A Brief History

Begun as a mission of St. Mary's Church Dorchester, All Saints was founded in 1867 to serve Church of England workers who had come to work for the Old Colony Railroad and other local industries. It grew rapidly, and in 1872 held its first services in a newly built wood frame church on Dorchester Avenue near the present Red-Line Ashmont station.

On the Feast of the Holy Innocents in 1879, Colonel Oliver and Mary Lothrop Peabody, prominent Boston Unitarians, boarded their horse-drawn carriage to attend services at King's Chapel. They journeyed in the sorrow borne of the recent death of their only child, Amelia.

As they descended Adams Street from their Milton Hill home, the heavens opened and heavy snow began to swirl about. Their driver, concerned about the balance of the trip, suggested they attend his church, All Saints. The Peabodys agreed. They sat unobtrusively in the back of the church. Father Bennitt, then Rector, preached a sermon about the Holy Innocents. It struck a particularly resonant chord for the Peabodys, for he too had recently lost a child.

The next Sunday the Peabodys returned to All Saints. This time they stayed for the entire service, and when they left, Colonel Peabody pressed a princely sum for the poor into the hand of the stunned rector. The Peabodys did not return to King's Chapel. They received instruction, and were confirmed.

Father Bennitt's ministry was so well received that in short order the church added services, but still had worshipers standing on the porch and outside the windows for the five Sunday services.

Doubtless, the Peabodys were the wealthiest members of the parish. But it was the Colonel's skills as an investment banker (Kidder-Peabody) and leadership style that soon found him on the vestry as it planned a new and much larger church. At the Peabodys' suggestion a 26-year-old architect, Ralph Adams Cram, was asked to propose a design for the new church. This is the same architect who designed the reredos in the Advent's All Saints Chapel, our great hanging rood, the parclose screen which frames the entrance to the Lady Chapel, and the credence table in the sanctuary. Cram's plans were approved, and the Peabodys donated the balance needed by the parish to build the $100,000 church of Quincy granite and Nova Scotia limestone. Bishop Phillips Brooks blessed and laid the cornerstone on November 9, 1892.The first service in the church was held on December 27, 1893, and the building was consecrated by Bishop Lawrence on November 24, 1895.

All Saints was Cram's first church, and it strongly influenced subsequent building in America and Europe. The interior furnishings, including a massive caen stone reredos replete with a statue of Christ The King surrounded by smaller statues of disciples and martyrs, a three panel painting of The Virgin Mary enthroned by G.H. Hallowell, hand carved wood chancel paneling and paraments were the continuing benefice of the now widowed Mary Peabody. Four large English and American stained glass windows were added to the upper clerestory, and all but two of the nave's lower clerestory windows were made by the Boston firm of Charles Connick.

Mrs. Peabody died in 1910. In her honor, the parish again commissioned Cram to design the St. Mary's Chapel, which was added to the North wall of the nave. Johannes Kirchmayer was commissioned to carve the altar triptych, still regarded as one of the finest examples of American Gothic Revival.

From its first to its present and 13th rector, The Reverend Michael J. Godderz, the parish has been committed to the principles of the Oxford Movement. A critically acclaimed choir of men and boys, under the direction of Jeremy Bruns, today fulfills another objective of the Peabodys. The choir sings at the Sunday Solemn Mass and at special feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady, as well as at community events. Congregational singing and choir music is also enhanced by the recent installation of a large C. B. Fisk tracker organ.

In 1998 the Epiphany School was established, and operated in the renovated parish house. It now occupies a new building in Dorchester and continues to provide the opportunity of a superb and comprehensive education.

On the feasts of Candlemas, Ascension, Corpus Christi and Assumption, Advent and All Saints' share each other's churches and often each other's clergy. May God continue to bless richly this cooperative witness of two great Anglo-Catholic parishes.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO ALL SAINTS' CHURCH
by Bill Buckingham

The Parish of All Saints is blessed with a church building of exceptional beauty and considerable importance in American architectural history. The cornerstone of the present church was laid in 1892. It was built to replace the modest wood-frame chapel, built in Lower Mills in 1872 and moved up Dorchester Avenue to Ashmont in 1882, which the parish had outgrown. The first church designed by Ralph Adams Cram, All Saints' was published in virtually every American and European architectural journal and in Cram's widely-read book, Church Building. Cram's contribution did not cease when the church was opened in1893; he and his colleagues continued to enlarge and embellish the church for several decades. Under his guidance, All Saints' became a treasure house of ecclesiastical art in many media, including painting, sculpture, stained glass, and metalwork. A brief guide such as this cannot do justice to the many artists and craftpeople involved; their work is extensively treated in the Centennial History of the parish written by Douglass Shand Tucci.

