Nomination for All Saints' Church

From the form

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Form No. 10-300 REV. (9/77) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OFTHE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FOR NPS USE ONLY NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM RECEIVED MAY 1 3 1980 JUN / 6 800 DATE ENTERED 1 2 3 5 SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS NAME HISTORIC: All Saints' Church ....

AND/OR COMMON same LOCATION STREET & NUMBER 211 Ashmont Street CITY, TOWN Boston (Dorchester) STATE - VICINITY OF CODE 025 NOT FOR PUBLICATION CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 1lth COUNTY Suffolk CODE 025 Massachusetts CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY -DISTRICT *BUILDING(S) _STRUCTURE SITE _OBJECT OWNERSHIP PUBLIC XPRIVATE _BOTH PUBLIC ACQUISITION IN PROCESS _BEING CONSIDERED 032103 301 STATUS XOCCUPIED _UNOCCUPIED -WORK IN PROGRESS ACCESSIBLE X YES: RESTRICTED - YES: UNRESTRICTED -Nº PRESENT USE AGRICULTURE LMUSEUM COMMERCIAL PARK _EDUCATIONAL -PRIVATE RESIDENCE ENTERTAINMENT X_RELIGIOUS GOVERNMENT SCIENTIFIC INDUSTRIAL _TRANSPORTATION MILITARY -OTHER: OWNER OF PROPERTY NAME Parish of All Saints' STREET & NUMBER 211 Ashmont Street CITY, TOWN Boston _ VICINITY OF LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION MA 02124STATE COURTHOUSE REGISTRY OF DEEDS,ETC. STREET & NUMBER Suffolk County Courthouse Pemberton Square CITY.

TOWN Boston STATE Massachusetts REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS TiTLE Inventory of the Historic Assets of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts DATE February 1978 _FEDERAL XSTATECOUNTYLOCAL DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS CITY, TOWN Massachusetts Historical Commission Boston, Massachusetts STATE 7 DESCRIPTION CONDITION XEXCELLENT _GOOD FAIR DETERIORATED -RUINS _UNEXPOSED CHECK ONE X UNALTERED -ALTERED CHECK ONE XORIGINAL SITE _MOVED DATE DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Description of the property

The All Saints' Church is located in the Ashmont section of Boston's large Dorchester neighborhood. It is in the immediate vicinity of Peabody Square where Dorchester Avenue, a main thoroughfare, intersects with several local streets. All Saints' Church, erected between 1893 and 1929 is a basilican form Modern Gothic style Episcopal parish church building consisting of a nave with flanking aisles, tower, chancel, twosmall side chapels, and a projecting cloister with an attached parish Constructed of random-coursed, rough-faced Quincy granite with Nova Scotia sandstone trim, the church was designed by the firm of Cram & Goodhue and executed in stages: the nave, chancel, and cloister were completed in 1893, the tower and west and south porches in 1896, the parish house in 1906, and the Lady Chapel and Chapel of Saint Stephen in 1912 and 1929 respectively.

The west, or main entrance porch is a one-story, buttressed projection from the tower, with a battlemented parapet and a pointed-arch entranceway flanked by carved sandstone niches with other decorative carved detail above. The massive, squarish tower has tapering buttressess at the corners, a battlemented parapet, a large cathedral windowwith perpendicularstyle stone tracery over the west porch, and pairs of lancet windows toward the top ot each tacade. An attached octagonal stair tower rises slightly above the height of the main tower from its southwest corner. The six-bay nave has a simple pitched slate roof and is flanked by low buttressed aisles on both sides.

Cram's intentional lowering of these side aisles was designed to let more light into the nave through the large clerestory windows above, while darkening the aisles themselves, which are lit only by small,rectangular windows in each bay. The large rectangular chancel reaches almost the full nave height and has three large windows on each side which, like those in the clerestory and tower, have perpendicular style stone tracery with cinquefoil panels. Sandstone belt courses around the nave, tower, and chancel reflect divisions of interior space. Although part of the original plan for the church, a small southporch with a pitched roof and intricate wooden tracery in the entrance arch was not completed until 1896.

The Lady Chapel, built alongside the three southernmost bays of the east aisle, and the smal1, semi-octagonal Chapel of Saint Stephen, built off of the southernmost bay of the west aisle, are of matched stone and simulate the effect of transepts. The cloister, a low, pitched-roof ell projecting north from the chancel, connects the church to the 1906 Parish House. This two story, medieval-inspired structure mixes Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Gothic elements, having a partlally halt-timbered second story, stepped buttresses and a lancet window, and rectangular window banks divided by stone mullions that derive from Jacobean architecture.

