Provided by Simon Meeds
(Just CLOSE this window to continue)

This an extract from "Boston, It's Story and People" by Geo. S. Bagley
(1986, ISBN 0 9511 786 01)

"The towns' first Congregational church came into being in 1818, when
Thomas Evans, who had just founded an Independent church at Long Sutton,
arrived in Boston and began Tuesday evening lectures at the Guard Room in
Pen Street. Regular Sunday services soon started, conducted by students
from Hoxton Academy, one of whom, Thomas Haynes, was invited to become
pastor in May 1819. The 500-seater Grove Street Chapel was erected and,
with just eleven members, opened that October. Haynes was succeeded in
1835 by Isaac Watts, who resigned twelve years later."

"Watts took a considerable number of the congregation with him, and they
built a new church on the site of the former Red Lion Street theatre,
materials from which were used in its construction. Designed by Stephen
Lewin, it had a tower and spire, schools for 400 boys and girls on the
ground floor, and the chapel above. The foundation stone was laid in July
1850 and the premises opened that November. But it lasted under twenty
years, giving place in 1869 to the 500-seater church cleared only in
recent years. The Independent (Congregational) church in Grove Street was
built in 1819, a schoolroom being added in 1841 and extended in 1876, when
the church was renovated."

*** Last revised: 12-August-2002 ***