Author Archives: Elizabeth Richardson

1895

Posted on by

The Rev. James Yeames, Superintendent of the newly-established Emmanuel House, reported in the Year Book of Emmanuel Parish that two rooms and a hallway were combined to create a meeting space for about a hundred people on the first floor.  Its treasurer Walter Baylies reported that $1778 covered the expenses for its first year.

June 16.  The first service of Evening Prayer with hymns was held there and weekly thereafter.  Throughout the next two months, a Summer Play School was held by the Episcopal City Mission for about a hundred boys & girls.

September. A Boys Club of about sixty members began meeting on Tuesday evenings.  A Children’s House was held on Fridays at 6:30.

 

1893

Posted on by

Anne Bigelow Lawrence Rotch. Portrait by Chester Harding in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Anne Bigelow Lawrence Rotch died. The daughter of Katherine Bigelow and Abbott Lawrence, Annie had married Benjamin S. Rotch in 1846 . Their daughter Aimee (Mrs. Winthrop Henry) Sargent gave our sanctuary’s Rotch reredos in memory of her, her husband, and two of their children, Arthur & Edith. They are buried in a family plot (#3004) on Bellwort Path, Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

 

Another son, Abbott Lawrence Rotch (1861-1912) married Margaret Randolph Anderson (1866-1912).  A meterologist and astronomer, he served as our junior warden (1904-1906).

Jr. Warden Abbott Lawrence Rotch. Credit: Wikicommons

John Singer Sargent. 1903 portrait of Margaret R.A. (Mrs. Abbott Lawrence) Rotch.
Thanks to Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

1892

Posted on by

Rector Leighton Parks reported in the Year-Book of Emmanuel Parish that the number of communicants had grown during his tenure of fourteen years from 210 to 500. He expected the Sunday school, which had 75 children when he arrived, to reach 300 children by the year’s end.  Expressing concern for expansion of the church’s facilities to accommodate this growth, he had asked the Vestry to investigate buying land west of the City for a new church.

1891

Posted on by
bronze statue of Brooks outside Trinity Church

Augustus St. Gaudens’ bronze of Jesus blessing Phillips Brooks was installed on Boylston St. in 1910.

14 Oct.  Our second rector, the Rev. Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton, preached at the installation of the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks at Trinity Church, which had been recently constructed under his direction in nearby Copley Square.  Vinton was a mentor of Brooks, whose prayer our rector, the Rev. Pamela Werntz,  prays (in modified form) at the start of her sermons:  O God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Later in the year Brooks was elected Bishop of Massachusetts.

1890

Posted on by

Feb. 8.  Under the direction of the Rev. Walter E. Smith, Chapel of the Ascension moved to 1906 Washington St. and was consecrated by Bishop H. Paddock as Church of the Ascension.  Our founding rector F.D. Huntington, by then Bishop of Central New York, returned to preach the inaugural sermon.  At that time its Sunday School had 15 teachers and 200 registered students, and there were 175 congregants.

1888

Posted on by
  • 17 November.  Walter Cabot Baylies, Harvard Class of 1884, who became senior warden in 1907, married Charlotte (Lottie) Upham of 122 Beacon St., daughter of Emmanuel founder George Phineas and Sarah Sprague Upham. The Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks presided at what the Boston Globe called a “brilliant Saturday wedding”, which filled the church with a “large and distinctly fashionable audience.”

1886

Posted on by

Our mission to the South End, renamed Chapel of the Ascension, moved to 69 West Concord St.. Minister-in-Charge, the Rev. Walter E.C. Smith expanded its youth activities.

Parishioner Annie Lawrence Lamb gave funds in memory of her father, Benjamin Smith Rotch (1817-1882), to found Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan.

Rear of Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan, which was designed by Arthur Rotch. Photo credit: Ch. of the Holy Spirit

1884

Posted on by

Edward Sprague Rand (1809-84, senior warden 1860-64)

Jan 18.  SS City of Columbus was wrecked on Devil’s Bridge off Martha’s Vineyard. A group of Wampanoags heroically managed to rescue several men. All women and children had perished when an icy wave swept them overboard.

Among the 65 passengers drowned were parishioner Oscar Iasigi, who was the Turkish consul for New England and our founding senior warden Edward Sprague Rand, who was on his way to Florida with his wife, daughter-in-law, grandson, and son, The Rev. C. A. Rand, rector of Trinity Church, Haverhill. All were lost. 

 

1883

Posted on by

Memorial bronze bust of The Rev. Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton by Augustus St. Gaudens was installed in the nave.  It was finally dedicated in 1894. For details please see an article in the Boston Daily Globe.

The family of the late Benjamin Smith Rotch endowed the Rotch Travelling Scholarship for architects.

See also