USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 29
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At first, a clinic for the care of the tubercular was established under a visiting nurse who treated patients in their homes. In 1912, the association purchased 53 acres southwest of the city, near Lebanon Avenue, and there established an open air camp. The large farmhouse on the property was converted into a sana- torium.
In 1915, with funds left under the will of Dr. Coolidge, con- struction began on the Frederick Shurtleff Coolidge Memorial Hospital, which was built near the farmhouse. Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, widow of Dr. Coolidge, gave $100,000 to endow the sanatorium and the memorial hospital. Together, the buildings could care for about thirty patients.
One of the spectacular advances of modern medicine has been the prevention and cure of tuberculosis. In recent years there was a steady decline in patients seeking care at the Coolidge Memorial Hospital, and in 1953 it closed its doors, having served its purpose well. The property has since been sold.
Riggs Clinic
A community health agency of growing importance is the Riggs Clinic of Berkshire County, a development of the work
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begun in 1907 at Stockbridge by Dr. Austen Fox Riggs, a noted psychiatrist, one of the pioneers in mental health. In 1920, the Austen Riggs Foundation established a mental hygiene and neu- rological clinic at the House of Mercy Hospital, now Pittsfield General.
In 1923, a Social Service Department and a Child Guidance Clinic were provided. The clinics operated to capacity from 1920 to 1925, in which year they moved from the Miller Build- ing to larger quarters in the Butler Building on East Street. The growing number of patients necessitated an increase of staff from one social worker and a secretary to three social workers and two secretaries. The Austen Riggs Center provided the services of its psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinic directors.
The Riggs Clinic was admitted to the Pittsfield Community Chest in 1938, but this did not solve the institution's financial problems, which came to a head early in 1948 when the Austen Riggs Center decided that, as its principal objective was mental health research and treatment of patients in residence at Stock- bridge, it would discontinue its out-patient treatment of Pitts- field and Berkshire County residents.
The clinic's Pittsfield Advisory Committee engaged an expert, Dr. Abraham Z. Barhash, to make a survey of the value of the clinic, its relation to the community, and its method of opera- tion. The Barhash report recommended that the clinic be con- tinued-but as a community clinic, rather than as a branch of the Austen Riggs Center. The recommendation was accepted, and in 1950 the Riggs Clinic was incorporated as a non-profit psychiatric service. The Junior League of Pittsfield contributed $2,500 to its support, and later another substantial sum. While the Austen Riggs Center still bears much of the cost, the Pitts- field Community Chest increasingly allocates more to meet operating deficits. The Community Chests of other Berkshire communities contribute. The institution continues to receive professional direction from and the services of outstanding psychiatrists and psychologists at the Austen Riggs Center.
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XV
Churches
C HURCH INFLUENCE IN PITTSFIELD has been strong from the beginning, ever since the 1760s when the first meeting- house, a crude wooden structure, was built approximately where the First Church of Christ, Congregational now stands on Park Square.
At that time, the Congregational church was the official church in Massachusetts, as in early Puritan days. It had special status and privileges which it enjoyed down to 1832 when all denominations in the Commonwealth were placed upon an equal footing as voluntary fellowships. Long before that hap- pened, "heretics" had come to live in Pittsfield and were tol- erated-Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Shakers, among the first.
Occasional Catholic services were held in Pittsfield in the 1830s, conducted in private houses by visiting priests. The com- municants were largely Irish workers who had come to help in building the present Boston and Albany railroad. St. Joseph's parish was organized in 1844 and erected a small wooden church on Melville Street. Growing slowly, the parish began building in 1864 its present large stone church on North Street, completing it in 1889. Meantime, in 1869, a Jewish congrega- tion had been established-the Society Anshe Amonim-and two more were formed by 1916.
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With the rapid growth of the city and its industries came new large groups to man the factories-principally Italian, Polish, and French Canadian. Almost all of these were Catholic in belief. To provide for them, the original St. Joseph's parish has had to be divided many times. There are now ten Roman Catholic parishes in the city. Wholly Protestant down to the 1840s, Pittsfield today has also a large and active Catholic church membership.
