First Baptist Church, Commonwealth at Clarendon St

First Baptist Church (or "Brattle Square Church") is a historic Baptist church established in 1665. It first met secretly on Noddle's Island and then in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. Since 1882 it has been located at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street in the Back Bay.

The current church building (fifth meeting house) was constructed in 1872 by Henry Hobson Richardson. It opened in 1875 to serve the Unitarian congregation of the Brattle Street Church, also known as the Church in Brattle Square, which had been demolished in 1872.[4] The Unitarian congregation dissolved in 1876 soon after moving to this building. The First Baptist congregation bought the building in 1882. Featuring ivy-covered walls and a prominent tower with distinctive carvings by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (sculptor of the Statue of Liberty) representing four sacraments, with faces of famous Bostonians(including Longfellow and Hawthorne), Abraham Lincoln, and Bartholdi's friends of that era.(including 'Garabaldi'). This building highlights many of the Richardsonian Romanesque qualities that would later be shown in the nearby Trinity Church, one of Richardson's masterpieces. The Baptist Church's tower can clearly be seen as part of Boston's skyline when viewed from the Cambridge side of the Charles river. This church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The congregation is currently affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.

July 2001

First Baptist Church, Commonwealth at Clarendon St

July 2001

First Baptist Church, Commonwealth at Clarendon St

Mar 2012

First Baptist Church, Commonwealth at Clarendon St

Mar 2012