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.
Tag Archives: rectors
1891
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.
1888
- 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.”
1883
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
- Timeline: 1869 & 1882
- Early Clergy Views on Slavery
- Vinton chapter in our centennial history
1879
Rector Leighton Parks obtained releases from pew holders to allow for a free afternoon service, which soon became a popular evening service for a congregation as large as the Sunday morning service. He was known for short, pithy sermons and implemented Bible classes for all ages.
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.
1874
Our second rector, The Rev. Dr. A.H. Vinton, presided at the funeral of Benjamin Tyler Reed, a founder and early vestryman, who had served as warden from 1863-72. Pallbearers included John Cummings; founding vestryman and early warden Enoch Redington Mudge; our first senior warden, Edward Sprague Rand; Henry Winthrop Sargent; and Amos Adams Lawrence. Among the many in attendance were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josiah Quincy, and Robert Charles Winthrop. According to the April 3 Boston Evening Transcript, the cortege to Mount Auburn Cemetery comprised some twenty coaches.
1869
- 27 December. Caroline Maria (née Welch) Crowninshield at the age of 45 married at Emmanuel Howard Payson Arnold, a 39-year-old attorney from Cambridge MA. They came to reside nearby at 156 Beacon Street. See also her memorial window.
- 31 March. Dr. Huntington left to become the first bishop of Central New York.
- The Rev. Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton (1807-1881) became our second rector.
For biographical information on Dr. Vinton please see the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.
See also Timeline 1894.
1866
Enoch Redington Mudge
Chapel of the Good Shepherd was consecrated as an independent corporation, the Free Church of the Good Shepherd at 8 Cortes St. in the South End. The mission had begun in 1862 with a Sunday school, which was held in rooms over a carpenter’s shop on Church St. in Bay Village. Among its Emmanuelite founders were the Rev. William R. Huntington, warden John Davis Williams French, and Enoch R. Mudge.
See also: 1880
1861
March 24. The Rev. Dr. Frederic Dan Huntington (May 28, 1819-July 11, 1904) was ordained and became Emmanuel’s First Rector. See also the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.
June 17. Cornerstone laid for the church on Newbury St. Alexander Esty (18 Oct. 1826 – 2 July 1881) was our architect.
1 Oct. William Reed Huntington, who had studied theology under Dr. Huntington at Harvard, was ordained to the transitional diaconate. After serving as assistant to Dr. Huntington for a year, he became rector of All Saints Church, Worcester.
Dec 15. First service in the church