First Unitarian Church (Somerville, Massachusetts)

	First Unitarian Church
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	The former First Unitarian Church, photographed in 2009.
Location	130 Highland Ave, Somerville, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°23′15.2″N 71°6′5.3″W / 42.387556°N 71.101472°W
Built	1894-95
Architect	Hartwell & Richardson
Architectural style	Richardsonian Romanesque
NRHP reference No.	89001264
Added to NRHP	September 18, 1989

The former First Unitarian Church is a historic church building at 130 Highland Avenue in Somerville, Massachusetts. The stone church was built in 1894 for a Unitarian congregation. It was designed by Hartwell & Richardson and is a good example of Richardsonian Romanesque design.^[2] The building presently (2022) houses the Mission Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Building history

The congregation that built this church was established in 1844 and built its first church in Central Hill Park in the same year. The new building was designed by architect Richard Bond of Boston and built by Louis C. Edgerly of Somerville.^[3] It was completed in 1845 and in 1846 the congregation called its first pastor, John Turner Sargent, an associate and defender of Theodore Parker, the transcendentalist.^[4] The building was destroyed by fire in 1852 and replaced in 1853-54 with a new church designed by architect Thomas W. Silloway,^[5] which burned in 1867.^[6] The third and last church in Central Hill Park was completed in 1869. In 1893 the City purchased the building as part of the site for the new Somerville High School, which was begun the same year. The fourth church, a block up Highland Avenue, was begun in 1894 to a design by Hartwell & Richardson, who also designed the new high school and the Broadway Winter Hill Congregational Church. They designed the building in the then-popular Richardsonian Romanesque style, named for Henry Hobson Richardson, who was not related to the architect of the Somerville church.^[2] A Gothic Revival design was also proposed by Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue but was rejected.^[7] The new church was completed in 1895, after which the old building was demolished.^[4]

In 1930 the Second Unitarian Church of Somerville, organized in 1891, merged with the First Unitarian Church.^[8] In 1975 the congregation was dissolved and in 1976 the building was purchased by the Mission Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, an Apostolic Pentacostalist church, which continues to occupy it in 2022.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.^[1]

Architecture

The First Unitarian Church building is located on the south side of Highland Avenue, at its western corner with Trull Lane, about one block west of Somerville's cluster of civic buildings on Central Hill. The church is a handsome stone structure, with a tall and steeply pitched gable roof, and a square tower at its right front corner. Entrances are located on the north-facing front facade at either end of the gable, which has a bank of five rectangular stained-glass windows below three tall round-arch stained glass windows in the gable. The tower rises through two levels to a belfry which has tripled round-arch louvered openings on each side, with a fourth stage housing a multi-faced clock with stone piers at the corners rising to pyramidal caps. The tower is capped by a slate pyramidal roof.^[2] The building is a fine local example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style for which its architects were well known.^[2]

Stained glass

The church features extensive stained glass, including several memorial windows. The largest of these, in the center of the Highland Avenue facade, depicts Christ healing the sick and was dedicated in memory of Columbus Tyler (1805-1881) and Mary Elizabeth (Sawyer) Tyler (1806-1889), long-time supporters of the church. This is flanked by windows representing the Angel of Charity and the Angel of Faith, dedicated to Rufus B. Stickney and Nathan and Sally Tufts, respectively.^[9]

Gallery

The congregation's former building in Central Hill Park, completed in 1869.
The former First Unitarian Church, photographed soon after completion in 1897.
The church tower, photographed in 2009.

References

^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "NRHP nomination for First Unitarian Church". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
^ R. M. Hodges, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner-stone of a House of Worship for the First Congregational Society in Somerville (Cambridge: Metcalf & Company, 1844)
^ ^a ^b Somerville, Past and Present, ed. Edward A. Samuels and Henry H. Kimball (Boston: Samuels and Kimball, 1897)
^ "New Unitarian Church at Somerville" in Boston Daily Atlas, February 19, 1853, 1.
^ Rev. Lucius R. Eastman Jr., "Somerville and its Churches" in Congregational Quarterly 10, no. 3 (July 1868): 241-244.
^ "Illustrations" in American Architect and Building News 46, no. 980 (October 6, 1894)
^ The Building as Church, Museum of the Modern Renaissance
^ "Somerville's New Church" in Boston Daily Globe, September 7, 1895, 12.

External links

Mission Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ web site
The historical records of the First Unitarian Church in Somerville are in the Andover-Harvard Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[nris-1] "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.

[NRHP-2] "NRHP nomination for First Unitarian Church". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-02-28.

[3] R. M. Hodges, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner-stone of a House of Worship for the First Congregational Society in Somerville (Cambridge: Metcalf & Company, 1844)

[Somerville-4] Somerville, Past and Present, ed. Edward A. Samuels and Henry H. Kimball (Boston: Samuels and Kimball, 1897)

[5] "New Unitarian Church at Somerville" in Boston Daily Atlas, February 19, 1853, 1.

[6] Rev. Lucius R. Eastman Jr., "Somerville and its Churches" in Congregational Quarterly 10, no. 3 (July 1868): 241-244.