Protestant
First Church of Christ, Congregational
By far the oldest congregation in the city, the First Church of Christ, Congregational, celebrated its 150th birthday in 1914. It then occupied, as it still does, the grey stone structure built in 1853 on the north side of Park Square, approximately on the site of the first small wooden meetinghouse erected by the infant community in the 1760s, for many decades the only house of worship in the town. In 1916, with the Reverend James E. Gregg as pastor, the church observed the 100th anniversary of its New Year's sunrise prayer meeting, in which the pastors and the members of many other churches participated.
During World War I, more than 100 members of the First Church entered the armed forces. Six of them lost their lives in service, and their names are preserved on a bronze plaque in the church. The congregation contributed much to Red Cross activities and other war work.
In 1918, the Reverend Mr. Gregg departed to become prin- cipal of Hampton Institute, the renowned Negro school at Hampton, Virginia. Later, he ministered to a church in Water- bury, Connecticut. Upon his retirement, he returned to Pittsfield to make his home in the city until he died in 1946, mourned by his former parishioners and a multitude of friends as a "man of truly saintly character."
The First Church was fortunate in its choice of Pastor Gregg's successor-the Reverend Hugh Gordon Ross. Born and brought up in Scotland, he had served two pastorates in South Africa and one on our West Coast before coming to Pittsfield, bringing to his sermons and his other pastoral work a broad and
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diversified background. Thinking that many people hesitated to come to church but were eager for some religion, he initiated a series of non-denominational Sunday evening services at the Union Square Theatre, which continued for several years and were conceded to be "of great benefit to all the churches."
Less conservative in some of his ideas than his more strict parishioners, Pastor Ross pained their consciences a bit by allow- ing his children to engage in sports on Sunday afternoons. On occasion, he enjoyed a game of bridge and a good cigar. During his pastorate, a few of the old puritanical bars came down and, as remarked by a church historian, Miss Lucy Ballard, "appar- ently nobody's soul suffered thereby."
Deciding to return to his native Scotland in 1928, Pastor Ross was succeeded by the Reverend John Gratton, whose pastorate -the third longest in the history of the church-continued for twenty-four years. They were difficult years, embracing as they did the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, and the Korean War.
In 1930, soon after the new pastor assumed office, a commit- tee was appointed to undertake the rebuilding of the parish house. The onset of the Depression made this obviously im- possible, and the committee resigned in 1932. At the same time, however, the congregation set aside $10,000 as the nucleus of a Parish House Fund.
Up to this time, in accordance with an ancient Puritan tradi- tion, the church had been financed in large part by the rental of pews. There had been increasing objections to this, and the question had been debated again and again. Finally, in 1934, the congregation voted to do away with this undemocratic system, and the pews became free. "Contrary to the fears of many," as Miss Ballard noted, "the financial situation of the church has not deteriorated."
The celebration of the 175th anniversary of the First Church in 1939 revived enthusiasm for erecting a new parish house. A building committee was appointed, and plans were under way. But the project again had to be postponed with the advent of World War II.
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Many younger men and women of the parish-172, in all- entered the armed forces. Under a Servicemen's Committee headed by the pastor's wife, Mrs. John Gratton, the congrega- tion organized Red Cross work and other activities to aid and comfort those serving in our military forces and those of our allies. A bronze plaque in the church, dedicated in 1947, bears the names of the nine members of the congregation who gave their lives during the war.
Immediately after the war, the question of a new parish house was taken up once more. A building committee was ap- pointed early in 1946. It also became evident that the old organ installed in 1912 was rapidly wearing out, and that $40,000 would be needed to rebuild it. A campaign for funds began in 1950, and more than $150,000 was soon raised in cash and pledges.
The interior of the old parish house joined to the church at the rear was entirely removed, leaving only the outer walls. A second story to provide many additional classrooms was in- stalled in what had been the high-ceilinged auditorium. Better kitchen and other facilities were added. The remodeled parish house was dedicated early in 1952 to the triumphant peals of the church's new organ.
