Grace Episcopal Church (1855/1873)

The parish of Grace was first organized in 1855 with John Singleton Copley Greene—son of Elizabeth Clarke Copley, the artist’s daughter—serving as the congregation’s first rector. The congregation soon surpassed the capacity of its original wooden chapel at the corner of Washington and Hovey Streets. A location for the new church was identified between Vernon and Church Streets, and the three-acre parcel was purchased on October 23, 1871, from Elizabeth T. Eldredge; shortly thereafter, Eldredge Street was cut through and named in her honor. Brevet Maj. General Adin Underwood laid the cornerstone, brought over from the old wooden chapel, on September 4, 1872.

Alexander Rice Esty’s plans for the great stone church were realized “as rapidly as was consistent with the solidity and elaborateness of the structure.” In the end, the building materials and land cost the parish about $105,000, a massive sum for that time.[1]

Thanks to detailed records kept by the building committee from 1871–1873, we are fortunate to know even the names of the local craftsmen who labored to build Grace Church. Read these names and see if any are recognizable here.

[1] S.F. Smith, History of Newton, Massachusetts: Town and City, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, 1630–1880 (Boston: The American Logotype Co., 1880), 694–699.

The new Garden City

At its founding, Grace Church members were workers whose mills along the Charles River crafted famed New England textiles and the “merchants, clerks, and what not” who steamed eastward to Boston every morning on the Meteor and returned in the evening to “the tranquil joys of their suburban domiciles amid the trees and flowers.”[1] Shortly after our founders laid the cornerstone of Grace, the Great Boston Fire wreaked massive destruction to the area’s economy, including razing fifteen businesses owned by Grace parishioners. Even with scaled-back plans, it took fifteen years to pay off the debt on the building; though Newton families worshiped in the stone church during that time, the Bishop refused to consecrate the building until the debt was settled.

All the while, under the rectorship of Rev. George Wolfe Shinn—a founder of the Newton Cottage (Newton-Wellesley) Hospital, member of the Newton School Committee, and friend to many local organizations—a missional spirit to help the poor and respond to the needs of the community became Grace parishioners’ hallmarks, just as the building itself became a landmark in the area.

[1] M.F. Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Newton, Massachusetts (Boston: Moses King Co., 1889), 39–40.

Solid and elaborate

Alexander Rice Esty (1826–1881) was one of America’s leading architects of the nineteenth century. Born in Framingham, Esty designed churches, university buildings, public buildings, office buildings, and private residences across New England. He served as superintendent of the federal post office and treasury in Boston (demolished 1929), designed the Boston and Albany Railroad Depot, and his plans for the Library of Congress in D.C. were among the proposed finalists. Grace Church, Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston, and Old Cambridge Baptist Church are among a small number of his buildings that still stand.

Widespread local pride for the Esty-designed Grace Church was evident as early as 1873, when the Newton city directory included the following notice even before construction was complete: "From its present appearance it is believed that this structure [Grace Episcopal Church] will not be surpassed in beauty and appropriateness of design by any rural church in this country.”[1] With its high Gothic-style tower, belfry, and spire rising to 107 feet, Grace is an integral part of the local neighborhood—a protected district on the National Register of Historic Places—with its Victorian homes and adjacent Farlow Park, Newton’s first municipal outdoor space, designed in 1883 by George Frederick Meacham.

[1] Drew, Allis & Co., The Newton Directory (Newton: H.N. Hyde, 1873), 213–214.