Entering the church from Ashmont Street via the Tower, one shortly encounters a recent addition to the interior, the Centenary Organ, built by C. B. Fisk, Inc. and dedicated in 1995. Passing beneath the organ balcony, one enters the Nave. This portion of the church, with its stone arches, plaster walls, and wood ceiling, is notable for its simplicity. Most of the clerestory windows retain the "temporary" glazing of 1893: diamond-shaped panes of reddish-colored glass. Of the clerestory windows which have received their intended figural glass, the last window on the right, an Adoration of the Magi by Harry Goodhue, is the earliest and the last window on the left, a Risen Christ by Christopher Whall, is the finest. The Side Aisles contain a notable series of small stained-glass windows by Vaughn O'Neill and Charles Connick, as well as ten Stations of the Cross by Angelo Lualdi. Standing on an oak beam high in the chancel arch and dominating the entire Nave is the great Rood (the old English word for a cross), on which Christ both suffers and reigns, flanked by St. Mary and St. John. This crucifix, with figures carved by Angelo Lualdi and painted by Ralph Flint, was dedicated on Easter in 1911.

The Chancel beyond consists of two parts. The first, called the Choir, contains stalls and benches for singers and the facade of the Chancel Organ, most of whose pipes are located in an adjacent chamber. The second part, called the Sanctuary, is separated from the Choir by steps, a communion rail, and a row of seven hanging lamps. The Sanctuary contains the High Altar, flanked on the left by the Bishop's Throne and on the right by the Sedilia, a triple seat for the priest, deacon, and subdeacon. The High Altar could not be more elemental; it consists of a single block of limestone, weighing seven tons. Except on Good Friday, it is concealed by textile coverings. Plain white linen covers the top and sides; damask frontals, their colors changing for various feasts and seasons, conceal the stone behind. The importance of the altar is indicated by the lofty Reredos which rises behind it. Designed by Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and carved from French limestone by the John Evans Company, the Reredos incorporates figure sculpture by Domingo Mora and a three-part painting on canvas by George Hallowell. Mora's statue of Christ the King occupies the central canopied niche; he is flanked by large statues of the archangels Michael and Gabriel and by smaller images of twelve representative saints. In Hallowell's painting, Our Lady is enthroned as Queen of Heaven, holding her Son and venerated by saints and angels. Notable accessories of the High Altar include the gold-plated brass Cross and Candlesticks, designed by Bertram Goodhue and made by Thomas McGann; the Tabernacle, executed by James Wooley, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved; and the Sanctuary Lamp, a seventeenth-century antique from Russia, with a white light to indicate the presence of the sacrament in the tabernacle. Finally both Choir and Sanctuary are lined with elaborately-carved oak panelling. Designed in 1899 by Goodhue and executed by Irving & Casson, the panelling incorporates over sixty small sculptures by John Kirchmayer. To either side of the altar, near the top of the panelling one can see two series of miniature Bible scenes. On the left Kirchmayer has carved incidents from the Old Testament; on the right he has depicted corresponding events from the New Testament. Both the reredos and the chancel panelling were gifts of Mary Lothrop Peabody, the parish's most generous benefactor, in memory of her husband, Colonel Oliver White Peabody.

