Granite, Glass, and the Construction of King’s Chapel (episode 279)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 79 granite glass and the construction of King’s Chapel.
Hi, I’m Jake.
This week, I’m dusting off an idea that’s been on my list of potential podcast topics for over four years.
It’s a story that ties one of modern Boston’s iconic Freedom Trail sites to the earliest days of English settlement on the Shawmut Peninsula.
It’s a story that ties the first puritan to die in Boston to the hated royal governor Edmund Andros, and it ties some of the earliest non-english immigrants in Boston to Ben Franklin and Abigail Adams through the invention of two local industries.
King’s Chapel is beloved in Boston today, but it was seen as an unwelcome invader when it was first proposed in 16 86.
And this week’s show, we’ll look at how Boston found room for an unwanted church, how the church was reinvented at least three times and how it launched local glass making and founded the granite industry in Quincy.
We’ll also see where you can find the last traces of the original wooden king’s chapel hiding inside the walls of a more modern church, but not here in Boston.

[1:26] But before we talk about building King’s Chapel, I just want to pause and say a big thank you to everyone who supports Hub History on Patreon by committing to support the show with $2.05 dollars or even $20 each month.
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[1:49] Podcasting is a cheaper medium to break into than many are.
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[3:55] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic, depending on how you count them.
There have been about five different incarnations of Boston’s King’s Chapel, but only three of those have been in Boston.
Each version was born in controversy going right back to the founding of the church in 16 86.
The problem right from the very beginning is where they chose to put it.
The book, a chronological History of New England records a death in Boston just a few months after the town was founded in 16 30.

[4:30] September 30th Thursday about two in the morning, Mr Isaac Johnson dies.
He was a holy man and wise and died in sweet peace, leaving part of his substance to the colony.
Our story begins not so much with Isaac Johnson’s death, but with what came next.
The chronology continues by recounting a conversation between the chronicler Thomas Prince and Puritan Minister Samuel Sewell, the late chief justice Samuel Sewell informed me that this Mr Johnson was the principal cause of settling the town of Boston and so of its becoming the metropolis and had removed.
Hither had chosen for his lot.
The Great Square lying between Cornhill on the Southeast Tremont Street in the Northwest Queen Street on the northeast and school street on the southwest, and on his deathbed designed to be buried at the upper end of his lot in faith of his rising in it.
He was accordingly buried there which gave occasion for the first burying place of this town to be laid out roundabout his grave.

[5:41] Today. Of course, we refer to Johnson’s former backyard along Tremont Street as King’s chapel burying ground, but it didn’t yet have that name at the time.
It was just the burying ground in Boston, which belonged to no church in the Puritan tradition. Cemeteries belong to the community.
In this case, it just so happened that that community was a pure in theocracy, all that would change after the English restoration on December 20th, 16 86 the new royally appointed governor of Massachusetts and all of New England arrived in Boston.

[6:19] Sir Edmund Andros was appointed by James the second and given control of the newly created Dominion of New England, which included Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and eventually even New York and the Jerseys.

[6:34] He was instantly unpopular with his parent neighbors getting off on the wrong foot by demanding a public celebration of Christmas, which at that point had been banned in Boston for 22 years.
Andros was not only a member of the church of England, an Anglican but a flamboyant one after his public Christmas celebration, he wanted the venue to hold regular Anglican worship services.
One by one. He went to the pastors of each of Boston’s Puritan churches and asked if they would allow him to hold his services there one by one, they told him no, after being denied, he used his royal authority to demand the key to the third church which belonged to the congregation.
That’s today’s old South church in their building known as the cedar meeting house, a small Anglican congregation met for the next two years while Andros looked for land where he could build an Anglican church.
When nobody in Boston would sell them land that they knew would be used for a dissenting church.
Andro seized part of the town’s burying ground in a spiteful move.
He decided that if the puritans wouldn’t sell him land for a church, he’d simply build it on the graves of their fathers.

