The First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton occupies a prominent location at 1326 Washington Street in the heart of the village of West Newton in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

. Architect

Ralph Adams Cram Ralph Adams Cram (December 16, 1863 – September 22, 1942) was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic Revival style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partn ...

designed the church, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. designed the grounds, the cornerstone was laid in 1905, and it was dedicated in 1906; it is one of the village's oldest buildings. The church is in Cram's signature

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style, with buttressed walls and a blocky square tower with crenellations and spires. An enclosed courtyard is formed by an office wing, banquet hall, and parish house, which are built to resemble Elizabethan architecture with brick first floor and half-timbered upper level. First UU Newton 10 12 02 0018

The Unitarian Society was organized in 1848, and its first building was built in 1860. A Gothic Revival structure later expanded with

Stick style The Stick style was a late-19th-century American architectural style, transitional between the Carpenter Gothic style of the mid-19th century, and the Queen Anne style that it had evolved into by the 1890s. It is named after its use of linear " ...

decoration, it stood at the present location of the West Newton Cinema. The present building was built on the site of an early experimental normal school (later moved to

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popula ...

and now

Framingham State University Framingham State University (Framingham State or FSU) is a public university in Framingham, Massachusetts. The university, then known as the Normal School in Lexington was founded in 1839 as the first state-supported normal school in the United ...

, and has a stained glass window featuring two Massachusetts education pioneers (and parishioners of the church),

Horace Mann Horace Mann (May 4, 1796August 2, 1859) was an American educational reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig Party (United States), Whig politician known for his commitment to promoting public education, he is thus also known as ''The Father of A ...

and

Cyrus Peirce Cyrus Peirce (1790–1860), American educator and Unitarian minister, was the founding president of the first American public normal school, which evolved into Framingham State University.

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

as the First Unitarian Church in 1986.

References

External links

*
First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton website
* Records of the Society are in the Andover-Harvard Theological Library at

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. *
Channing Church, Newton, Massachusetts
*

*
Unitarian Church, Newton Centre, Mass. Records, 1881–1933
includes the Record Book of Stebbins Branch of the National Alliance, 1891–1916 *

{{DEFAULTSORT:First Unitarian Society In Newton Churches in Newton, Massachusetts Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Newton, Massachusetts Ralph Adams Cram church buildings Stone churches in Massachusetts Unitarian Universalist churches in Massachusetts

See also

References

External links