We'll start our tour at
St. John's Catholic Church in Bangor. With a tower reaching up 180 feet to the top of its cross, 68 feet in width and 156 feet in length, this Catholic Church elegantly serves as a memorial to the Irish immigrants of Bangor who built it. Built in 1855, the church stands in the heart of what was once the Irish community in Maine. The church was built to seat 1,400, possibly the entire Irish population of Bangor at the time. Essentially unchanged since it was built, the major change that has taken place was the replacement of many of the original stained glass windows with tyrolean stained glass, though some of the original glass remains.
Next stop is
Congregation Beth Israel. The history of Congregation Beth Israel dates back to 1888, with the Congregation being formally organized in that year. Though the oldest continuously functioning synagogue in Maine, Beth Israel was not the first Jewish congregation in Maine. The first, Ahavas Achim (Society of Brotherly Love) was formed around 1840, lasting only about 20 years, leaving only a cemetery in its wake.
The cornerstone for the first Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, the first synagogue in Maine, was laid on August 22, 1907 and the building was formally dedicated on December 19, 1907. The Great Bangor Fire Of April 30, 1911 put an end to that building and 266 others, the replacement, the present Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, being built in 1911 and 1912. The Congregation remained orthodox until 1948, at which time it committed itself to the Conservative Movement, with which it remains affiliated today.
From here we go to
All Souls Congregational Church. This church, on the exterior, is many things, but mostly it is striking, impressive, imaginative, surprising and creative, if not just a bit odd.
From its massive heavily buttressed façade to its gorgeous entranceway to its elegantly slender spire to its huge rose window, this is a church which deserves more than a casual glance. Not ancient, as one might expect, it was not built until just over a century ago - 1912 to be precise.
Its design sprang from the fertile imagination of the preeminent Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942) of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, Architects. Cram was a strong proponent of Gothic design for churches and brought with him considerable experience in the field.
The façade lacks both tower and spire, but they are both to be found elsewhere by the curious and/or adventurous - the spire at the junction of the trancepts at the peak of the nave while the bell tower may be found at the left (south) end of the cross-gabled narthex. Small and inconspicuous compared to the centralized spire, the bell tower, like the rest of the building, is roofed with stone tiles, ensuring longevity. The central spire, tall, slender and spiked, is clad in beautifully patinated copper, making it especially eye-catching.
Now we continue on to
Hammond Street Congregational Church. 2017 will see the 183st anniversary of the dedication of Hammond Street Congregational Church. This would indicate that dedication took place in 1833. Though, at least in part, an 1833 church, Hammond Street Congregational Church (HSCC) is better viewed as an 1853 building, as its reconstruction in that year changed its personality completely.
With $25,000 available for construction of their church, the congregation realized too late that the architect created the original Greek Revival design with no regard to its cost. It was hastily decided to shorten the church in an attempt to reduce the cost, the result being a rather ugly and out of proportion building. It took until 1853 to raise sufficient funds to rebuild, at which time architect John D. Towle of Boston, proposed an Italianate design, which, along with much reconstruction of the building resulted in the church we see today.
We finish our tour at
First Congregational Church, across the river in Brewer. Here we have a bit of an enigma. Was this building first built in 1828, or is it a replacement, built some time after 1885? Was it moved in 1885 or was it moved in 1889?
The First Congregational Church of Brewer was established in 1795, officially recognized in 1800.The building itself was built in 1828 and moved to its present location in 1889. (We find this date potentially questionable as we have found a map dated 1885 which shows the Congregational Church already in place on Church Street in that year. Was there already a church in place which was replaced by the present one?) At the same time, or at least some time prior to 1910, the church must have been substantially remodeled, or even replaced, as we have also found a photo of the church, dated 1885, which shows a completely different building. A 1910 photo shows essentially the building we see today. No mention can be found anywhere of the church's remodeling, nor of the construction of another church after 1885, of 1889. This is, unfortunately, not an unusual situation, as we often run up against questionable dates and chronologically disordered photos when researching old buildings and sites.