USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 17
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The interest in local drama produced an organization in 1887 which was named The Players. Its object, as stated in its constitution, was "to produce a series of amateur performances each year at which a high order of plays shall be presented in as artistic a manner as possible." The organization provided for active members who should direct and participate in the activities, and associate mem- bers who would contribute to the expenses. For the first few years the club attempted only amateur plays, but as the players improved the technique they grew ambitious, and plays were used from the professional stage. City Hall was available for the performances for ten years, then Temple Hall in Newtonville until the time came when Players Hall was ready in West Newton.
A delight in the finer arts of music and the drama was accompanied by an expression of beauty in a number of church structures. The plain colonial meetinghouse was giving way to a more elaborate edifice, sometimes rather too ornate to suit the tastes of some people, but reflect- ing more adequately the pecuniary resources of the parish.
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Grace Church, Newton, had led the way in the erection of a beautiful stone building, constructed in the best of taste and adapted to the function of worship. The ambition to build well left a burden of debt, but at length the obliga- tions were met, and the church was consecrated by the bishop of the diocese. The people rejoiced also in a new stone chapel and parish house, which were joined to the north corner of the church. These additions cost the parish thirteen thousand dollars. A lectern was presented to the church shortly afterward. During all these outward gains Dr. Shinn was giving himself to church and city in a whole-souled way, leading his people to generosity and achievement.
Almost simultaneously with these marks of progress Eliot Church, only a block away, met with the loss of its meetinghouse by fire. The fire broke out on a snowy January morning, and within two hours the edifice which had been built twenty-five years before was in ruins. Many of the contents were saved but the building was gone. The loss was estimated at seventy thousand dollars, most of which was covered by insurance. The old structure was the largest church in the city with sittings for twelve hun- dred people, but it was a wooden building, and now the church was ambitious to build more durably. Plans for rebuilding were made at once. Meantime it was necessary to replace the city fire alarm, which was in the belfry of the church. The city government arranged to provide a bell and striker on the armory.
The new edifice which was dedicated in 1888 had about the same dimensions as the old, with a tower one hundred and twenty-seven feet high housing a bell and a clock. The auditorium was designed to seat eleven hun- dred persons, with a large chapel in the rear. The material used was granite with brown stone trimmings and the interior was finished in hardwood. The proportions of the
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auditorium, which was open to the roof, created an impres- sion of amplitude and dignity, while the memorial win- dows, the massive pillars, the organ, and the appointments for choir and worshippers, suggested beauty and suffi- ciency. The cost of the building, which amounted to $178,- 167, was fully met with subscriptions. The Eliot Church was fortunate in having a number of members who were possessors of wealth and liberally disposed. They not only contributed generously to the church, but were interested also in philanthropy and missionary enterprises in various parts of the world.
While these changes were taking place at Newton, the Baptist church at Newton Centre was constructing a new house for itself. The old meetinghouse, which stood in the village square, was sold a few months before the burn- ing of the Eliot Church. The purchasers were the Newton Associates, an incorporated group of public-spirited men, who moved the building to the corner of Centre and Pel- ham Streets to be used as Associates Hall. In its place the church erected a stone building of granite and brownstone, with a tower nearly one hundred feet high, and joined to it on the north side a chapel seventy-seven by fifty feet. The style of the whole structure was fourteenth century Romanesque with Venetian and Byzantine features. The interior was finished in quartered oak with carved pews, and ample accommodation was provided for a large audi- ence. Three large memorial windows were presented to the church. The total cost of the meetinghouse was about ninety thousand dollars, which was subscribed in full.
