Author Archives: InTheEarlyDays

1894

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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

  • Wikipedia’s entry for Arthur  & for a list of their works Rotch & Tilden
  • Back Bay Houses for their works in the Back Bay
  • Bainbridge Bunting‘s Houses of Boston’s Back Bay (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1967) discusses several of their works in depth.
  • A Continental Eye: The Art and Architecture of Arthur Rotch: the Catalogue of an Exhibition Held at the Boston Athenæum, December 10th, 1985, through January 24th, 1986, and at the Klimann Gallery of the MIT Museum, February 10th through April 5th, 1986, by  Harry L. Katz and Richard Chafee.

    211 Commonwealth Ave., Boston

 

1869

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  • 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.
  • Dr. Huntington became the first bishop of Central New York.
  • The Rev. Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton became our second rector.timeLineahvintonHead1

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.

1861

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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.

Dec 15. First service in the church

 

 

 

 

1860

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  • March 17. The first meeting held at William R. Lawrence’s house, 98 Beacon

    The Rev. Dr. F. Dan Huntington

    Street.  A committee was formed to secure Dr. Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-1904) as rector, although he had yet to be ordained an Episcopalian priest. Richard Sullivan. Fay, Jr. (1833-1882) was chosen as Chairman of the Committee of Subscribers.

  • April 9 (Easter Monday). At their foundation meeting the name Emmanuel Church was formally adopted and these officers elected:
    • Edward Sprague Rand  (1809-84), senior warden until 1864
    • William Richards Lawrence (1812-1885), junior warden until 1863
    • John B. Alley (1817-1896), clerk
    • Jere E. Bridge, treasurer
  • Sept 12. Dr. Huntington was ordained a deacon at Trinity Church, then on Summer Street.
  • Sept 16. The first service was held at Mechanics Association Hall, at the intersection of Bedford and Chauncy streets.
  • Proprietors of the Corporation were:
    • Benjamin Franklin Burgess (1817-1909)
    • Col. John Jeffries, Jr. (1823-1897)
    • William Richards Lawrence (1812-1885)
    • Edward Sprague Rand (1809-84)
    • Henry Sigourney (1831-1873)
    • Henry Timmins (1800-1863)
    • George Phineas Upham (1826-1901)
    • Foster Waterman (1805-1870)

 

 

 

Like a Hen

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Lent 2C, February 24, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 I am your shield.
Philippians 3:17-4:1 He will transform the body of our humiliation.
Luke 13:31-35 How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

O God our shield and defender, 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.

Today’s Gospel text strikes me as a little strange. It’s strange to be catapulted from Luke’s account of Jesus in the wilderness before his ministry began, past miles of travel, teaching and healing all around the Galilee and beyond, to the middle of the Gospel of Luke, at the end of chapter thirteen. (Next week the scheduled portion is back in the beginning of chapter 13.) The slow, almost leisurely pace of Jesus’ ministry which includes story-telling, prayer and Sabbath meals gets completely eclipsed in our Lenten reading of Luke’s Gospel. Continue reading →

Get ready to celebrate!

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Lent 1C, February 17, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
Romans 10:8b-13 How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
Luke 4:1-13 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.

O God of our callings, 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.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness. It’s a little gentler version than the Gospel of Mark’s description of Jesus being driven out to the wilderness by the Spirit. It was after he was baptized, according to Luke, but not before Luke recites Jesus’ genealogy. It’s a curious place to put a 77 generation genealogy – four chapters in to the story. But for Luke, it becomes the connective tissue between the baptism and the wilderness in which Jesus began his work – his ministry. The genealogy demonstrates that Jesus is a child of Israel, a child of all humanity, and a child of the Creator. Our lectionary does this crazy thing of splitting the story of Jesus’ baptism which we heard at the beginning of Epiphany, early in January, and this time in the wilderness. In the last six weeks we’ve heard all kinds of other stories in between the baptism and the wilderness, like last week’s account of the Transfiguration which comes much later in Luke. But the Gospel narrative is that Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit at baptism goes immediately into a harsh place of physical and spiritual danger. Continue reading →