This church can be found while you walk along Boston's famous Freedom Trail.
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"St. Stephen's Church (Catholic), formerly New North Church, is located at 401 Hanover Street in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the last remaining church in Boston designed by Charles Bulfinch.
Design and construction
The church, made of red brick with white pilasters on the façade and topped by a clock tower and a belfry, was originally designed as the second edifice of the New North Religious Society, a Congregationalist group. Its cornerstone was laid on September 23, 1802, and the building dedicated on May 2, 1804. Three days later the Columbian Centinel wrote:
“ The exterior is in a bold and commanding style; the front is decorated with stone pilasters of a composed order; a series of attic pilasters over them, a tower and a cupola, terminated with a handsome vane, about 100 feet from the foundation. The inside is a perfect square of 72 feet; two ranges of dorick columns under the galleries, and Corinthian over them, support the ceiling, which rises in an arch of moderate elevation in the centre. ”
Bulfinch’s specifications show that the church was designed nearly square, with inside dimensions of 70’ (length) x 72’. A transverse section exhibits roof framing similar to that of Holy Cross Church. Some of the timber of the old church (built 1714, rebuilt 1730) was used, and when the Bulfinch building was restored in 1964-65, the underpinning was found to be entirely sound. However, the roof was less skillfully constructed, and severe leakage was arrested only after the pitch was sharpened and the whole covered with imported slate a few years after dedication.
The church cost $26,570, nearly all of which was raised by the sale of pews. Charles Shaw judged it “a commodious brick building”,[2] while William Bentley, who thought it took too long to build, nevertheless commended its “good style”."
And Wikipedia also tells us about Bulfinch (
visit link)
"Bulfinch's first building was the Hollis Street Church (1788). Among his other early works are a memorial column on Beacon Hill (1789), the first monument to the American Revolution; the Federal Street theater (1793); the "Tontine Crescent" (built 1793–1794, now demolished), fashioned in part after John Wood's Royal Crescent; the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut (1796); and the Massachusetts State House (1798).
Over the course of ten years, Bulfinch built a remarkable number of private dwellings in the Boston area, including Joseph Barrell's Pleasant Hill (1793), a series of three houses in Boston for Harrison Gray Otis (1796, 1800, 1806), and the John Phillips House (1804). He built several churches in Boston, of which New North (built 1802–1804) is the last standing.
Serving from 1791 to 1795 on Boston's board of selectmen, he resigned due to business pressures but returned in 1799. From 1799 to 1817 he was the chairman of Boston's board of selectmen continuously, and served as a paid Police Superintendent, improving the city's streets, drains, and lighting. Under his direction, both the infrastructure and civic center of Boston were transformed into a dignified classical style. Bulfinch was responsible for the design of the Boston Common, the remodeling and enlargement of Faneuil Hall (1805), and the construction of India Wharf. In these Boston years he also designed the Massachusetts State Prison (1803); Boylston Market (1810); University Hall for Harvard University (1813–1814); the Meeting House in Lancaster, Massachusetts (1815–17); and the Bulfinch Building of Massachusetts General Hospital (1818), its completion overseen by Alexander Parris, who was working in Bulfinch's office at the time the architect was summoned to Washington.
Despite this great activity and civic involvement, Bulfinch was insolvent several times starting in 1796, including at the start of his work on the statehouse, and was jailed for the month of July 1811 for debt (in a prison he had designed himself). There was no payment for his services as selectman, and he received only $1,400 for designing and overseeing the construction of the State House.
In the summer of 1817, Bulfinch's roles as selectman, designer and public official coincided during a visit by President James Monroe. The two men were almost constantly in each other's company for the week-long visit, and a few months later (1818) Monroe appointed Bulfinch the successor to Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820) as Architect of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. (The Capitol Building had been partially burned by the British in 1814.) In this position he was paid a salary of $2,500 per year plus expenses.
As Commissioner of Public Building, Bulfinch completed the Capitol's wings and central portion, designed the western approach and portico, and constructed the Capitol's original low wooden dome to his own design (replaced by the present cast-iron dome completed in the mid-1860s). In 1829 Bulfinch completed the construction of the Capitol, 36 years after its cornerstone was laid. During his interval in Washington, Bulfinch also drew plans for the State House in Augusta, Maine (1829–32), a Unitarian Church and prison in Washington,D.C.. He returned to Boston in 1830, where he died on April 15, 1844, aged 80, and was buried in King's Chapel Burial Ground in Boston. His tomb was later moved to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1943, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Charles Bulfinch was launched. The ship was scrapped in 1971."