[7:50] A small wooden chapel was erected and the congregation moved into it.
In 16 89 the congregation started out small and grew slowly at first until it got a sudden influx of powerful new members.
About 20 years later in the records of the town of Boston, there’s a petition that was put up for a boat at the town meeting in 17 10 members of the King’s chapel congregation were asking the town which again owned the old burying ground upon which the chapel was built to move some graves and see a strip of land at the church.
A motion or request in writing, being presented and distinctly read at this meeting and is as followeth, the request of the honorable Colonel Francis Nicholson, together with the ministers, church wardens and others of the church of England and Boston show that the church being too small to accommodate the congregation and strangers that daily increase.
And her desire is to enlarge the same with the approbation of the selectman and inhabitants.
But one in ground on the north side and east end requests that they may have a grant of 15 ft wide on the north side and 74 ft in length, and 10 ft on the east end of the church in length, which is included in the said 74 ft, reserving the same liberty to all persons who have had any friends buried in said ground which they enjoyed here for.

[9:16] Which request being granted shall be ever acknowledged, et cetera.

[9:22] Voted a grant to the said gentleman of the above said request.

[9:29] Now that request was probably approved because that year, the town of Boston, which had always had a significant puritan majority suddenly swelled with an influx of Anglican visitors.
The Colonel Nicholson mentioned above was one of the commanders of what was at the time the largest military force ever assembled under the English flag in North America.
About 1500 provincial troops and British regulars were camped out on Noles Island in Boston Harbor under Admiral Hoven Walker and General John Hill.
Later that year, they would launch what turned out to be a disastrous attempt at laying siege to Quebec.
But for now, they brought a sudden influx of money and men who are affiliated with the Anglican church and worshiped the King’s chapel, the diary of Puritan minister and one time witch trial, judge Samuel Sewell gives a sense of how the meeting went Monday, August 14th at a town meeting warned for that purpose.
15 ft of the old burying place northward and 10 ft eastward are granted to enlarge the church.
Samuel Lind was chosen moderator, Colonel Nicholson made a speech before and came in afterward and gave the town thanks for their vote.
Mr P. Prout, the town clerk made some opposition because the grave of his ancestor would be there by hidden.

[10:56] Not much is known about the process of construction used in this second version of King’s Chapel.
Only the related disasters remain in the historical record, while construction was still underway on October 2nd 17 11, the ship tavern on Orange Street between King’s Chapel and the townhouse or today’s old state house caught on fire.
By the time it was extinguished. 100 10 houses have been destroyed in the area surrounding Orange Street which we now know as Washington Street, first Church, the home of John Winthrop’s original congregation had been destroyed as was the townhouse which was rebuilt as the old statehouse that we know and love today.
Though the flames at times moved in the direction of King’s Chapel.
It did escape unscathed later that month.
However, a fatal injury is recorded at the construction site.
October 26th. A man falls from a scaffold at the church of England into the street and is stricken dead.

[11:59] Despite these minor setbacks, the new expanded church was soon complete.
The annals of King’s chapel record that the congregation was pleased with their new home.
Great things have been done in beautifying the little wooden church without and within, it was enlarged to twice its original size.
And the pillars, capitals and corner were painted, places were assigned ane to the proprietors and each person paid for the building of his own pew.
And whereas the pews had been built before, according to the usual fashion with little rails or banisters running around the top, it was now voted that they should be built in one form without banisters.
The pulpit was removed from its former situation to the next pillar at the east being near the center of the church.
A clock given by the gentleman of the British society took the place of the great brass mounted hourglass which used to stand by the preacher’s hand to be turned by him when its sands had run out in admonition to him and his congregation.

[13:05] We can see the church as it appeared after these alterations in a small view of Boston published in 17 20, in which maybe deciphered the King’s Chapel, a little wooden building with three windows on each side and three at the flat back of the church.
It has a tower about as high as the present one surrounded by a tall mast at whose top is a weathercock and halfway up a large gilt crown.

[13:32] We’ll have a copy of the only known drawing of the 17 10 incarnation of King’s Chapel. In this week’s show notes.
By the time three decades had passed, the expanded church building was beginning to look a little bit rough around the edges.
In 17 41 Governor William Shirley started a subscription fund to raise money to build a new stone church.
Peter Fanuel was appointed as treasurer of the fund Fanuel, who as a merchant and slave trader had turned a generous inheritance into one of the largest fortunes in America became distracted.
In 17 40 he convinced the town of Boston to construct a new market building at his expense.
And the construction of Fanuel Hall coincided with the launch of the subscription campaign just a few months after the market was completed.
In 17 41 Peter Fanuel died.
Shirley also seems to have lost interest and the project was put back on the back burner again.

