Friday, April 15, 2011

King's Chapel - Boston

King's Chapel in Boston 
was founded in 1686 and was the first Anglican Church in Boston. 
It was founded by Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, which had Boston as its capital. The Dominion of New England included what is now Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. King James II was the King of England. The original wooden church was where the current church is, on the corner of Tremont and School Streets. Because the residents were Puritans and would not sell land for a non-Puritan church, it was located on the public burying ground. 
The existing stone building was built around the wooden church, starting in 1749 and completed in 1754. The wooden church, now inside, was torn down and removed through the windows of the stone building. 
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During the Revolutionary War, the church was vacant and called the "Stone Chapel." It was reopened after the war, in 1782, as  Unitarian church, the first in the United States. 
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Box pews were owned by members who paid pew rent as a way of supporting the church. The members were allowed to decorate the pews as they desired. 
The uniform looking pews only date from the 1920s. 
Paul Revere, himself, cast the current bell, the largest bell ever cast by the Revere foundry and Revere's last. As alluded to above, the Burying Ground is older than the chapel. 
It was founded in 1630, the first cemetery in Boston and the only cemetery for 30 years. John Winthrop, 
first Puritan governor of Massachusetts is buried there, 
as is William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Chilton, the first European woman in New England, as a Plymouth Pilgrim. Most of this information came from Wikipedia. 

4 comments:

  1. This brings back so many memories of my time on the East Coast in DC. My childhood family lived near Boston (in Sudbury) and we used to go in to Boston quite often to do the tourist thing; my sister still has a piece of Faneuil Hall molding (it fell down at her feet while we were walking outside). So much is there on the East Coast--so much to see and appreciate. Thanks for this post.

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  2. You can certainly see the New England influence in the Kirtland Temple and even in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

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  3. I do see how the Kirtland Temple was influenced by it, or perhaps by it and other buildings of that period. We've not spent much time back East, but we have certainly enjoyed what little time we've spent there.

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  4. Dear Bob, I am with CB Fisk, builders of the pipe organ at King's Chapel. I would like to speak with you about using one of your photos. Please drop me an email at danasigall-at-cbfisk-dot-com. thanks, Dana

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