Reverend Edward Braislin completed a pastorate of five years at the time of the inception of the new plans, and went to Brooklyn. He was succeeded by Reverend Lemuel Call Barnes, D.D., who remained in the pastorate from 1887 to 1893. It was a period of growing prosperity for the church, as new members were added and new resi-
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dents came into the village and entered heartily into the activities of the church. Dr. Barnes was succeeded by Reverend Richard Montague, D.D., who was a Harvard graduate of brilliant promise, but he died after two years amid the universal mourning of his people. Reverend E. Y. Mullins, D.D., followed for a term of three years and went South to preside over the interests of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reverend Everett D. Burr, D.D., came from Boston in 1900 to a ministry of six years in Newton Centre. In 1898 Ezra C. Dudley pre- sented to the church a chime of bells as a memorial to Dr. S. F. Smith. These were hung in the church tower and rung on Sundays and holidays. Three years later a new organ and electric lights were installed.
During the years from 1886 to 1888 two other stone churches were constructed. The Baptist church at New- ton, which had assumed the name of the Immanuel Bap- tist Church, was one of these and the other was the Church of the Messiah at Auburndale, which served as a place of worship for the Episcopalians of West Newton and Auburndale. The Baptist church was built from the plans made by the architect Henry H. Richardson, and was modelled after Trinity Church, Boston. It had a large, square, central tower, rising to one hundred and fifteen feet at the peak. The style was southern Roman- esque; the material was Longmeadow brownstone. It was intended to hold six hundred and fifty persons in the auditorium, while the ground floor provided chapel and kitchen accommodations. The anticipated cost was approximately seventy thousand dollars, including the land, which was on Church Street across the way from Eliot Church.
The Church of the Messiah was the fruit of several years of slow parish growth, but when the people were ready to build permanently fashioned a structure of
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beauty. They chose Connecticut freestone and brown- stone for materials, with special features of variegated pressed brick. They adapted the early English Gothic style to their specific needs. A cloister extended the length of the south side, and a tower rose sixty-three feet with a turret on one corner thirty-three feet higher still, sur- mounted by a cross. Four hundred and fifty sittings were provided. Located on Auburn Street, it was close by the Commonwealth Avenue boulevard when it was put through a few years later, thus making it readily accessible.
Shortly before these new stone churches had been constructed the West Newton Congregational Church remodelled its building, moving it back from the street, removing the spire, adding transepts, and building a parish house in front. Within less than nine years it was again necessary to extend the auditorium and to refit chapel quarters for the Sunday school. The Myrtle Baptist Church, which had been organized in West Newton in 1874 by colored residents of the city, dedicated a new building in 1886.
Methodists in Newton Centre were building a church edifice in 1888. Reverend C. C. Chatfield, who was the founder and editor of the New England Journal of Educa- tion, was living in Newton Centre, and he was a local Methodist preacher. It seemed to him that a Methodist church in the village might attract some people who were not reached by the existing churches. Alden Speare was interested, and secured the hall in the old engine house for a meeting place. There the first service of worship was held in the summer of 1875. Chatfield soon died, but stu- dents at the Boston University School of Theology were obtained as preachers, the church at Upper Falls rendered aid, and a few individuals like Marshall Rice brought the enterprise to a place where a church building seemed pos- sible. By 1877 the congregation had outgrown the engine
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house hall. In 1879 the presiding elder of the district appointed seven trustees who in turn perfected the organi- zation of the church, naming it the Newton Centre Meth- odist Episcopal Church, and by-laws were adopted. Alden Speare deeded the old engine house lot at the corner of Centre and Station Streets for a building site, and a build- ing committee was appointed. The edifice was completed in the summer of 1880, and was dedicated by Bishop R. S. Foster. Reverend Bradford K. Pierce, D.D., became pastor, and with united energy the Methodists made a place for themselves among the religious circles of the community.
The Unitarians in Newton Centre also took courage to organize a church of their own rather than ride in an omnibus every Sunday to Channing Church at the Corner. The ten families which had followed that custom were joined by twenty others in the Centre and Highlands in the formation of the Society in 1878. At first they wor- shipped in White's Block, but two years later they were able to erect a church on the corner of Centre and Cypress Streets. A "widow's mite" was the first contribution to the fund of ten thousand dollars necessary to pay for the building. The structure had only twenty pews in the audi- torium, with other rooms in the rear and the basement. In 1894 it was rebuilt and a parish house was added on the Cypress Street side. The first minister of the church was Reverend Rufus P. Stebbins, D.D., who remained until 1885, knitting together into a unity the various elements in the composition of the Society. Four others followed in the next fifteen years.
