Hammond Street Congregational Church Clock - Bangor, ME - Town Clocks on Waymarking.com

Hammond Street Congregation Church

The Hammond Street Congregational Church of Bangor, originally built in 1833, as an awkward building in the Greek Revival style, was thoroughly altered twenty years later in the Italianate style. This alteration involved raising the height of the walls and lengthening them, along with eliminating the façade colonnade and eliminating two towers, replacing them with a single spire.

The 1853 Church is of brick construction, with two stories, central facade tower, and granite foundation. The facade features a central pavilion, three bays wide, with a central arched double-door flanked by single doors. On each side of this pavilion is a single bay consisting of tall, six-light windows below elliptical arches. The second-story fenestration is capped by semi-circular arches. The cornices of the pavilion and the main body of the church are heavily denticulated.

The tower of the church rises in three stages above the gable roof. The first stage contains a narrow arched window below an oculus, within panels, below a prominent denticulated cornice. The second stage contains four clock-faces with Roman numerals. This stage and the belfry above have faceted corners, giving them an irregular octagonal plan.

Although technically an alteration of an 1833 Greek Revival Church, the Hammond Street Church is for practical purposes a handsome 1853 Italianate Church and celebrated Bangor landmark. The design was executed by the distinguished church architect John D. Towle of Boston, noted for his work in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The problems of the original church are well described in the following portion of a letter preserved by the church:

"The committee went to work with zeal and understanding, the desire to have a house unique and artistic they procured a plan for a building of brick and wood - and a portico with large fluted columns and an entablature and two steeples of wood. The design was handsome, the proportions were good, and if the building had been completed according to the design it would have been an ornament. But before the brick walls had reached the height contemplated, it was evident that the architect had made his plans without regard to the estimated cost. The committee would not ask for a larger sum; and the building must be completed. There was only one way in their view, and that was to diminish the height of the building. This was done and as the portico and steeples were made to conform, the building was out of proportion and not agreeable to the eye, especially as the great mass of portico, entablature and steeples were painted white. However, it was completed and made to answer for the purpose for which it was designed, until improved taste converted it into the present more graceful structure."

Towle's alteration or, more properly, redesign of the church was drastic and actually preserved only portions of the walls of the earlier ill-conceived structure, while removing the front and the towers. The walls were also raised and the building lengthened by about twenty feet.

Towle, who first appeared in Boston in 1843, was, during the bulk of his career, the head of the firm, Towle and Foster, whose commissions were mainly churches. These Included impressive and important structures like the Berkely Street Congregational Church in Boston, the Congregational Church in Harwich, Massachusetts, the Old Grace Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the Unitarian Church in Bangor.
From the NRHP Nomination Form