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.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
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.
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.
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.”
1886
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
1885
Senior Warden Edward Sprague Rand, Jr. has an orchid named for him by French
Paphinia cristata var. Randi named for ES Rand, Jr. by Lucien Linden (1851-1940) & Émile Rodigas (1831-1902) in 1885
colleagues Lucien Linden (1851-1940) and Émile Rodigas (1831-1902).
1884
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
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
1882
Our first organist and music director, Silas Atkins Bancroft (1823-1886), retired after two decades of faithful service. He is buried in Lot 2607 on the Mistletoe Path of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
B.S. Rotch (1817-1882) at time of our foundation. Photo courtesy of Boston Athenaeum.
Senior Warden Benjamin Smith Rotch died in office. A founding vestry member and warden since 1880, he was later memorialized with his wife Anne Bigelow Lawrence (1820-93) in our sanctuary’s reredos.
They are buried in Lot 3004 on Bellwort Path in Mt. Auburn Cemetery. His epitaph from Revelation 2:10 reads: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
1881
Emmanuel Chapel was established as a mission at 114 W. Canton Street in the South End. After 1885, it became Chapel of the Ascension, then Church of the Ascension in 1890.