Brattle Street Church

The Brattle Street Church (1698-1876) was a Congregational (1698-c.1805) and Unitarian (c.1805-1876) church on Brattle Street in Boston, Massachusetts.

In January 1698, "Thomas Brattle conveyed the land on which the meeting-house was to stand; and on the 10th of May, 1699, a formal invitation was extended to Benjamin Colman... to be its minister." To distinguish itself in contrast to Boston's three other Congregational churches, the new fourth church issued a manifesto that detailed a somewhat relaxed attitude toward rigid Calvinist practices. Thomas Brattle probably designed the unpainted, wood, meetinghouse-style building for the church, erected in 1699. The building had a "main entrance in the bell tower (while retaining a secondary entrance on the long side) and ...[a] pulpit at the opposite end ...[and] rounded or compass windows."

Through the years, ministers included: Benjamin Colman (1699-1747); William Cooper (1716-1743); Samuel Cooper (1747-1783); Peter Thacher (1785-1802); Joseph Stevens Buckminster (1805-1812); Edward Everett (1814-1815); John Gorham Palfrey (1818-1831); and Samuel Kirkland Lothrop (1834-1876).Hans Gram played organ in the late 18th century. Parishioners included John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, John Adams, Abigail Adams, Richard Clarke, Elizabeth Greenleaf, Jane Mecom, John Lowell, Lydia Hancock, Henry Cabot Lodge, James Bowdoin (1676-1747), and many others. "Cato, favorite servant of the [John] Hancocks... received his freedom at age thirty, married, and baptized his children at the prestigious Brattle Street Church, all the while continuing to serve the town's leading family."

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