In 1919, a house at 130 Wendell Avenue had been bought to serve as a parsonage. It continued to be used down to 1952 when the church was given a house at 152 Wendell Avenue in the will of Mrs. E. A. Jones, and the old parsonage was sold. A house was bought on Wellesley Street for the use of the as- sistant minister.
Shortly after the completion of the new parish house which he had done so much to promote, the Reverend Mr. Gratton re- signed. Wishing to take a smaller church, he assumed the pas- torate of the Congregational Church in Old Hadley, where he soon died. His successor at the First Church, the present pastor, the Reverend William Coolidge Hart, had been a chaplain in the Air Force during World War II. He then served for five years as associate minister in Boston's historic old South Church
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before being recalled to service in the Korean conflict. He en- tered his ministry at First Church early in 1953. The Reverend Robert B. Dennett is associate minister.
The by-laws of the church, slightly amended in 1938, were again amended in 1945 when a new office was created-that of Moderator, with Sheridan R. Cate first serving in the post. A new set of by-laws was adopted in 1953, under which the church and the parish were completely merged at last. The Standing Committee of the parish became the Executive Board of the church and assumed the governmental functions pre- viously performed by the parish. At the same time, the congre- gation changed its name to the First Church of Christ in Pitts- field, Congregational.
For a half century, the French Evangelical Church and the Italian mission had held their services in the First Church in their native languages under their own pastor. But as more and more in this group learned English, the need for separate services declined. Early in 1955, these separate churches were dissolved and all members received into the First Church. Their pastor for thirty-eight years, the Reverend Ulrich Gay, became associate to the ministers.
On January 1, 1956, the First Church continued one of the community's oldest traditions by celebrating the 140th consecu- tive observance of its annual New Year's Sunrise Prayer Meet- ing, in which the ministers and members of many denomina- tions participate in a heartening example of Christian brother- hood.
South Congregational
In 1848, because the congregation of the First Church had grown so large that it could not be accommodated in the old Bulfinch meetinghouse on Park Square, it was agreed that some members might withdraw and organize another congregation.
Becoming the South Congregational Church, they began building a meetinghouse on upper South Street, next to the old Union meetinghouse. During construction, fire broke out and utterly destroyed both buildings. Starting again, they erected
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and, in 1850, dedicated the handsome wooden church in which the congregation has since worshipped. Originally, the building had a tall white steeple, long a landmark in the town. But a winter gale took it down early in 1882 and it was not replaced, the present belfry being substituted.
The growth of the church was steady, and by 1916 its con- gregation numbered almost 730 members, ministered to by the Reverend Payson Pierce, who came to the church in 1908 and remained until 1923, being succeeded by the Reverend Vincent G. Burns.
After World War I, a $45,000 building and improvement program was undertaken. To provide more space for the Sunday School and for group activities, plans were drawn for a new parish house. At first, only the basement was built and a boiler installed so that the sanctuary might have steam heat. Much work was done to repair and renovate the church. The sanctuary was rearranged and an organ installed, the gift of Mrs. J. S. Wolfe and her daughter May in memory of Deacon Wolfe and a daughter, Minnie.
In 1921, the church held its first annual Christmas carol vesper service. This beautiful service usually filled the church to overflowing and was held every year until 1953, when Anthony Reese resigned as director of choirs, having served for 41 years. Music at South Church suffered another blow in 1953 when its organist for almost 35 years, C. Philip Goewey, left to make his home in the South. During the late 1920s, under the Reverend Robert G. Armstrong, the church successfully carried out a vig- orous building program. Thanks largely to the tireless work of the women's organizations, the congregation completed and furnished the parish house, which was dedicated in 1930.
In the early 1930s the custom was established of exchanging pulpits with Temple Anshe Amonim, a Jewish congregation. South Church now unites with the First Baptist Church for services during summer months. Under its next minister, the Reverend Russell B. Richardson, monthly Family Night suppers were instituted. A church paper, the Chronicler, began publica- tion in 1937. Rechristened the Epistle and written largely for
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laymen, the semi-monthly paper has grown to several pages of ministerial comment, announcements, and church news.