Adjoining the Nave are two side chapels. The larger of these, dedicated to The Blessed Virgin. Mary, was planned in 1911 as a memorial to Mrs. Peabody. Outstanding among the contents of St. Mary's Chapel is the carved oak Triptych by John Kirchmayer above the altar. In the central panel he has portrayed Our Lady being crowned by one pair of angels and worshipped by a second pair, while still more angels lurk in the embroidery of her robe. The two side panels are hinged so that they can be closed during Lent. The encaustic tile pavement around the altar is the work of the Grueby Faince Company; the Tennessee marble Baptismal Font was carved by the John Evans Company; and the stained glass windows were made by Herbert Davis. Outdoors, above the entrance to the chapel, is another Madonna, sculpted in stone by Arthur Atkins. The other chapel, added to the church in 1929, is dedicated to St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The altar and reredos, however, date from ten years earlier. They are work of Frank Gedies, with color and gilding by Lauritz Rasmussen. St. Stephen is shown with the stones which were the means of his death at the hands of an angry mob and with the palm branch which is the sign of his ultimate victory. It is interesting to see how Cram has used a distinctive material for each of the church's three altars: stone for the High Altar, unvarnished oak for St. Mary's, and brilliantly painted and gilded wood for St. Stephen's. Tucked in the corners of the Nave and Lady Chapel are four shrines with holders for votive candles. These shrines include two statues of Our Lady (under different titles), one of St. Joseph, and an icon of Charles I, King of England and Martyr.

This ensemble of distinguished religious art forms an appropriate setting for the parish's unabashedly catholic approach to faith and worship. The principal service on Sundays and major holy days is a Solemn High Mass. ("Solemn" indicates that parts of the service are chanted ant that incense is used; a "High Mass" requires three ministers, a priest, a deacon, and a subdeacon.) From September through June, the musical portions of these services are rendered by a professional choir of men and boys. Our traditional Anglo-Catholic worship continues to attract and sustain people from varied social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds.

Stained Glass at All Saints' Ashmont

Narrative text is taken from All Saints' Ashmont - Dorchester - Boston, A Centennial History of the Parish by Douglass Shand-Tucci, published by the Parish, 1975. For a copy, please send inquiry to Parish Office, All Saints' Church, 209 Ashmont Street, Dorchester, MA 02124, or send us email.

The Clerestory Windows

Adoration by the Kings and Shepherds
designed by Harry Eldridge Goodhue made by Phipps, Slocum and Company 1896

"It is also pleasant to record that on at least one occasion during Mrs. Peabody's project of completing the chancel, the parish was not content merely to watch, but was moved to give in memory of Mrs. Peabody's little daughter, Amelia, Harry Eldridge Goodhue's Adoration.

It is not, as was originally planned, in the chancel. No doubt because Cram was already concerned that though he himself had taken the lead in giving the first stained glass window, nobody had followed suit, the Goodhue window was placed outside. An important and representative work by Goodhue, the first American glassman Cram formed an alliance with, Adoration is best seen in mid to late afternoon, when the moving sun passes at first very tenderly through it and then, with an increasing power, enlivens and finally fires it into a blazing translucent glory of golds and colors. It's companion, on the northern side of the chancel arch, is inarguably one of the greatest windows of the new world - The Risen Christ by Christopher Whall - which is with the exception of five later lights at the Advent in Boston the only work in this country of perhaps the most important British glassman of his time."

The Risen Christ
designed and made by Christopher Whall

"Designed and made entirely by Whall, whose best known work is probably his glass for Sedding's Holy Trinity, Upper Chelsea, though his work in the Lady Chapel at Gloucester has won the widest notice, one can see in the coarse stipples and silvery whites of this glass precisely what A.H. Christie saw in all of Whall's work - 'beautiful drawing and mastery of color and design, united with sure technical knowledge in work of the highest rank.' Notice, too, Whall's use of natural forms for canopy, an aspect of his work that particularly impressed Charles Connick, the pre-eminent American glassman of a later period, whose study of Whall's work was by Connick's own admission of supreme importance to his development. Connick mentions Whall's Ashmont window in his Adventures of Light and Color, and thought it important enough to inquire of Father Blunt, many years later in a letter of 26 March, 1925, if any photograph existed of it that he might publish in his retrospective study of Whall's work in the June number of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects of that year."

The Resurrection

St. Stephen's Chapel

St. Michael's Window
designed by Joseph Reynolds

"Reynolds' St. Michael's window, where the white archangel in pale dalmatic (on a white ground with white wings, clouds and dove) is relieved only by a slight gold stain throughout and by a border of light green and amber panels alternating with the ruby and blue, is perfectly balanced with Connick's companion window of St. Stephen, Opus 2173, where Connick concluded the quality of light it would receive called for '... a little richer color' than Reynolds' window, 'and with more jewel-like accents.'"

St. Stephen's Window
designed by Charles Connick

The Mary Chapel

The Aisle Windows
Designed by Charles Connick

Ruth and Naomi

St. Agnes and St. Ann

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