[14:32] In 17 47 the subscription campaign was reopened and the initial appeal said, we the subscribers upon a representation that the said King’s chapel is now much more gone to decay and not worth the charge of repairs out of regard to the honor of God and the more decent provision for his public worship and for confirming and further promoting the said subscription heretofore begun do hereby severly promise and oblige ourselves to pay towards rebuilding the said chapel, the several sums annexed to our respective names and we do hereby also further invite all well disposed charitable persons to whom this subscription of ours shall be made.
Known to join with us in the good work above mentioned, Governor Shirley Reverend Keener and the lay leadership of the church embarked on a letter writing campaign.
They sent appeals to bishops, lords and other potential benefactors on both sides of the Atlantic.

[15:33] Sir, as the ruinous condition of King’s chapel in this town is very well known to you who have generally contributed to the rebuilding of it.
A violent storm having lately carried off. A large part of the roof lays us under a necessity of hastening the work with all possible expedition.
And another, may it please your lordship? We think it our duty to acquaint your lordship that time and other accidents, particularly a late remarkable storm have so much impaired King’s chapel in Boston that it has become necessary to rebuild it.
If the great many affairs in which you are engaged, give you leisure to attend to the application of a people at this distance.
We humbly beg leave to lay before you. The ruinous condition of King’s chapel in this town which having suffered very much from a late violent storm has now become necessary to be rebuilt.

[16:27] And finally, Sir King’s Chapel in Boston.
The first church ever built in this part of the world is now through length of time and sundry accidents brought to such a ruinous condition as to occasion.
It’s being speedily pulled down the campaign to build a new stone building for King’s Chapel on top of what remained of Boston’s first congregational burying ground led to further controversy.
The Anglicans of King’s Chapel in the congregationalist majority of the town had a long and contentious debate over whether Kings Chapel should be expanded when it was rebuilt.
If it was expanded, even more graves of even more ancient puritan ancestors would have to be disturbed and relocated.
Eventually, leaders believed that they had reached a compromise.
The congregationalists would agree to the request to see more land from the burying ground.
In return, the Anglicans would bear the cost of relocating any graves that were disturbed and they would acquire a nearby parcel of land where a school that had to be displaced could be moved.
The following petition was presented at a Boston Town meeting laying out the compromise to the freeholder and other inhabitants of the town of Boston and general Town meeting assembled April 4th 17 48.

[17:49] The petition of the Minister Wardens Investor of King’s Chapel in Boston and behalf of themselves and the congregation that usually attend the public worship of God.
There show that said chapel which has been constantly improved for the public worship of God for about 60 years past, is in many parts of it rotten and greatly decayed and almost rendered unfit for that service any longer.
And said congregation out of regard to the honor of God and for their own edification being very desirous that the public worship of God should still be supported and carried on and said place.
We have determined to rebuild said church and make it somewhat larger, more commodious and regular than it is now.
But apprehend they shall be greatly straightened for one of ground at the east end of the said church to affect the same.
Your petitioners therefore pray the town will be pleased to grant to the said church 34 ft eastward for the body of the said chapel and 10 ft for a chancel in order to enlarge the same into a regular and commodious building.

[18:53] And whereas the town has a schoolhouse upon part of the land which your petitioners request, it is therefore humbly proposed in consideration of the grant hereby requested, that the petitioners do purchase and make over the town a piece of ground at the upper end of the lane or passage running the present schoolhouse and erect there on a new schoolhouse of like dimensions.
With the present the said petitioners not to dig or open any ground which the additional building shall cover excepting to lay the foundation, nor at any time to exclude those who have vaults or tombs within the requested limits from the liberty of a free access to them.

[19:33] Two weeks later on April 18th, the measure passed in a close vote that was not without some funny business.
And thereupon the inhabitants were directed to bring in their votes in writing and such of them as were for accepting of the said draft of a vote as prepared by the committee and passing the same as the vote of the town.
An answer to the said petition were desired to write.
Yay and such as we’re not for accepting it to write.
Nay, the inhabitants proceeded to bring in their votes and when the Selectmen were receiving them at the door of the hall, they observed one of the inhabitants, John Pigeon to put in about a dozen with the word Yay wrote on all of them, and being charged with so doing, he acknowledged it and was thereupon ordered by the moderator to pay a fine of £5 for putting in more than one vote according to the law.
And the moderator thereupon declared to the inhabitants that they must withdraw and bring in their votes again in manner as before directed and the inhabitants accordingly withdrew and the votes being brought in and sorted it appeared that there was 402 votes and that there was 205 yays and 197 nays.
Whereupon it was declared by the moderator that the said form of a vote was accepted and passed by the town accordingly.

