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PARK
STREET CHURCH
THE lot
whereon the Granary stood, measuring one hundred and eighteen feet along Park
Street, was sold by the Town agents, November 10, 1795, for the sum of $8366 to
Major-General Henry Jackson, who commanded the Massachusetts Militia at the
time of the sale. He had served with distinction during the Revolution, and was
the owner of considerable real estate in the town. From him the Granary lot
passed to the control of Mrs. Hepsibah Swan, the widow of James Swan.
Thereafter it became the property of her daughters, who sold the premises,
April 13, 1809, to Caleb Bingham, book-seller and publisher; Andrew Calhoun,
merchant; and William Thurston, Esq., Trustees of the Church. The price paid
for this land was twenty thousand dollars.
A
subsequent deed to Samuel H. Walley, January 17, 1810, recites that “a Church
of Christ, called Park Street Church, had been gathered in the Town of Boston;
and a brick meeting-house lately erected on a street formerly called Centry
Street, and now called Park Place.” The Trustees “do permit and suffer the said
house and land to be used, occupied and enjoyed as and for a meeting-house or
place for the public, Protestant worship and service of God.”
The Granary
was removed in 1809, and the Church was built immediately afterward from
designs prepared by Peter Banner, an English architect and builder, of whom
little is known. The wooden capitals of the steeple are the handiwork of
Solomon Willard, the architect of Bunker Hill Monument. The mason-work was
under the supervision of Benajah Brigham. It was the intention of the Building
Committee to use common bricks; but better counsels prevailed, and face bricks
were employed. The building, now seen in its original red-brick dress, was
newly painted in 1906. At that time, to quote from a recent writer, “the
sympathetically toned gray of the body of the Church, with its white trimmings,
combined to give a pearly effect, which could not but convey to the coarsest apprehension
the fact that this Church was a pearl of great price for Boston.”
Henry James, the American novelist, described its style of architecture as “perfectly felicitous.” “Its spire,” he said, “recalls Wren’s bold London examples, like the comparatively thin echo of a far-away song; playing its part, however, for harmonious effect as perfectly as possible.” Mr. James regarded this Church building as “the most interesting mass of brick and mortar in America.” The weather-vane, which crowns the spire, is two hundred and seventeen feet above the street level. Many will recall the thrilling sight of a steeple-jack, engaged in regilding this vane a few years ago. It was not originally intended that the edifice should have a spire. But the Building Committee yielded to the prevailing sentiment that a Church occupying such a prominent site should be thus ornamented. And for more than a century the graceful spire has remained intact, defying the fury of winter storms; although it was observed to sway considerably during the great gale which destroyed Minot’s Ledge Light House in the middle of the last century.1
PARK STREET CHURCH ABOUT 1870
From a photograph owned by Dr. J. Collins Warren
The Park Street Church Society was organized at the
mansion of William Thurston, a well-known attorney, on Bowdoin Street, February
27, 1809; and in that house the first religious exercises of the new Society
were held. The Corner-Stone of the Church building was laid May 1, 1809; and
the total cost of the latter was somewhat over seventy thousand dollars. The
Dedication Sermon was preached by the Reverend Doctor Edward Dorr Griffin,
January 10, 1810; and he was installed as Pastor, July 31, 1811.
Mr.
Lindsay Swift, in his “Literary Landmarks of Boston,” wrote that Park Street
Church is an important strategic point; and that “all roads lead to Rome,
except in Boston, where they lead to, or certainly from this convenient centre
of the City’s life.” For many years the corner of Tremont and Park Streets has
been a rendezvous, and a point of departure, especially for strangers.
The
origin of the name” Brimstone Corner,” sometimes applied to this locality, has
been attributed to the fervid doctrines preached within the walls of the
Church. The true source of that name appears to be the historic fact that
brimstone, for use in making gunpowder, was stored in the building during the
War of 1812. There is also a tradition that in the early days of this Church,
sulphur was sprinkled on the sidewalk near by, to attract the attention of
wayfarers. In this building were founded the American Education Society (1815),
the Prison Reform Society, and the American Temperance Society (1826).
