Pleasant Street Congregational Church

The Pleasant Street Congregational Church (1844) occupies a corner lot at the inter- section of Pleasant and Maple Streets near the civic core of Arlington. neighborhood is primarily residential, characterized by generously spaced single family houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main body of the wood-frame church is rectangular in plan with a pedimented frontis- piece with a large three-stage tower and spire. The building is sheathed in clapboard with horizontal boarding on the raised basement and flushboarding on the frontispiece and tower, except where rusticated siding appears on the first state. The entire structure is painted white as it was originally.

The ornamentation of the building is predominately Greek Revival, but exhibits eclecticism in the use of some Adamesque and Egyptian Revival forms. The main block is trimmed on all elevations with a dentilled cornice, wide frieze and fascia at the eaves line, framed by channelled corner pilastersand capped by a low pitch gable roof. The focal point of the Pleasant Street Congregational Church is its monumental pedimented entrance pavilion and tower. The trim details of the main block are repeated on the frontispiece which is further articulated by a group of more exuberant architectural forms. A pair of fluted and tapered Egyptian Revival columns with flared capitals support the pediment and divide the facade into three bays, the center wider than the peripheral ones.

The central entry is probably a ca. 1930 remodelling of the original. Its double doors are flanked by pilasters and surmounted by engaged Ionic columns and a projecting arch moulding. A pair of narrow roundhead windows, separated by a single colonette and trimmed with voussoirs and keystones marks the gallery level. The flanking bays are articulated by simple inset rectangular panels and blind roundhead windows above.

/Architect Joseph Sanger (Contractor) Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Pleasant Street Congregational Church possesses integrity of design, materials, workmanship, location and association. It is significant as a distinctive local example of Greek Revival ecclesiastical architecture, as one of the few remaining major buildings of that style in Arlington, and for its Egyptian Revival detailing, a rarely employed style. Further, it stands as the sole surviving early church structure in the town still occupied by its original congregation, and possesses strong associations with the rapid expansion and development of Arlington in the 19th centüry. The Pleasant Street Congregational Church thus meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places.

Conformity in religious matters was demanded of the earliest settlers in Menotomy (later West Cambridge and now current-day Arlington). Any 'free man' must have been an "orthodox member of the church, at least twenty years old, worth 200, and taken an oath to be a true and faithful subject and yield assistance and support to the church and Commonwealth"1 For a full 150 years, between 1630 and 1780, the "First Parish" was the only recognized, legally sanctioned congregation in Arlington. Until 1732 the house of worship itself was in present-day Harvard Square, Cambridge.

That year, after over a decade of petitions, Menotomy was granted its own "2d Precinct" parish, which in its turn usurped the fielty of all residents of the Village who were compelled to attend worship services except for "just cause." The first church structure in Arlington was constructed by the residents of Menotomy and first opened for services in February of 1735. It measured 36 feet x 46 feet and contained 18 pews.