[20:53] An eight vote margin in an election with known voter fraud is mighty tide.
It took a year to get permission to move the bodies of those interred in the newly transferred piece of land and to build the schoolhouse to the town’s demanding and ever changing standards.
Finally, in April 17 49 the church committee was ready to begin purchasing construction materials before you can buy materials. However, you need a plan.
So Reverend Keener wrote to Peter Harrison of Newport Boston fifth of April 17 49 Mr Peter Harrison, sir, the committee appointed to have the care of rebuilding King’s chapel in this town as they designed with all convenient expedition to proceed in the business, committed to their trust have desired me to acquaint you that they should esteem it a favor if you would oblige them with a draft of a handsome church, agreeable to the limits here.
And after assigned the length of the church from west to east including the steeple is to be 100 and 20 ft, besides which there will be 10 ft allowed for a chancel.
The breadth is to be 65 ft eight inches, the ground has a declivity of about 5 ft from west to east.
It is bounded with a fair street on the west end and another on the south side, the north side has a large open space or burying ground.
The east end is bounded by private property at about 12 ft distance.

[22:23] As the chief beauty and strength of a building depends upon a due proportion of the several members to each other.
The gentlemen of the committee are encouraged to make this application to you whom they have often heard mentioned with advantage for a particular judgment and taste and things of this kind and for the knowledge you have acquired by traveling in observation, we do not require any great expensive ornament, but chiefly aim at symmetry and proportion which we entirely submit to your judgment.

[22:51] The building is to be of rough stone and since the charge will greatly increase by carrying the walls very high.
If it does not interfere with your judgment, we should perhaps be pleased with one tier of windows only.
This indeed will be inconvenient for the galleries. And therefore, if it be not too much trouble, the gentleman would be glad to have a prospect of a side of each sort, one with a single tier of windows and the other with two, the steeple inspire for bigness, height and ornament is left with you to determine, a draft of which together with a ground plan is what is desired.
And would extremely oblige the gentleman of the committee and be esteemed a very great favor by sir, your most obedient and most humble servant H Kenner.
Now, depending on where you read about him, you may hear Peter Harrison described as America’s greatest architect or maybe America’s first architect who was the first professionally trained architect working in North America.

[23:55] He was born in England in 17 16 and placed in an apprenticeship with a master architect when he was just 12 years old.
His first commission was a 600 ft long country home for the Marquess of Rockingham.
But as he completed his apprenticeship, most of the work he got was for churches and other public buildings which it was customary not to charge for, realizing at a young age that his best bet to earn a living at his chosen trade was to get out of England.
He had a sea captain, brother teach him how to be the master of a ship.
His first major cruise took him to the east coast of North America in 17 38.
And within a few short months, he had designed mansions, public markets, churches, a synagogue and a courthouse in the West Indies, the Carolinas Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Closer to home he discovered upon arriving in Boston that the lovely Christ church had no bell tower because the original architect’s design couldn’t be built within the church’s budget.

[24:58] Harrison quickly sketched out a new design that the church we know as old North could afford.
And 37 years later, two lanterns would be famously hung from a window that Harrison designed to warn of the British advance on conquered.
On his next trip to North America. Harrison was captured by the French and imprisoned for a time at the fortress Lewis Bo gun Cape Bratton Island.
While there he found and copied a complete architectural blueprint of the Ford sewed his copy into the lining of his coat.
And after he was released, he showed it to Massachusetts. Governor William Shirley.
This had the dual effect of convincing Shirley that a force of Massachusetts provincials could take over the Ford which people had previously believed to be impregnable and convincing Shirley that Harrison should design a mansion for him.

[25:49] Massachusetts captured Lewisburg in the summer of 17 45 and work began on the Roxbury mansion that we now call the Shirley Eustice House. In 17 47.
Harrison also designed the official governor’s mansion near Downtown Crossing that was called the Province House, a building for Harvard and later both a courthouse and prison for Boston as work got going on the new chapel in Boston.
In 17 49 Shirley was one of the largest donors to the construction effort and Harrison had his hands full with commissions from throughout the colonies.