The Church's interior contrasts a very simple structural fabric with highly decora- tive overlain ornament, handcrafted by a variety of notable European and American crafts- The pointed-arch arcades separating the nave from the narrow aisles are supported on simple chamfered stone piers without capitals, and the chestnut roof truss framing is similarly devoid of surface decoration other than chamfering. Head-high oak wainscoting, composed of beaded vertical boards capped by a molded rail, runs along the walls of the aisles and tower. The fixed oak pews have quatrefoils carved into the end boards. All of the clerestory windows except the four closest to the chancel have diamond- shaped panes in various shades of orange. The remaining four are of stained glass depicting biblical scenes; that on the south wall closest to the chancel was designed by Cram's design partner, Bertram Goodhue.

Five of the small, stained glass alsle windows were designed by the fine-arts glazier Charles Connick. FHR-8-300A (11/78) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR HERITAGE CONSERVATION AND RECREATION SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM FOR HCRS USE ONLY RECEIVED MAY 13 1960 DATE ENTERED CONTINUATION SHEET ITEM NUMBER 7 PAGE1 Its high degree of decoration and elevation slightly above the nave floor combine to make the chancel the dominant focus of the church's interior. The chancel walls are paneled with a ten foot high oak screen, carved by the firm of Irving and Casson and containing choir stalls, an organ case, and sculpture niches with Gothic motifs such as Tinenfold carving in the dados, perpendicular tracery in the panel heads, a frieze with reliefcarved Biblical scenes, and an ornate follate cornice.

The altar, a solid, seven- ton block of Caen stone, is surrounded by a large and elaborate stone reredos, executed by Domingo Mora under the supervision of John Evansand carved with similar Gothic motifs. large, central niche contains a figure of the Risen Christ, flanked by side niches con- taining angels, with a dozen smaller niches in between with Old and New Testament figures. A somewhat similarly composed carved oak reredos above the side altar in the Lady Chapel was carved by the ecclesiastical sculptor Johannes Kirchmayer in 1912. The building ha's not been altered since the date of the last addition.

From the form

The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.

SIGNIFICANCE PERIOD AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW _PREHISTORIC -ARCHEOLUGY-PREHISTORIC COMMUNITY PLANNING -LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE _1400-1499 ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC -CONSERVATION -LAW -1500-1599 AGRICULTURE . _ECONOMICS -LITERATURE _1600-1699 XARCHITECTURE EDUCATION _MILITARY _1700-1799 -ART ¡HENGINEERING, : MUSIC x1800-1899 _COMMERCE _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT -PHILOSOPHY X1900- _COMMUNICATIONS _INDUSTRY -POLITICS/GOVERNMENT INVENTION -RELIGION -SCIENCE XSCULPTURE -SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN -THEATER -TRANSPORTATION _OTHER(SPECIFY) SPECIFIC DATES 1892-4, 1906, 1912, 1929 BUILDER

Statement of significance

/ARCHITECT Ralph Adams Cram STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE All Saints' Church possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship as well as significant associations with the development of the Modern Gothic style. Al1 Saints' Church, Ralph Adams Cram's first architectural commission, has con- siderable and long-recognized significance both as the earliest work of a major architectural style, the Modern Gothic. The church's construction over a nearly forty-year span also reflects the evolution of Cram's theory and style; finally, its interior sculpture and ornament represent a high point in American interior church design. A11 Saints' Parish had its origin as a mission, begun in 1867, for mill workers in the Dorchester Lower Mills area.

After building its first church, a wood frame building in Dorchester Avenue in 1871, the congregation formally organized as a parish in 1874. Largely because of the beneficience of Colonel Oliver Peabody, a prominant Unitarian 1 and partner in the investment banking firm of Kidder & Peabody who adopted the parish 1n 1879 after stopping in for a Sunday service when a snowstorm impeded his passage intc Boston from his residence in Milton) the parish undertook the building of a larger church in 1890. Bertram Goodhue at this time was Cram's draftsman and later became his partner. Apparently because of the beauty of Bertram Goodhue's renderings, Cram's firm was chosen by a Parish committee, which included Colonel Peabody, to design the new church. Its cornerstone was laid by Phillips Brooks the following year.

