King's Chapel - Boston, MA - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

In Boston, at the corner of Tremont Street and School Street, is King's Chapel, which is listed in the American Guide Series book for Massachusetts.

The following text is in the guide about the chapel:

34. King's Chapel (Unitarian) (open daily 9-5), corner of School St., built in 1749, was designed by Peter Harrison, who had been a student of Sir John Vanbrugh, a younger contemporary of Sir Christopher Wren. It was from this intimacy with the mode set by Wren and his successor, Gibbs, that the architecture of King's Chapel is derived. But the New-port gentleman-architect possessed too much native genius for his design to be a servile copy of the British masters. The bold and somewhat cold masonry exterior is headed by a low, squat base intended to support a tower which was never built. The interior, replete with aberrations characteristic of its designer, is perhaps the finest Colonial church interior extant. Its rich sobriety, its repose and studied suavity of proportion proclaim it a work of genius. It ranks in historic fame with the Old South Meeting House and the Old North Church, for King's Chapel is both the first Episcopal church in New England and the first Unitarian church in America; and its establishment in both faiths was accompanied by storm. The present building was built in 1754 around a wooden build- ing which was then dismantled.

--American Guide Series: Massachusetts - A Guide to Its Places and People, pp. 154-155

Today, King's Chapel is a main attraction and a stop along the Freedom Trail. Tours are available of the crypt and bell tower of the church. It is still a Unitarian-Universalist Church, and services are still held there.

Book: Massachusetts Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 154-155 Year Originally Published: 1937

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