Greek Revival Archives - Page 12 of 19

Second Baptist Church, Suffield, Connecticut (2)

April 8, 2017 by Derek Strahan

Another view of the Second Baptist Church, taken around 1935-1942. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library, WPA Architectural Survey Collection.

The church in 2017:

The first photo was taken as part of a Works Progress Administration program to document historic buildings in Connecticut. Around 100 years old at the time, the Second Baptist Church was among those photographed in Suffield’s historic town center. As mentioned in more detail in the previous post, the congregation was established in 1805 by members of the First Baptist Church. The current building was completed in 1840, and has remained in use ever since.

The church is now nearly twice as old as it was when the first photo was taken, but its exterior has seen little change. The only significant difference is the loss of the parsonage on the extreme right, which was demolished in the 1950s to build a new wing of the church. Along with many other historic buildings in the center of Suffield, the church is a contributing property in the Suffield Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Second Baptist Church, Suffield, Connecticut (1)

August 1, 2018April 8, 2017 by Derek Strahan

The Second Baptist Church, on North Main Street in Suffield, around the early 1900s. Image from Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921).

The church in 2017:

In the colonial era, nearly all of the churches in New England were Congregational. At the time, Baptists were a very small minority, but they gained a foothold here in Suffield. The first Baptist church in Hartford County was established in the town in 1769, and its congregation met in a small church about three miles west of the town center. Despite the remote location, the church remained there in the Hastings Hill neighborhood, and the current church building was built in 1846.

Because of how far removed it was from the town center, though, the Second Baptist Church was formed in 1805, and in 1840 they built this building on North Main Street, right in the center of Suffield. It was designed by Suffield native Henry A. Sykes, who was the architect for a number of buildings throughout the Connecticut River Valley in the mid-19th century. The Greek Revival architecture is fairly typical for New England churches of the era, with a symmetrical front facade, a columned portico, and a multi-stage steeple above it.

The church building was completed a year after Dwight Ives became the pastor. He served here for many years, and had close ties to the Connecticut Literary Institute, located across the street. Known today as Suffield Academy, it had been founded as a Baptist school, and many of the students attended church here. During Ives’s 35 year long pastorate here, the church experienced several revivals, with a significant growth in the size of the congregation.

About a century after the first photo was taken, the Second Baptist Church is still an active congregation. There have been some changes, most notably the demolition of the parsonage to the right of the church and the construction of several additions in the 1950s. The church itself is still standing, though, along with the Ebenezer Gay Manse, barely visible in the distance on the far left of the photos. Both buildings are important landmarks in downtown Suffield, and they are part of the Suffield Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

East Granby Congregational Church, East Granby, Connecticut

February 9, 2018April 7, 2017 by Derek Strahan

The East Granby Congregational Church, at the corner of North Main Street and Rainbow Road, around 1930. Image from Sketch of the Congregational Society and Church of East Granby, Conn. (1930).

The church in 2017:

Early 19th century stone churches are rare in the Connecticut River Valley, where most meetinghouses were built of either wood or brick. As a result, this granite church in East Granby stands out in contrast to the archetypal white, wood-frame churches of small-town New England. It was completed in 1831, and was one of many churches designed by Northampton, Massachusetts architect Isaac Damon, whose most prominent existing work is probably Springfield’s Old First Church. However, the East Granby church is very different from most of his other churches, which were almost invariably wood, with a columned portico in the front and a tall spire above it.

At the time of its completion, the church was actually located in Granby. The present-day towns of Granby and East Granby had been part of Simsbury in the colonial era, but in 1786 the two northern parishes were formed into the town of Granby. The eastern parish, originally known as Turkey Hills, subsequently split off from Granby in 1858 to form East Granby, with this area here as the town center.

The first photograph was taken around the time of the building’s 100th anniversary. At the time, East Granby’s population was just about 1,000 people, not much higher than when the town had been incorporated over 70 years earlier. However, in the nearly 90 years since then, the town has undergone significant growth as a suburb of Hartford, and now has over 5,000 residents. Part of Bradley International Airport is also located in the town, just over a mile east of the church.

Despite all of these changes, though, the church is still standing, and remains in active use. There have been several large additions over the years, which are partially visible behind and to the left of it, but Isaac Damon’s original section is largely unaltered. It is a prominent landmark in the center of town, and is part of the East Granby Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Andrew McQuade House, Springfield, Mass

March 7, 2017 by Derek Strahan

The house at 17 George Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2016:

This house is probably the oldest on George Street, and dates back to at least 1870, when Andrew McQuade and his family were living here. He and his wife Ellen were both Irish immigrants who came to the United States as teenagers in the early 1850s. They were married in 1860, and by 1870 they were living here with their five children. Andrew’s occupation was listed as a teamster, and in the 1870 census his house was valued at $5000.