A major figure in American architecture and designer of such noted works as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the Princeton University Chapel, and the West Point Academy, Ra1ph Adams Cram (1863-1942) was also a theorist and Gothic scholar whose work and thought fostered a style which changed the face of ecclesiastical America in the first third of the 20th century. Reacting against what he saw as artificiality and awkwardness in Victorian Gothic architecture, Cram preached a "creative scholarship" (Tucci, 1973, p. 53) based on an attempt to move forward from the point where English Perpendicular Gothic architecture had been, in Cram's view, interrupted by the Renaissance and Reformation early in the 16th century.

Although Cram recognized the necessity of creating new Gothic forms to satisfy modern needs, he insisted that these forms have structural authority, artistic integrity, and a basis in English Gothic precedents. Thus, as Cram's first opportunity to give physical form to these precepts, A11 Saints' Church is important not only for its broader impact on American architecture (ultimately leading to such diverse developments as the "Collegiate Gothic" of Princeton and Yale, and Chicago's Tribune Tower) but more particularly, as a watershed in American eccelesiastical design.

Furthermore, its nearly forty-year genesis reflects Cram's style development from a simple, massive, textured beginning, as exemplified in the original nave, tower, and chancel, to a later emphasis on smoothness, verticality, and detail which can be seen in the later parish house and side chapels (though somewhat obscured by Cram's attempt to match these additions to the original design).

The rest of the file

Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.

MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Cram, Ralph Adams. Church Building Boston, 1899 (1924 Edition). Maginnis, Charles D. The Work of Cram & Ferguson, Architects New York, Pencil Points Press, 1929. Tucci, Douglas S. The Gothic Churches of Dorchester, Volume Two: A11 Saints' Church, Boston, Dorchester Savings Bank, 1973. All Saints' = Ashmont: A Centennal History of the Parish, Boston, Parish of All Saints ', 1975. HL NOT CEREE! 10 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA ACREAGE NOT VERIFIED ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY 53,500 Square Feet QUADRANGLE NAME - Boston South UTM REFERENCES AL19 13/2,9/817,01 14.6/813/315,0/ ZONE EASTING NORTHING LILuL ELI/ LILILLL QUADRANGLE SCALE 1"=24,000" LLUluLiliLu EASTIN( NORTHING DL1 FLubuLJLliLu HLULLLUAiLi VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION Please refer to the attached map.

LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES STATE CODE COUNTY CODE STATE CODE COUNTY CODE 11 FORM PREPARED BY NAME/ TITLE Candace venkins, National Register Coordinator ORGANIZATION Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET & NUMBER 294 Washington Street CITY OR TOWN Boston by Boston Landmarks Commission DATE December 1979 TELEPHONE 2Ininc 1 (617) 727-8470 STATE Massachusetts 02108 STATE HISTORICPRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATION THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS: NATIONAL STATE - LOCAL- As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for thé Nationäl Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665). I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.

STATE HISTORIC PRESÉRVATION OFFICER SIGNATURE Yateea LWeslooski 4/14/80 TITLE Executive Director, Massachusetts Historical Comm. FOR NPS USE ONLY I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS PROPERTY IS INCLUDED IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER KEEPER OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER Patuck Ahd CHIET RCEMARRROI DATE 6/16/80 DATE 6/12/80 GPO 921-803 FHR-8-300A (11/78) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR HERITAGE CONSERVATION AND RECREATION SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM FOR HCRS USE ONLY RECEIVED MAY 1 9 1980 DATEENTERED CONTINUATION SHEET ITEM NUMBER 8, 9 PAGE 2 8) Significance - continued Finally, the church's finely crafted interior is important not only for the quality of its design, but as the first example of a church interior designed as an integral example of the overall building design, by the same firm as the structure itself.

All of the church's interior ornament, with the exception of the figurative sculpture and most of the stained glass, was designed by Cram and Goodhue with the expressed intention of maintaining an internal consistency of design which would allow the church structure and ftrstemptoredeatratisaintsno ttcames tne phetottpefor much suineggeatedlesi buctning tin Also noteworthy are the figurative sculpture and stained glass work which, though not expressly following the firm's designs, were intended as highlights in a larger ornamental fabric and were executed by a collection of notable European and American artists. German-born Johannes Kirchmayer (1860-1930), who carved the Lady Chapel altarpiece and the sanctuary paneling reliefs, was a founder of the Boston Society for Arts and Crafts.