[7] "Illustrations" in American Architect and Building News 46, no. 980 (October 6, 1894)

[8] The Building as Church, Museum of the Modern Renaissance

[9] "Somerville's New Church" in Boston Daily Globe, September 7, 1895, 12.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

v t e List of Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist churches
Australia	Unitarian Church of South Australia
Canada	First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto
Ireland	Unitarian Church in Ireland
Romania	Unitarian Church of Transylvania Unitarian church, Dârjiu
United Kingdom	Bank Street Unitarian Chapel Billingshurst Unitarian Chapel Brighton Unitarian Church Brook Street Chapel, Knutsford Brookfield Unitarian Church Chowbent Chapel Cross Street Chapel Dean Row Chapel, Wilmslow Essex Street Chapel Fulwood Old Chapel Gellionnen Chapel General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches Hastings Unitarian Church Horsham Unitarian Church King Edward Street Chapel, Macclesfield Meadrow Unitarian Chapel Mill Hill Chapel Unitarian Meeting House, Newcastle-under-Lyme Newington Green Unitarian Church Norcliffe Chapel Northiam Unitarian Chapel Nottage General Baptist & Unitarian Church Octagon Chapel, Norwich Richmond and Putney Unitarian Church Rivington Unitarian Chapel Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel Shrewsbury Unitarian Church Taunton Unitarian Chapel Todmorden Unitarian Church Toxteth Unitarian Chapel Underbank Chapel Ullet Road Unitarian Church Unitarian Meeting House, Ipswich Upper Chapel York Unitarian Chapel
United States	Alaska Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship California First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles First Unitarian Church of Oakland First Unitarian Church of San Jose First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation Pacific Unitarian Church Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside Colorado Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder Connecticut Unitarian Church in Westport Unitarian Universalist Church Universalist Church of West Hartford District of Columbia All Souls Church, Unitarian Universalist National Memorial Church Georgia First Universalist Church Hawaii First Unitarian Church of Honolulu Illinois Beverly Unitarian Church Channing-Murray Foundation First Unitarian Church of Chicago Third Unitarian Church Unity Temple Universalist Unitarian Church of Joliet Indiana Temple Israel Iowa First Unitarian Church First Universalist Church of Cedar Rapids Universalist Church Maine Dexter Universalist Church First Universalist Church Pittsfield Universalist Church Stockton Springs Community Church Universalist-Unitarian Church Maryland Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church First Unitarian Church Massachusetts All Souls Church Arlington Street Church Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church Brattle Street Church First Parish in Cambridge First Church in Boston First Church in Roxbury First Church in Salem First Church of Christ, Unitarian First Parish Church (Duxbury, Massachusetts) First Parish Church (Taunton, Massachusetts) First Parish Church (Waltham, Massachusetts) First Parish Church in Plymouth First Parish Church of Dorchester First Parish Church, Arlington Massachusetts First Parish in Malden First Parish of Sudbury First Parish Unitarian Church First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Scituate First Religious Society Church and Parish Hall First Unitarian Church (Peabody, Massachusetts) First Unitarian Church (Somerville, Massachusetts) First Unitarian Church (Stoneham, Massachusetts) First Unitarian Society in Newton First Universalist Church (Provincetown, Massachusetts) First Universalist Church (Salem, Massachusetts) First Universalist Church (Somerville, Massachusetts) Follen Church Society-Unitarian Universalist Housatonic Congregational Church King's Chapel North Parish Church Old Ship Church Second Unitarian Church Theodore Parker Unitarian Universalist Church Unitarian Church of Barnstable Unitarian Memorial Church Unitarian Society Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford and the Osgood House United First Parish Church Universalist Society Meetinghouse Wollaston Unitarian Church Michigan Barn Church First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit Unitarian Universalist Church Minnesota First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis Nebraska First Unitarian Church of Omaha New Hampshire First Universalist Church Peterborough Unitarian Church South Parish Unitarian Church New Jersey Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit Old Stone Church New York Chapin Memorial Church Christ Church First Unitarian Church of Rochester First Unitarian Church of Rochester (building) First Universalist Church First Universalist Church of Portageville First Unitarian Congregational Society First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York Pullman Memorial Universalist Church Second Unitarian Church Unitarian Church of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo North Carolina Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Long View Center The Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte Ohio All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church Apostolic Bethlehem Temple Church First Unitarian Church First Unitarian Church of Marietta First Universalist Church of Lyons, Ohio First Universalist Church of Olmsted Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent Ohio Universalist Church of Westfield Center Oklahoma All Souls Unitarian Church Oregon First Congregational Church of Oregon City Philadelphia First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia First Universalist Church of Sharpsville Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster Rhode Island Bell Street Chapel First Unitarian Church of Providence First Universalist Church South Carolina Liberty Universalist Church and Feasterville Academy Historic District Unitarian Church in Charleston Tennessee Church of the River Vermont Cavendish Universalist Church Unitarian Church Virginia Mount Vernon Unitarian Church Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Washington University Unitarian Church Wisconsin Bradford Community Church First Unitarian Church First Unitarian Society of Madison First Universalist Church United Unitarian and Universalist Church Unity Chapel