Among the churches which the decade of the 'eighties produced was the Church of Yahweh at Newton Upper Falls. It was not a Jewish organization, as its name im- plied, but twenty-five persons who shared the beliefs of the Second Adventists formed the church in the spring of
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1886, and followed it a few years later with a Sunday school. Before the year of organization was over a chapel was built and dedicated, and services were held on Sun- day afternoons. The shifting population of the village, much of it foreign in race, did not bring strength to the church, and in spite of subsequent efforts to propagate the faith Second Adventism failed to perpetuate itself in the village.
The extension of Episcopacy in Newton was due primarily to Dr. Shinn. It seemed to him by 1883 that the rapid growth of Newton Highlands justified the organ- ization of an Episcopal church there. After the usual pre- liminaries religious services were initiated by the Newton rector in a hall in the Square. Seventeen persons were con- firmed by the bishop within a few weeks, and in 1884 the parish of St. Paul was constituted. By that time a chapel had been erected at a cost of a little more than four thou- sand dollars, and thirty-five families were numbered in the parish. Various auxiliaries were formed for church effi- ciency. These included a Sunday school, a ladies sewing society, a choir guild and a church guild. The last was organized to assist in the management and active obliga- tions of the parish. Reverend Carleton P. Mills became rector in 1886, remaining three years in the village and helping to establish the church firmly. With these auspi- cious beginnings the parish went on to purchase an estate near by for a rectory, to put oak pews into the chapel, to extend the chancel and add a choir room, and to establish a mission in Needham. It was evident that St. Paul's had come to stay.
This astonishing activity was not confined to the Protestant churches. The Catholics, too, were busily at work caring for the increasing number of persons of their own faith. Irish Americans were moving out from Boston, and many of the wage earners in the mills at Nonantum
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and the Falls villages were Catholics. From about 1844 the relatively few Catholics at Upper Falls had met in a private house where they were visited by Reverend Pat- rick Strain of Waltham, who administered the first sacra- ment of the Mass. His successor, Reverend Patrick Flood, continued to care for these folk, and about 1850 efforts were begun to collect part of a building fund. The hopes of the Catholics at Upper Falls were realized when a wooden building, forty by seventy-six feet, was erected on Chestnut Street in 1867. Three years later St. Mary's, as it was called, became a separate parish, with Reverend M. X. Carroll as its pastor. He was succeeded the next year by Reverend Michael Dolan, who enlarged the build- ing to seat one thousand people. Not satisfied with this achievement, he secured adjacent property for school and convent, and bought thirty-six acres of land in Need- ham for a Catholic cemetery. He also established St. John's Church at Wellesley Lower Falls as a mission of St. Mary's. Father Dolan continued to serve the parish for thirteen years until he was transferred to Newton. In 1890 Reverend T. J. Danahy commenced a pastorate which lasted a third of a century. By the time he came the parish was so large that it seemed best to divide it. Catho- lics in the nearer parts of the city maintained their connec- tion with Upper Falls and Needham was included, but Newton Centre was to have a church of its own.
While the first parish was growing in prosperity, the Catholics on the north side were finding two similar cen- tres. In a tent at West Newton they gathered first in 1865, only to move to City Hall. Presently land was purchased at the corner of Washington and Prospect Streets, and there St. Bernard's was completed at a cost of forty thou- sand dollars in 1874. It was a brick structure suited to the needs of the congregation, which grew so rapidly that the parish was made independent two years later and
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Reverend M. T. McManus became the first pastor, remain- ing for eight years. In 1889 the building was burned, but was replaced within a year by a large, brick, Gothic struc- ture, capable of seating a thousand. Meantime the number of adherents was fifteen hundred.