He also worked on wooden figure sculpture at Christ Church, Cranbrook, Michigan, and the Washington Cathedral. John Evans (1850-1923), the Welsh sculptor who supervised the the Divine 1n New York, andthe Boston Pubilc Library, Irinity Church, and theFirst Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Charles Connick (1874-1945), designer of much of the stained glass at All Saints' was also a personal friend of Cram's who worked with him on numerous other commissions as well, including St. John the Divine and the Princeton University Chapel. 9) Bibliography - continued Whitaker, C. H. Editor,Bertram Goodhue: Architect and Master of Many Arts, New York, American Institute of Architects Press, 1925. 689 4000 5000 WALLS.

109 5000 55' 9000 55° 557 56 :9000 PARKING 8154 186b UL'O 891 64 STREET 179 9900 19/3 TTVM 3895 19,074 3215 94g '953 KEST 9713 7200 5171 5 600 STREET 2730 2730 2730 1935 1937 1939 1943 AVENUE DORCHESTER 1958 WALL RAMP 544 2270 8061 toIt 0282 11376 1878 1880 1882 4875 FIRE STATION 7862 9470 3800 05261 4219 3900 ASHM -4118 45,235 5163 1888 1892 1994 -4118 PEABODY SQUARE +++ 5562 5/35 4884 - xd 208 4882 219 4970 220 22? 224 240 HEALTH UNIT 9? 9777 ASHMONT ASHMONT Wost?I1 Porcha 1896 Toduez - 225 PARKING 227 231 235 7189 BUSHNELL 8025 5200 1986 5453 5934 1929 -Stephe, Chapel Chancel 45,475 Chapet 1396K 1906 Parish cloister House 6059 5350 5350 5350 4998 + + RAMP T0M 6212 6229 WALE ++ 6/84 M.B.T.A.

278,883 ASHMONT 7166 8200 STATION STRE LOMBARD 6420 6420 6420 6420 6420 5350 1900 6000 5,00 5500 6500 6500 6500 25 ROWENA 26 33 15 22 20 7788 6988 6922 ALL MAY 1 3 1980 SAINTS CHURCH Ashmont 7250 Street Boston, MA Scale: 1"=100' UTM REFERENCES: 19/329870/4683350 50 18,00 JUN | 6 1980 WVA I31380 Property all Saints Church State ma- Sufllk Working Number 5-13-80 1326 TECHNICAL rel no 80000678 CONTROL Photos. 3 Maps 2 Built by the noted architect, Ralph adams Cram, this chunch is eligible brouchitectue HISTORIAN as the carlest workg an architectural style - the Modem Gothic . cran's churc auept which was beilt in stages (1892-4, 1906,1912, 1929) Dtacted a reaction in ecclesiastical design Ttrck Andus againot the deped antpiinlit, o victorien cothic a chitectue thiochunfio made biteria.

6/2/60 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN ARCHEOLOGIST OTHER HAER Inventory Review REVIEW UNIT CHIEF BRANCH CHIEF KEEPER National Register Write-up Federal Register Entry 2.3.81 Send-back Re-submit Entered _JUN |6-1980 United States Department of the Interior - Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service All Saints Church JUN | 6 1980 B0s An, nont Street Suffolk co. Boston, Mass. Robert Burke 1977 Boston Landmarks Commission Photo #1 of 3 Ashmont Street elevation facing south r, souitery MAY 1 3 1980 PARKINI ON All Saints Church JUN 1 6 1980 211 Ashmont Street Boston, Mass. Suffolkco. Robert Burke 1977 Boston Landmarks Commission Photo #2 of 3 Bushnell Street elevation facing northeast MAY 1 3 1980 JUN | 6 1980 All Saints Church 211 Ashmont Street Bosotn, Mass.

Suffolk co- Robert Burke 1977 Boston Landmarks Commission Photo #3of 3 High alter reredos MAY 1 3 1980 ENTRIES IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER STATE MASSACHUSETTS Date Entered JUN 1 6 1030 Name Colburn, Sarah Foster, House Charles Playhouse All Saint's Church Stearns, R. H., Building Grafton Inn Location Cambridge Middlesex County Boston Suffolk County Boston Suffolk County Boston Suffolk County Grafton Worcester County Also Notified Honorable Edward M. Kennedy Honorable Paul Tsongas Honorable Thomas P. O'Ne111, Jr. Honorable Brian J. Donnally Honorable John J. Moakley Honorable Joseph D. Early NR Byers/mjd State Historic Preservation Officer Mrs. Patricia L. Weslowski Executive Director, Massachusetts Historical Commission 294 Washington Street Boston, Massachusetts 02108 6/27/80 For further information, please call the National Register at (202)343-6401.