The first successful men's group at South Church, and per- haps the first in any local church, was the Men's Brotherhood, organized in 1939. At its annual meeting in May, the group makes a Civic Award to a local person who has served Pittsfield outstandingly. The first citation went to the late Mayor Allen H. Bagg. One woman has won the award-Mrs. I. S. F. Dodd, for her volunteer work in transcribing books into Braille for the blind.
Dying in 1939, Robert H. Bartlett, a member of the congre- gation since 1873, left his entire estate to the church. The au- ditorium in the parish house was named Bartlett Hall as a memorial to him.
Leaving to become a chaplain in World War II, the Reverend Mr. Richardson was succeeded by the Reverend Floyd L. Roberts, who had just returned from Japan where he and his wife had been doing educational and missionary work. During his ministry, a member of the church anonymously gave money to replace the greenish-yellow glass in the windows with clear glass and to install inside shutters, which restored the windows to their original New England simplicity of style. The sanctuary had to be completely restored a few years later when a large part of the ceiling fell during a thunderstorm, crushing pews and causing considerable other damage.
In June 1950, the Reverend Mr. Roberts was killed in an automobile accident while returning with his wife from a pas- toral call in North Adams. The pastor's tragic death threw a pall of sorrow over the church's celebration of its 100th anni- versary in November 1950. But the occasion was duly marked with special services and a banquet. The pastor's widow, May Roberts, after recovering from critical injuries, returned to Japan to teach at Kobe College.
The minister since early 1951 has been the Reverend Ray- mond E. Gibson, a young man serving his second pastorate. His assistant as associate minister for education has been the Rev- erend Herbert W. Keebler, Jr.
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In the fall of 1953, South Church became the first Protestant church in the city to establish a released-time program of re- ligious education for high school students. The church now has two services on Sunday mornings. The second is broadcast over local Station WBEC twice a month.
Second Congregational
The Second Congregational Church, a Negro congregation, was founded in 1846 with seven members-four men and three women. The congregation bought and reconstructed the old Wesleyan Methodist Church on First Street, and for decades worshipped there. A former slave, the Reverend Samuel Harri- son, became pastor in 1849 and, except for service as a chaplain with the Union forces during the Civil War, occupied the pul- pit to his death in 1901.
His successor was the Reverend T. Nelson Baker, who served for thirty-eight years, down to 1939, when he was succeeded by the present pastor, the Reverend Harold L. Nevers. In 1941, the congregation moved its place of worship from the old build- ing on First Street to the John A. White house at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Onota Street. In 1946, the centenary of its founding, the congregation opened a campaign to raise funds for building a new and more adequate house of worship, with facilities for youth and other activities adjoining.
Pilgrim Memorial, Congregational
The Pilgrim Memorial Church grew out of a Sunday School established in 1863 by the First Church in a schoolhouse on Peck's Road. Organized by seventy-nine members in 1897, the congregation called the Reverend Raymond Calkins to become pastor, and in 1898 built and dedicated its present church, a pleasing stone structure on Wahconah Street.
The Reverend James E. Gregg became pastor in 1903. From 1909 until 1917 the Reverend Warren S. Archibald ministered to the parish, when he was succeeded by the Reverend Harold G. Vincent, who served until 1926.
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During the next pastorate, that of the Reverend Kenneth D. Beckwith, the Jane Austen Russell Parish Hall was built and dedicated as a center of religious, social, community, and rec- reational activities. In 1932, the Reverend Wilfred H. Bunker became minister, serving until 1938 when he was succeeded by the Reverend Walter B. Wiley, who had long been a mis- sionary to the families in the International Settlement at Istan- bul, Turkey. Upon the Reverend Mr. Wiley's return to Turkey in 1946, he was succeeded by the present pastor, the Reverend Frank C. Van Cleef, Jr. The church still has nine of its charter members.
First Baptist
Stemming from a Baptist society formed by Valentine Rath- bun in 1772, the First Baptist Church, one of the oldest and largest churches in the city, had in 1954 a total membership of 1,379, and a resident membership of 1,201. Of its $66,297 bud- get for the year, more than $23,000 was spent to forward its missionary program.