[26:24] In June of 17 49 the church committee entered into a contract with Mr George Tilley to land stone, sand, lime and other building materials at his war from the Boston waterfront, tilly would then be responsible for carting materials to the building site.
Foundation stones were arranged from Roxbury granite for the walls was going to be sourced from the part of Braintree that we now know as Quincy, A Mr Hayward of Braintree agreed to deliver a shipload of 24 tons of granite from the South Common and a Mr Hunt signed on to bring 22 tons from the North Common, sources call King’s Chapel the first cut granite building in the US.
But it may be more accurate to say that it’s the earliest surviving example, Thomas Hancock’s Beacon Hill mansion that was later inherited by his famous nephew, John was built using the same materials and techniques and it was completed about a decade before the rebuild of King’s Chapel.
The American granite industry didn’t exist yet in 17 49.
In fact, the techniques that would later be used in the famous Quincy quarry hadn’t been developed yet.
At the time, the use of granite was limited to boulders and outcrops that could be located at ground level and techniques for working them were primitive.

[27:48] In his history of the granite industry in New England, Arthur Wellington Braley quotes an 18 59 paper presented at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by Mass Supreme judicial Court chief justice Lemuel Shaw.

[28:01] King’s chapel was built of coarse boulders dug out of the ground and then split and hammered.
The boulders were split up for this building. It said by heating the stone by building a fire upon it and then splitting it by letting heavy iron balls fall upon it.
Of course, granted, obtained in this way was very expensive and the process could be best applied only to boulders having a free side at some time between the end of the first quarter and the middle of the 18th century.
That is now a little more than 100 years ago.
The practice of stone hewing and hammering for the working of granite was first introduced into Massachusetts by German immigrants.

[28:44] This class of German artisans first introduced into this country.
The practice of preparing hewn or hammered stone brought to a plane’s surface sufficiently straight and smooth to make a regular wall.
When this work was finished. It was the wonder of the country round people coming from a distance, made it an object to see and admire this great structure.
The wonder was that stone enough could be found in the vicinity of Boston fit for the hammer to construct an entire building.
But it seemed to be universally concluded that enough more like it could not be found to build another such building.
In his three episodes of Massachusetts history.
The settlement of Boston volume two historian and John Adams grandson Charles Francis Adams notes the alarm with which Braintree viewed the depletion of their granite supply.

[29:37] Hayward and Hunt have been contracted to bring stone from the Town Common and the town was quick to put a stop to the practice at that time.
They had so little conception of the extent of this granite formation that in Braintree, much alarm was felt less the use of the stone for buildings in other towns would exhaust the supply for years.
The subject was discussed at each town meeting and new measures of ever increasing stringency, protective measures were devised to avert the threatened dearth accordingly.
In 17 53 immediately after King’s Chapel was finished, a vote was passed forbidding the further removal of boulders from the commons until otherwise ordered for.
If the drain went on unchecked, there would not be enough stone in Braintree for the town’s own use.
Little. Did anyone know that less than a century later, the granite formation underlying what was once Braintree North Common would be home to some 54 quarries producing the world’s most sought after cut granite.
Now with funding more or less sorted out suppliers for the key building materials under contract and delivery secured.
It was time to begin construction.

[30:53] The annals of the church reveal that the decision was made in the summer of 17 49 Boston July 26th, 17 49.
It is this day agreed between us the subscribers and the committee for rebuilding King’s chapel to lay the foundation of the said chapel to the height of the first floor in stone and mortar of the thickness of 4 ft, all above ground to be square jointed without pinner.
The face is hammered square and to be performed in every respect in a workmanlike manner.
Laborers were now employed to open a trench for the foundation with all possible dispatch which being soon accomplished to the depth of between seven and 8 ft.
The committee directed that the first stone for the foundation should be laid on the 11th of August.
The trench for the new foundation was dug around the footprint of the original wooden building, for over three years, the congregation would continue attending services in the dilapidated original structure though the siding was slowly rotting and the roof was largely gone, as a fundraising plea to his Majesty King George.
The second said as it is built of wood and is more than 60 years old and has been greatly weakened by a late remarkable storm.
It has become dangerous to attend divine service in it.
When the winds are high as by its situation, it is pretty much exposed.

