1936

December 13. Celebration of our 75th Year

Bishop Wm. Lawrence

The Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts (1893-1927). Photo credit: WikiCommons

Our fifth rector, The Rev. Dr. Phillips Endicott Osgood, said in his sermon:  “We are stewards of an inheritance, interpreters of a tradition”.  Organist Dr. Albert Snow composed an anthem for the service.  Bishop William Lawrence praised our first four wardens:

  • Edward Sprague Rand (1st senior warden), a trustworthy, public-spirited lawyer
  • his uncle William Richards Lawrence (1st junior warden), who had bought the land for our church
  • Benjamin Tyler Reed (2nd senior warden), who founded in Cambridge the Episcopal Theological School, which became the Episcopal Divinity School
  • Enoch Reddington Mudge (2nd junior warden), who later built St. Stephen’s Church, Lynn

For more detail, see Boston Globe, Dec. 14,1936, p. 4:  “Bishop Lawrence in Tribute to Early Emmanuel Wardens. Services Celebrate 75th Birthday of Church. Dr. Osgood Views Future”.

Seated on the right at his desk in our Emmanuel Room is  Dr. Osgood with The Rev. Ivol Ira Curtis (center), who became Bishop of Olympia.

 

1929

Upon the planned retirement of The Rev. Elwood Worcester, The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Martin Washburn became rector. For more about the Washburn tenure during the Great Depression, please see the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.

This image of “The Emmanuelists” honors men associated with the Emmanuel Movement during Worcester’s rectorship: (top row) William James, Richard C. Cabot, Joseph Hersey Pratt, Pierre Janet & (bottow row): Lyman Pierson Powell, Samuel McComb, Elwood Worcester, Isador Coriat, and Courtenay Baylor.

1913

Lynnwood Farnam

Lynnwood Farnam

When Weston Gale retired, Lynnwood Farnam became Emmanuel’s organist, a post he held until 1918, when he left to join the Canadian Army.  According to the L. F. Society, when the Music Committee asked what he would play for his audition, “He handed them a notebook containing a list of 200 pieces which he had memorized, saying “Anything in this book.”

For more about Lynnwood Farnam, see 1917, 1930, and History of Music at Emmanuel.  Listen to a recording of his playing via the the Royal Canadian College of Organists, whom we thank for this photo.

13 Mar. Bishop William Lawrence presided at the funeral of Silas Reed Anthony, which was attended by more than 400.  Born in 1863, he had become a Boston banker and served as Clerk of the Vestry (1887-97) and Jr. Warden (1907-13).  Assisting the bishop were the Rev. Dr. Samuel McComb and the Rev. Ralph Bray of Emmanuel and the Rev. Charles Clark of Church of the Ascension. Among the pallbearers were Sr. Warden Walter Cabot Baylies, William Endicott, Jr.,  Philip L. & Richard M. Saltonstall, and several Anthony and Weeks relatives.

31 May.  Nora Iasigi, daughter of parishioners Amelia Gore Iasigi and the late Oscar Iasigi, married at St. Paul’s Church, Stockbridge, US Solicitor General William Marshall Bullitt, great uncle of our parishioner Julian Bullitt.

 

1891

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

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.