The house remained in the McQuade family for many years afterward. Andrew was still living here as late as 1910, when his occupation was listed as “Truckman,” reflecting the changing role of teamsters with the development of trucks. He died sometime before 1920, but Ellen remained here until at least 1930, by which point she was 88 years old. The most recent published census is 1940, which was done just a year or two after the first photo was taken. By then, Andrew and Ellen’s daughter Mary was living here, along with a lodger who was renting a room. She also rented another section of the house to a couple who paid $30 per month in rent.

In all, this house remained in the McQuade family for no less than 70 years, and was a single-family home for most of that time. However, it now consists of two separate housing units, and the exterior of the house has seen some changes. The most notable difference is that old porch is gone, replaced by two smaller ones. Along with this, there are several missing or altered windows, and the front gable now has an open pediment. Otherwise, though, the house still looks much the same as it was when the McQuade family moved in around 150 years ago.

Front Green, Brown University, Providence, RI

December 13, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Front Green at Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The Front Green in 2016:

The Front Green is on the east side of Prospect Street, and is just west of the College Green, with the buildings on the right side dividing these two open spaces. These three buildings are among the oldest on the Brown campus, and were mentioned in the earlier post on the College Green. The two most prominent in this scene are University Hall, in the right center of the scene. Built in 1770, it was the school’s first building after moving to the current Providence campus. Just beyond it, in the center of the photo, is Manning Hall, which was built in 1834 as a library and chapel.

In the past 110 years, essentially nothing has changed in this scene. All of the buildings on the right are still there, as are several campus structures in the distance, which are barely visible on the left side of the photos. In the lower left of the scene is Robinson Hall, which was built in 1878 at the corner of Prospect and Waterman Streets opposite the Front Green. Just to the left of it, on the Front Green itself, is the Carrie Tower. This 95-foot tower is the newest addition to the scene, and was built in 1904 in honor of Caroline Mathilde Brown, who was the granddaughter of Nicholas Brown, the man for whom the college was named.

Providence Athenaeum, Providence, RI

February 9, 2018December 12, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Providence Athenaeum on Benefit Street in Providence, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2016:

Today, public libraries can be found in virtually every town in New England as well as throughout the rest of the country, but they were virtually unheard of prior to the second half of the 19th century. Even here in Providence, the first public library did not open until 1878. Before this, many cities had private libraries, which were funded through membership dues. In Providence, two such libraries were the Providence Library Company and the Providence Athenaeum, which merged in 1836 to form the present-day Athenaeum. Two years later, the library opened their current building here on Benefit Street near the corner of College Street, just down the hill from Brown University.

One of the most notable incidents in the history of this building came within ten years after it opened. In 1848, Edgar Allan Poe was courting Sarah Helen Whitman, a Providence poet who, at 45 years old, was six years Poe’s senior. He proposed to her in a Providence cemetery (naturally, for Poe), and she eventually accepted, provided that he sobered up. During their engagement, they frequently visited the Athenaeum together. During one such visit on December 23, 1848, two days before their planned wedding, Whitman received a note saying that Poe had been drinking the night before and that morning. Here in the library, she called off the wedding, and soon after Poe returned to Richmond, never to see Whitman again. He was dead less than a year later in bizarre circumstances, a few days after being found delirious and wandering the streets of Baltimore.

Nearly a century after Poe’s visits, the Athenaeum was frequented by another prominent horror fiction writer, Providence native H.P. Lovecraft. Largely influenced by Poe’s writings, Lovecraft was well aware of the Poe connection to the building, writing in one letter to author Frank Belknap Long:

Providence, which spurn’d Eddie living, now reveres him dead, and treasures every memory connected with him. The hotel where he stopt, the churchyard where he wander’d, the house and garden where he courted his inamorata, the Athenaeum where he us’d to dream and ramble thro’ the corridors—all are still with us, and as by a miracle absolutely unchang’d even to the least detail.

Lovecraft lived here on College Hill, just a short walk from both the John Hay Library and the Athenaeum, and he often visited both. Aside from mentioning it in his letters, he also included it in several of his works, alongside other Providence landmarks.

As for the Athenaeum building itself, it is still in use by the library more than 175 years after it opened. It has seen several additions, though, to house the library’s growing collections. The first came in 1914, and was located at the southeast corner of the building, on the back and to the right when seen from this angle. The second addition, visible on the right side of the 2016 photo, opened in 1979 with an architectural design that, like the 1914 addition, matched the original 1838 design of the building. Today, it is one of the many historic buildings still standing in the College Hill neighborhood, and it forms part of the College Hill Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.