[32:21] Nevertheless, the old building was still used for holy service except I guess when it was windy until the last possible minute.
In the meantime, the foundation was laid and new stone walls would slowly rise around the existing wooden structure.
The first step after excavation was complete was a ceremonial laying of the cornerstone by the governor himself on Friday the 11th of August.
Mr Canner, Mr Brockwell, the treasurer and committee together with the wardens, Vy and other principal gentlemen of the church waited on his excellency, William Shirley Esquire from the province house to the ground laid out for the church amidst a large concourse of Spectators where a stone was prepared, when the masons had placed the stone at the northeast corner of the trench.
His excellency according to custom, settled it with a stroke or two of a mason’s hammer.
And after giving the workman about £20 to drink, his health went into the old church.
As did also most of those who were present where after prayers, the sermon was preached with a view to the occasion by Reverend Mr Canner.

[33:34] Perhaps hinting that construction practices were somewhat different in the 17 forties than they are now.
The committee was contracting for building materials in June ground was broken in July and the cornerstone was ceremonial late on August 11th and only after all that was complete were the blueprints delivered.

[33:55] The blueprints and elevation drawings arrived on September 15th along with a note from architect Peter Harrison apologizing for the delay and chalking it up to an unexpected influx in business.
The annals of King’s chapel note that by that time, the work of the foundation was now considerably advanced.
But since the committee had given him their required dimensions, the church he had designed would fit neatly on the foundation that was already mostly built late that fall.
Work on the church ceased for the season with the assumption that it would resume as soon as the spring had warmed enough for the ground to Thaw.
However, the annals reveal that some things never change from the spring thaw to June 17 50.
No measurable progress was made because the church committee was in a dispute with their contractors by July.
The masons were back at work on the foundation, but they were still arguing over rates and deadlines until the end of the month, eventually agreeing to complete the below ground foundation.
By that November work on the walls above ground level continued in the spring of 17 51.
Though progress was slow as the church was always scrambling to find as one letter to a potential benefactor said money, glass nails, lead or other materials requisite in such a building.

[35:20] After Reverend Henry Keener’s wife, Anne died in March 17 52.
His record keeping on the church project became less meticulous.
Nevertheless, the project continued unabated within a year, most of the stone work was in place and the roof was starting to take shape.
Church records from March of 17 53 indicate that the congregation was asking around town for a place to hold their services at such a time as the old wooden chapel would have to be pulled down, a letter to the lay leaders of Trinity church on March 19th, said, the proprietors of King’s Chapel have come to a resolution to take down the chapel.
Within a few days, the parishioners of King’s Chapel would regularly meet at Trinity during the next several months and at a few other churches for special occasions.

[36:12] Even borrowed old South church for their Christmas service.
Despite the historic tension between the church of England and Boston Puritans over just this question.
Finally, all that was left was to remove the old wooden church building from within the newly built stone walls and then finish the church’s interior.
The exterior columns and decorations were to be made out of wood and the interior would also be mostly finished with wood and wood was something that New England had plenty of, tradition says that the wooden structure of the old church was disassembled and taken out through the windows of the new church.
Perhaps then it makes sense that the only material that the church committee planned to import was glass for the windows and that it was to be installed after the old building was removed.
The glass was ordered from London and it arrived in the late fall of 17 53.
There was just one problem. It didn’t fit the window openings.

[37:17] A letter from John Franklin to his famous brother Ben on November 26th, 17 53 notes the error and points out the potential for the Franklin family to make a tidy profit.
Our furnace stands well at present and the glassman are fully employed in making window glass and bottles.
The former made of her own materials is light and clear beyond our expectation so that we expect it will be thought good enough to glaze the new church.
I’m told the committee have sent for a sample of it that they have from London being by a mistake cut to a wrong size.
John Franklin was the majority shareholder in a glassworks in Old Braintree, and his little brother, Ben had a small stake as well.
In 1979 report on an archaeological dig carried out on the site of the glassworks in 1969 gives us a sense of the operation.

[38:13] The glass furnace was located on a marsh bordering town river called Sheds Neck.

