods of tenure were:
Bradley Miner, 1837-1846
Humphrey Richards, 1846-1854
Brainard W Barrows, 1855-1873
James F. Morton, 1873-1874
Joseph Banvard, 1876-1884
Nathan Bailey, 1889-1891
John Brainerd Willson, 1892-
Robert Lee Web
Although Shand-Tucci says the Ashmont Universalist Church was probably designed by Edward Freeman, he shows a picture of the First Baptist Church at the corner of Ashmont and Adams Streets labeled as the Ashmont Universalist Church. It seems possible that Edward Freeman designed the First Baptist Church instead of the Ashmont Universalist.
Reader’s comment from Abbey Hamilton, September 2004
My family were extensively involved with First Baptist from circa 1915 through around 1965. Dr. MacGuire was pastor there during the 1940s and very early 1950s. Rev. Isaiah Sears from around 1953 through the mid-to-late 1960s. Rev. Gordon Gross in the late 60s and possibly early 70s. Many, if not most of the congregants in the 30s and 40s were transplanted Canadians from The Maritimes, particularly New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
For more information, consult:
Dorchester Old and New, 1630-1930. Dorchester: Chapple Publishing Company for the Dorchester, Massachusetts, Tercentenary Committee, 1930.
Orcutt, William Dana. Good Old Dorchester: A Narrative History of the Town, 1630-1893. Cambridge: The University Press, 1893.
Shand-Tucci, Douglass. The Gothic Churches of Dorchester. Boston: Tribune Publishing Company for the Dorchester Savings Bank, 1972.