Holy Cross Church, Boston

The Church of the Holy Cross (1803-ca.1862) was located on Franklin Street in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1808 the church became the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. It was designed by Charles Bulfinch and was the first church built for the city's Roman Catholics.

The last Mass was celebrated there on September 16, 1860 Demolition took place around 1862. The cathedral was replaced by a new Cathedral of the Holy Cross located in the South End.

Prior to the erection of Holy Cross, Boston’s several hundred mostly French and Irish Roman Catholics met in a small, dilapidated former Huguenot meetinghouse made of brick and located on the south side of School Street, a few doors up from Washington Street. As this arrangement proved inadequate and the lease on the chapel was about to expire, in March 1799 a committee was appointed and charged with raising funds for the purchase of a building site and the procurement of plans for a proper church. A site was chosen at the southern end of the Tontine Crescent at what is today 214 Devonshire Street.

The property belonged to the Boston Theatre proprietors and Bulfinch, who was a member of the corporation, obtained the land at what Father François Matignon termed “the moderate price of 2500 Dols.” Bulfinch then submitted plans for the church to his friend Father John Cheverus without fee. Ground was broken on March 17, 1800, and the building dedicated on September 29, 1803. The minutes of the building committee report “the thanks of the whole Society were voted and desired to be offered to Mr. James [sic] Bulfinch, Esq., for his kindness to the Congregation in having supplied us with a very elegant plan for our new Church, and such as united decency and ornament with economy and having shown himself a friend and Patron to us.” In recognition for his charity, the Catholic faithful presented him with a fine silver tea-urn, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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