About the year 1880 two other Catholic churches were organized. The Church of Our Lady, which was destined to become the largest church in the city, was set apart as a parish in 1878 with Reverend M. M. Green as pastor. At first the people worshipped in the basement of the building, but before Father Green died in 1885 the edifice was completed. Father Dolan was transferred from Upper Falls to Our Lady parish, and he secured a parish house. It was he, too, who built a rectory of brick and stone, freed the church from debt, and then undertook to provide parochial education for the children of his flock. Brick buildings were erected on Adams Street for a con- vent and a school which should care for a thousand pupils. The school building provided twelve classrooms with a large assembly hall, and a library hall. A complete system of education from kindergarten to high school was pro- vided, with twenty-one Sisters of Charity as instructors. The school was started with four hundred pupils. The plant of Our Lady soon extended five hundred and forty feet frontage on Washington Street and seven hundred and fifty feet on Adams Street, a location which served the three villages of Newton, Newtonville and Nonantum. The church edifice was strengthened and enlarged several years later until it had a seating capacity of sixteen hundred.
The second Catholic church of the period was St. John's over the river at Lower Falls. The first Mass was celebrated in 1870 by Father Carroll of Upper Falls. Rev- erend Michael Dolan served the churches at both of the Falls villages after 1871, and he was able to raise the funds necessary for a church building, which was completed ten
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years later. A decade later still, in 1890, the parish was made independent of Upper Falls, and Reverend P. H. Callanan was assigned to the pastorate. Under his admin- istration a rectory was built, the grounds were improved, and the building was enlarged to accommodate eight hundred.
At the time St. John's was made a separate parish the Catholics of Newton Centre were organized with a similar independence under the care of their first and efficient pastor, Reverend Denis J. Wholey. The new parish in- cluded Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, and Chestnut Hill. Services were held at first in Associates Hall, but during the decade a church building was in process of con- struction on Centre Street near Newton Centre Square. The corner stone was laid by Archbishop Williams in the autumn of 1891. In the presence of two thousand people the Archbishop, with the clergy who were present, walked about the building and blessed the outside walls. Plans were made to accommodate eight hundred in the audi- torium and six hundred in the vestry. The basement of the church soon became available for use, and on the first of October, 1899, the edifice was dedicated. Like the other principal Catholic churches of the city, it was made of brick with stone trimmings. The interior was of stucco, fashioned in the renaissance style, and beautifully deco- rated. Hundreds of incandescent lights glowed above the altar and on the pillars. A life-size figure of Christ was erected, arranged to show the sacred heart, after which the church had its name. Later a brick rectory of corre- sponding design was built on the corner lot adjoining, and the parish began to plan for a parochial school.
Thus far no period of Newton's history had found the people so busy building and rebuilding homes and churches, creating associations for various purposes, and organizing clubs for social enjoyment and literary fellowship.
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Certain associations had their cradles in the churches. One of these was the Goddard Literary Union, which flour- ished for a considerable number of years after its organ- ization in 1874. It was formed among the people of the Universalist church at Newtonville, and held regular meet- ings in the vestry of that church. Its favorite diversion was the study and presentation of dramas, some of which were written by members of the Union. By these means several hundred dollars were raised for the church annually. Another society was the Young Men's Social Union of Newton Centre. Reverend Edward Braislin, the minister of the Baptist church in the village, suggested the organ- ization, and it was formed in 1882. It was open to anyone who was able to pass the tests made by the membership committee and was willing to sign the by-laws. The Bap- tist chapel was used for meetings. Programs of a musical and literary nature were planned for entertainment, and debates were held in which members took part. During the third year a course of public entertainments was given, and the next year ninety-five names were on the rolls, but interest declined, and the Union disbanded in 1886.
