- The Rev. Debbie Little (Wyman) joined our vestry for a 3-year term, after which she founded Ecclesia Ministries, which maintains an office and programs at Emmanuel.
- The Rt. Rev. David Elliot Johnson terminated the Rev. Michael Kuhn‘s pastoral relationship with Emmanuel.
Tag Archives: Diocese of MA
1984
- The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts 1784-1984: A Mission to Remember, Proclaim, and Fulfill by Mark J. Duffy, Director of the Archives of the Episcopal Church, was published by our diocese with references to our missions. Bard R. Hamlen wrote its chapter on Emmanuel (pp. 162-6).
- June. Carolyn Roosevelt joined the Parish Choir, directed by Andy Castiglione, and has been its faithful soprano ever since.
1892
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.
Our mission Church of the Ascension’s yellow-brick Gothic Revival building was completed at 1906 Washington St. Parishioner Francis Richmond Allen would direct in 1901 structural improvements and an enlargement of its parish house. On the National Register of Historic Places, it now houses the Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev Carlton Putnam Mills served as Minister in Charge.
Church of the Ascension, 1906 Washington St., South End, is now the Grant AME Church.
1886
Our mission to the South End, which had since 1881 been called Emmanuel Chapel, was renamed Chapel of the Ascension when it 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
1878
The Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks became our third rector.
He requested free seats at afternoon services, which required releases of pew holders’ rights. For biographical information on Dr. Parks please see the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.
The Dakota League was incorporated into the Massachusetts branch of the Women’s Auxiliary to the Episcopal Board of Missions, which had formed in 1871. Since its founding here in 1864, the League had raised $56K for Native Americans and $8500 for freedmen, according to the Boston Evening Transcript of 18 October.
1867
Parishioner Benjamin Tyler Reed gave $100,000 for the establishment of a school of theology in Cambridge MA, which was incorporated as the Episcopal Theological School. For its 50th anniversary in July 1917, John H. Wilson wrote a brief history on p. 4 of The Witness, which listed among its first board of trustees Emmanuelite Edward Sprague Rand. Early trustees affiliated with Emmanuel included Gov. Alexander H. Rice, Clement Fay, and John H. Burnham.
See also 2021.
photo credit: WikiCommons
E.S. Rand Jr., Harvard College Class of 1855
C.K. Fay (1845-98)
Gov. A.H. Rice
1864
The Rev. Mary Douglass Burnham, 1899, by permission of SUNY Upstate Medical University
Having learned of a recent massacre of Sioux Indians from her friend Evelina Bogart of Albany NY, parishioner Mary Douglass Saville (Mrs. Wesley) Burnham (1832-1904) founded the Dakota League, a mission of our diocese (and eventually other Boston-area churches) to support Native Americans in the Dakota Territory.
Isabella Stewart Gardner by John Singer Sargent, courtesy of the Gardner Museum via WikiCommons
April 10.Isabella Stewart Gardner was confirmed at Emmanuel by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Manton Eastburn, Bishop of Massachusetts. It was the fourth anniversary of her marriage to John Lowell Gardner, Jr., who had purchased Pew 28 in 1862. Although the Stewarts had been members of Grace Church in New York City, their children were not confirmed until they reached adulthood. Louise Hall Tharp in her biography Mrs. Jack hypothesizes that Isabella’s confirmation “might have been a sort of thank-offering for the child she so much wanted”. John Lowell 3rd, born on June 18, 1863, unfortunately died on March 15, 1865. His baptism and burial are recorded in our parish register. The Gardners, who lived nearby at 152 Beacon St., later raised their orphaned nephews, sons of Jack’s brother Joseph, also owned a pew until his death in 1875.
Take a visual tour of her museum and its collection at Google’s Cultural Institute.