24 June. A funeral service was held for our first sexton, James Haynes (30 Dec. 1836–21 June 1900). Born in Wantage, England (birthplace of Alfred the Great, he would always note), James was a mason, who immigrated to the US in 1859 and found his vocation at our newly constructed church.
1 July. Walter R. Spaulding, who had been organist & choirmaster since 1898, resigned to pursue duties as instructor at Harvard. He was succeeded in September by Arthur Sewall Hyde.
Joseph Hersey Pratt, M.D. (1872-1956)
Dr. Joseph H. Pratt joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and served as secretary of Ascension Chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. He reported in the Year Book of Emmanuel Parish that members of its Sailors Committee visited about a dozen vessels per month to distribute literature and invite men to the mission church. See also his later role in founding the Emmanuel Movement.
Fay Cottage @ 216 Elm Rd., Falmouth MA was built c1740 by David Butler. 1916 photo thanks to Woods Hole Historical Archive
A cottage overlooking the Vineyard Sound in Falmouth was provided for a summer-long series of 10-day seaside sojourns for women and children of the Church of the Ascension by Emmanuel parishioners Mr. & Mrs. Henry B. Fay. A piazza and bathhouses along its beach were constructed with Emmanuel funds. Sarah M. Gay assisted Clara M. Carter, the Diocesan Deaconess, in managing the retreat at Fay Cottage for the first of 25 years to come. See also history of Fay Farm.
Club Room at Students House, 21-23 St. James Ave.
April 19. Francis R. Allen‘s plans were approved and work began on the expansion.
October 28. Rector Leighton Parks set up the Emmanuel Club to give young men of the parish a venue for fellowship. Samuel Taylor was its first secretary. They met several times a year for dinner with speakers or entertainment at the newly formed University Club at 270 Beacon Street. Fitz-Henry Smith Jr. was secretary during its last year in 1911. A member of the Harvard College Class of 1896, he went on to write these works about Boston:
November. The Rev. Henrietta Rue Goodwin began her service as deaconess at Emmanuel, which included distributing clothing, monitoring the Mothers’ Meeting, helping to fund choir vestments, and overseeing a Bible class and the Students’ Club. Her reports in our Yearbooks (1897-1906), give her accounting of Special Funds for distribution of aid to the poor and her other activities, which included thousands of visits to the sick and needy.
Children of Anne & Benjamin Rotch (clockwise): Aimee, Edith, Arthur & Lawrence
Work of Emmanuel House in the South End was transferred to our mission there, Church of the Ascension.
Edith Rotch, the younger daughter of Anne Bigelow Lawrence & Benjamin S. Rotch died at the age of fifty. She was memorialized by her sister Aimee R. Sargent in our Rotch reredos.
Harriet Dexter Lawrence Hemenway, 1890, by John Singer Sargent. Credit: WikiCommons
Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and her cousin Minna B. Hall founded the Mass. Audubon Society. For some time they had fought against the slaughter of egrets and other birds for their plumes by organizing women to stop wearing feathered hats.
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.
August 15. Architect and vestryman Arthur Rotch died of pleurisy at the age of 44. In 1892, he had moved to 82 Commonwealth Avenue with his bride Lisette DeWolf Colt. Son of Benjamin and Annie Rotch, founding members of Emmanuel, Arthur had graduated from Harvard College in 1871, studied architecture at MIT in 1872-3, and then gone to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1880, he joined George Tilden in designing houses at 197, 211, 215, 231 & 233 Commonwealth Avenue, among others. In 1886, with associate Ralph Adams Cram, they built Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan. In 1889, they designed a mission chapel for Emmanuel, which was never realized.
In 1886, Arthur became a member of the Corporation of MIT and served as chairman of its Department of Architecture until his death. Having with his sisters established in 1883 the Rotch Traveling Scholarship in memory of their father, he bequeathed funds for the Rotch Library at MIT. He was chairman of Harvard’s Visiting Committee of Fine Arts, founder of the Boston Architectural Club, trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, and trustee and benefactor of the Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary. Our Rotch Reredos was given by his sister Aimee Sargent in memory of him, their sister Edith. and their parents.
Houses at 231 & 233 Commonwealth Ave.
215 Commonwealth Ave.
See also
211 Commonwealth Ave., Boston
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.
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.