The pastor of the church from 1908 to 1918, the Reverend Charles P. MacGregor, was succeeded by the Reverend Maurice A. Levy, who came from the Greene Avenue Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. During the latter's pastorate, which con- tinued to 1932, the congregation sold for $145,000 its old church, long a landmark on North Street where the Onota Building now stands, and purchased a new site at the corner of South and Church streets.
A large parish house and educational building was completed at the rear of this lot in 1926. The assembly hall in this building was used for church services until 1930 when the church proper was completed-a large brick structure comfortably seating more than 800 people.
The Reverend Paul L. Sturgis, a recent graduate of the Col- gate-Rochester Divinity School, came to minister to the parish in 1932. During his pastorate, the church increased its member- ship, revised its constitution, adopted a Sunday morning unified service in two parts-the Church at Worship, and the Church
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at Study-and had its funds increased by a surprisingly large bequest of approximately $400,000 from the estate of Nelson J. Lawton, a devoted member of the congregation. Contempo- raries knew Lawton as a frugal businessman, but it was assumed that he was possessed of merely moderate means. As requested by him, $20,000 of the bequest was set aside to provide income for the support of music in the church.
In 1943, upon the departure of the Reverend Mr. Sturgis for Redlands, California, the church called its present pastor, the Reverend Christian B. Jensen, who had been serving at the First Baptist Church in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Previously, in 1937, the congregation had enlarged its staff to include a director of education, naming Miss Bettina Gilbert to the post. Resigning in 1942, she was succeeded by Miss B. Myra Whittaker. Upon the latter's departure, the congregation decided to install an associate minister to have charge of the church's educational program and youth work. The associate ministers have been the Reverends Phillips B. Henderson and Herbert J. Murray, Jr.
In 1946 the church joined in the crusade of the American Baptist Convention (then the Northern Baptist Convention) to raise funds for a missionary program known as the "World Mission Crusade." The local church pledged almost $25,000. In 1951 the church adopted a new form of financing known as the "sector project" and continued this method for three years, raising the contributions of church members by almost half.
The church maintains close affiliations with the American Baptist Convention, the Massachusetts Baptist Convention, the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and the World Council of Churches. In 1946, the local church entertained the Massachu- setts Baptist Convention for its annual meeting.
First Methodist
Methodist meetings were held in Pittsfield as early as 1788. Regular services were held after the formal organization of a congregation in 1791. The congregation built a church on West
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Street in 1800, moving to East Street in 1829 and in 1852 to a new and larger church at the corner of Fenn and First streets, where the congregation worshipped for more than twenty years.
The present First Methodist Church, at the head of Allen Street, was dedicated in 1874. For many years it offered the only auditorium of any size in the community and was used frequent- ly for lectures, concerts, and civic celebrations. The mortgage on this large church was burned with prayers and happy ceremony in 1911. In 1914, during the pastorate of the Reverend John A. Hamilton, an offshoot of the church, the Trinity Methodist, was established in the rapidly growing Morningside section to the northeast.
Dr. Hamilton was succeeded as pastor of the First Methodist Church in 1917 by the Reverend Franklin J. Kennedy, who re- mained until 1922, when he was called to the First Methodist Church in New Haven and was succeeded by the Reverend M. Stephen James. During these years, an innovation of conse- quence was made in the church-"the best investment this church ever made," declared one of its parishioners and his- torians, Miss Mary A. Bristol.
Dr. Kennedy suggested to the Official Board the appointment of a woman as the pastor's assistant-Mrs. Mary M. S. Havi- land. The suggestion was adopted, and for seven years Mrs. Haviland helped minister to the needs of the congregation, organizing the Women's Council, a most effective unit in the work of the church. Mrs. Haviland, in turn, was responsible for another far-reaching innovation. Fifty women joined her in signing the following letter to the pastor in 1927:
Dear Mr. James:
The undersigned members of the First Methodist Church of this city desire to express to you their opinion that the time has come when the women of the church, who have long borne the burden of the work, should have some voice in its business affairs and the methods of conducting the same, and we firm- ly believe that this opinion is shared by a majority, if not all, of the women members of the church.
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