A more ambitious association was the Congrega- tional Club, organized in 1886. It had been felt among representative men in the Congregational churches of the city that such an association would be a bond to unite more closely the churches of the same faith, would foster acquaintance, and would be a medium for the advance- ment of the interests of the denomination. The first step was taken when the officers of the church met in the West Newton Congregational church to consider organization. When the decision had been reached, it was arranged that monthly meetings should be held on the third Monday of the month from October to March at a central place where men and women might sit down together for supper and enjoy the evening together. Women were to be admitted
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as guests; the membership of the men was limited to one hundred and fifty, with representation from the churches in proportion to their membership. It was thought best to hold the meetings at West Newton, if possible. Fifty- eight members were added to the original forty or more at the second meeting. The first discussion was on the topic: How can this Club be best utilized to the growth and effi- ciency of our churches? Most of the programs were carried out by members of the Club, but addresses were given from time to time by leaders in the denomination and from outside its fellowship. The strength of Congrega- tionalism in the city could be gauged by the membership reported to the Suffolk West Conference of Congrega- tional churches in 1884. The Eliot Church had the largest number of persons on its roll, a total of four hundred and seven. Three other churches were closely bunched, West Newton with two hundred and forty-four, Auburndale with two hundred and twenty-nine, and Newton Centre with two hundred and thirteen. Newtonville was young but vigorous with one hundred and sixty-seven members, Nonantum had seventy-nine, and the church at Newton Highlands seventy-six. Sunday school membership was considerably larger, the church at Newton Highlands having more than twice the number of church members.
A channel of friendly expression and of religious influ- ence among young men was the Young Men's Christian Association. Ever since the original Association had been organized in England, the usefulness of such an institution had been recognized spontaneously, and American cities had adopted the idea promptly. It was an ambitious undertaking to try to establish and maintain an Asso- ciation in a small municipality, particularly in a place like Newton where no one of the villages was large and the others were too far away to patronize it. Nevertheless an Association was proposed late in the year 1869, and a
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meeting was called with the hope of effecting an organiza- tion. Then a committee was appointed to make inquiries and report on the feasibility of the proposition, but the decision was against organizing at that time. Local experi- ments were tried in two or three of the villages, and by 1877 the situation had improved so far that it seemed practicable to proceed with a city organization. It was felt especially by its promoters that the organization would help to promote temperance among the young men of the city, a subject which was of deep interest at the time.
The enterprise was initiated in a small conference held at the home of Dr. Hampden B. Jones in the month of October, 1877, followed by a larger conference for which the churches sent out invitations. After general discus- sion, particularly of the temperance phases, a committee was appointed to draft a constitution. This was adopted at an adjourned meeting, and officers were promptly elected to direct the inauguration of activities. The first board of directors was composed of George S. Harwood, George S. Trowbridge, George C. Dunne, F. M. Trow- bridge, E. B. Earle, E. W. Cate, J. M. Kellaway, H. B. Jones and Daniel E. Snow. A spirit of loyalty to the plan speedily awoke and the necessary support was given freely. For a time meetings were held at private houses or in church vestries, which were better than the small room of the Association in Eliot Block. During the first years of the Association women as well as men were admitted to the religious meetings. The Association interested itself in the distribution of Thanksgiving dinners to some of the poor families of the community.
The Young Men's Christian Association was incor- porated under the laws of the Commonwealth in 1891. Upon securing its charter, the Association moved from the small room in Eliot Block to rooms in Bacon's Block on Washington Street, where there was room for games
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and reading and where a social hall was possible. In 1895 Nonantum Hall was secured, where rooms with a southern exposure could be enjoyed. The next story contained space that could be used for a gymnasium, and it was equipped by friends of the Association, who made their gift on the condition that the Association would maintain it for one year under a competent director. This proved at once a decided stimulus to growth in membership. A Woman's Auxiliary was organized, and its members had the privilege of the gymnasium on certain days and hours. In 1895 the Association inaugurated educational classes in shorthand, sloyd, mechanical drawing, and vocal music. For the discussion of public questions a Congress was modelled upon the organization of the House of Repre- sentatives. In the winter before the Woman's Auxiliary gave a festival.
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