The Former Charles Street Meeting House (Boston, Massachusetts) | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Georgian / Colonial |
Town or city | Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts |
Country | United States of America |
Construction started | 1804 |
Completed | 1807 |
Cost | ? |
Client | The Third Baptist Church |
Technical details | |
Structural system | Rendered masonry |
Design and construction | |
Architect | Asher Benjamin |
Engineer | ? |
The Charles Street Meeting House is an early-nineteenth-century historic church in Beacon Hill at 70 Charles Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
The church has been used over its history by several Christian denominations, including Baptists, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Unitarian Universalist. In the 1980s, it was renovated and adapted for use as office space, with the exterior restored and preserved. This project received awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Institute of Architects.
The meeting house is a site on the National Park Service's Black Heritage Trail and is part of the Beacon Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The church was built between 1804 and 1807 to the designs by noted American architect Asher Benjamin for the Third Baptist Church, which used the nearby Charles River for its baptisms. In the years before the American Civil War, it was a stronghold of the anti-slavery movement, and was the site of notable speeches from such anti-slavery activists as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. Pastors of the Third Baptist Church included Caleb Blood (1807-1810), Daniel Sharp (1812-ca.1853) and J.C. Stockbridge (1853-ca.1861). The congregation was eventually "absorbed by the First Baptist Church."