New North Church
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St. Stephen's Church
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St. Stephen's Church, Boston
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| Location | Boston, MA |
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| Coordinates | 42°21′56.21″N 71°3′10.11″W / 42.3656139°N 71.0528083°WCoordinates: 42°21′56.21″N 71°3′10.11″W / 42.3656139°N 71.0528083°W |
| Built | 1804 |
| Architect | Bulfinch, Charles |
| Architectural style | Early Republic, Other |
| NRHP Reference # | 75000300 |
| Added to NRHP | April 14, 1975 |
St. Stephen's Church, formerly the New North Church, is a Roman Catholic church located at 401 Hanover Street in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the last remaining church in Boston designed by Charles Bulfinch.
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:
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”, while William Bentley, who thought it took too long to build, nevertheless commended its “good style”.
Like many Boston congregations of the time, New North went over to Unitarianism, and from 1813 to 1849, Rev. Dr. Francis Parkman (1788–1852), an eloquent preacher and father of historian Francis Parkman, was its minister. By 1822 the church was complaining that “the young gentlemen who have married wives in other parts of the town have found it difficult to persuade them to become so ungenteel as to attend worship in the North End”; Parkman himself preferred to live in the vicinity of Bowdoin Square.
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