On the
Fourth of July, 1832, the song “America” was heard in public for the first
time, at a children’s celebration in Park Street Church. The author, Samuel
Francis Smith, then a theological student at Andover, Massachusetts, had
composed poetry from his childhood. Inspired by the words of a patriotic German
hymn, he determined to produce an anthem which should manifest the love felt by
him for his own country. “Seizing a scrap of paper, he began to write, and in
half an hour the words stood upon it substantially as they are sung to-day.”2
On Sunday forenoon, November 24, 1895, one of the
workmen engaged in excavating for the Tremont Street Subway, almost under the
front wall of Park Street Church, probably struck his pickaxe into a main
water-pipe, which burst; and the water shot up with such force that it broke
the window glass in the minister’s study, ruining its furnishings, and covering
with mud its carpet and luxurious upholstery. Fears were entertained that the
foundations of the building had been weakened. At the following evening service
the minister told the members of his congregation that it was an outrage to
permit the carrying on of such work at the very portals of the Church on a
Sunday. And with natural righteous indignation he referred to the Subway as “an
infernal hole,” in more than one sense. “And who is the Boss in charge of this
work?” he demanded. Then after a pause, he added, “It is the Devil!”
In 1809,
when Park Street Church was built, Boston still preserved the appearance of an
old English market-town. No curbstones separated the streets from the
sidewalks. The cows still browsed on the Common, and the Town Crier made his
proclamations. There were then but two houses of more than one story on the
present Tremont Street. “Colonnade Row had not been built, and Boston was a
city of gardens. There were only a few residences on Beacon Hill: its western
slope was a series of terraces. The business section of to-day still retained
its residential character, with its old-fashioned gardens, trees and churches.”3
In 1902
Park Street Church and its site were sold for one and a quarter million dollars
to a syndicate of business men, who proposed to erect in its stead a
sky-scraper office building. Thereupon a committee of influential persons was
formed, whose object was the preservation of the Church property. It was justly
claimed that the whole aspect of the Common and of the Granary Burial-Ground
would be irretrievably marred by the destruction of this impressive landmark.
The committee doubtless reflected the prevailing sentiment of the community, in
their plea that the preservation of the Church would avert a severe blow to the
architectural beauty of the City. And they maintained with reason that the
building could be made to serve as an important centre for educational and
civic work. Influenced, it may be, by the trend of public opinion, the members
of the syndicate failed to meet a condition of the transfer; namely, that they
should pay three hundred thousand dollars of the purchase money within a
specified time. Therefore it was announced in April, 1903, that the
preservation of the Church was assured. The published account of the
Semi-Centennial Celebration of the founding of Park Street Church, held in
1859, contains these eloquent words: “For nearly half a century this majestic
spire has withstood the burning heat of the summer’s sun, and the freezing cold
of inclement winters. The storms have raged and northwest winds have roared
around it; gales which have uprooted the massive elms of our magnificent
Common, have passed it unheeded; even the earthquake’s shock, and the
lightning’s fiery blast have shaken, yet spared it. And Time, old Time, which
subdues all things, has laid a gentle hand upon its head. What time and the
elements have suffered to endure, let man preserve!”
“I love
to stop before the beautiful Park Street Church spire,” said the Reverend J.
Edgar Park, in an Artillery Election Sermon, delivered in the New Old South
Church, June 7, 1920, “almost the last hold that the ancient town of Boston has
upon the cosmopolitan city; a spire that speaks still of the old residential
Beacon Street, and of the days when its bell called across the Common to its
congregation to gather in their meeting-house, to worship the God of the
Pilgrim Fathers. Here I feel that I am standing on one of the most historic and
beautiful spots, not only in this country, but in the whole world.”
All the
old meeting-houses of Boston, if we agree with an opinion expressed by former
Mayor J. V. C. Smith, M.D., in the year 1853, such as Park Street Church, the
Old South, and a few others with spires, were superior in architectural beauty
to the more modern edifices of higher cost. For, says our critic, “the genius
that is among us, ready to be exercised in the Metropolis of New England, seems
fated to be smothered by the overruling determination of old women and
Deacons!”
When a
Church was to be built in Boston, it was customary to have a committee appointed.
And oftentimes no two of any such a committee “had a rational notion of what
should, or should not be adopted in a plan. However classical, beautiful , or
grand the artist may have been in his projection, each one of the sapient
conservators on the committee must have a whim gratified, even if it is at the
expense of the artist’s reputation. Botch after botch follows, and when the
building is fairly completed, they are all laughed at for their stupidity, and
condemned for their vulgarity!”
If the learned gentleman could have seen some of Boston’s Church edifices of comparatively recent years, he might well have modified his above-quoted naïve utterances.
1 April 21, 1851.
2 C. A.
Browne, The Story of Our National Ballads.
3 The Preservation of Park Street
Church. Boston, 1903.
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