[38:19] In 17 5100 acres of land was leased from Colonel John Quincy to a company consisting of John Franklin, brother of Benjamin Norton Quincy, Peter Eder and headed by a German immigrant, Joseph Kreis, the prime mover. In all subsequent operations.
In 17 52 the company released the land to Joseph Palmer and Richard ran who began the construction of buildings which were to house such infant industries as a chocolate mill, Sperma and glassworks, stocking, weaving, salt, manufacturing, and a shipyard.
Colonel John Quincy was the eventual namesake of the town of Quincy and of course he was also abigail Adams.
Grandfather, Norton Adams was her uncle and Richard Kran would eventually become her brother-in-law.
So this was a company with connections today.
The site’s just across the mouth of the town River from four river naval shipyard and it’s in the neighborhood of Quincy called Germantown.
It got that name from about 300 skilled German class workers who were enticed to move to Massachusetts and work in the new enterprise.
Unfortunately, this group of hopeful immigrants was unlucky because as the report says, the glass factory began operations around November 27th, 17 52 only to be destroyed by lightning and subsequent fire on June 2nd 17 55 after only three years of operation.

[39:49] Most of this group migrated to Temple New Hampshire to begin an unsuccessful operation there.

[39:56] During the glassworks, brief period of operation, it had three main products, dark green Cider drugs, snuff bottles in various shades of yellow and amber and greenish clear window glass.
All of these were handmade and hand blown silica lime, soda and coloring agents would be carefully measured into clay melting pots or crucibles up to 3 ft in diameter.
These were then inserted into the brick glass furnace and fired to 2300 degrees until the ingredients melted and fused to form liquid glass.
One of our German glass blowers would then dip his metal blowing pipe into the molten glass and carefully wind the material around his pipe then depending on the finished product he would blow and turn the glowing glass slowly forming a vessel.
The archaeological report describes how this vessel was transformed into window glass.

[40:55] Germantown window glass is clear green, white in color.
It was blown into a cylinder which was then split and flattened, opening into a sheet.
Some fuse sheets were found, one in particular showed five layers of glass fused together a probable result of the fateful fire of June 17 55, since it was already November by the time, the era with the London glass was detected and the congregation was hoping to move into their new church building.
In the spring of 17 54 there was no time to order new windows from England and wait for their manufacture and delivery, a voyage across the Atlantic could take months and the winter was the worst and slowest time for such a crossing.

[41:41] The chapel building committee had little choice but to turn to Franklin’s glassworks and church records reveal that a man named Gersh Flagg had been paid for installing the new windows by February 15th, 17 54.
The 1979 paper concludes it would therefore appear that King’s Chapel is the first known public building in America to use locally made window glass.
When the new building was at least closed off to the elements.
It was time for services to move back in representatives from King’s Chapel.
Sent a thank you note to the minister and congregation of Trinity church whose building they have been most recently borrowing for their services.
Sirs having agreed to open King’s Chapel on Wednesday next and thin forward to have divine service continued there.
We thought proper to give you this early notice of our design and especially we are desires of expressing our thanks for indulging us in the use of your church whilst ours has been rebuilding and to assure you that we shall be ready to testify our gratitude for this favor by any services in our power.
If the circumstances of your church should call for our assistance.

[42:53] The first service in the new church building was held on August 21st, 17 54 Reverend Kaner preached a sermon based on a passage from Leviticus that says, ye shall keep my Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary.
And then the records say they passed the collection plate and collected £342 towards the unfinished work on the building.

[43:17] Of course, just because the old wooden church was removed, doesn’t mean its story is over.
The bones of the old church were still solid even after it was disassembled and 350 miles to the northeast.
A brand new English town was in need of a church.
The previous summer, English Protestants had founded the town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia as a way to assert British authority over the local mc Mack nation and to prevent French Catholic Acadians from resettling in the area after their previous expulsion, as the seven years war or French and Indian War began.
Massachusetts provincial troops were sometimes garrisoned at Lunenberg.
They were well needed as the town was raided by French and Mc Mac forces nine times in the first six years of its existence.

[44:08] So with the town in need of an Anglican church, no sawmills yet established in Nova Scotia, deep ties between Lunenberg and Massachusetts and the frame and trusses of an Anglican church. Just sitting there.
Only one thing made sense.
The wooden church that had been constructed as Kings Chapel’s second building in 17 10 was packed onto ships and sailed up the coast to Nova Scotia in Lunenberg.
It was offloaded, reassembled, repaired and it opened its doors for worship.
Before the end of 17 54 the new Saint John’s Anglican Church served its new congregation for almost 250 years until 2001.
That is when a series of Halloween pranks by teenagers got out of hand in Lunenberg.
That night, 22 arson fires were reported around the town stretching the volunteer fire department to its limit, no arrests were ever made.
But newspapers at the time speculated that they might have been set by teens who were angry at police for arresting their friends after an altercation earlier in the evening, most of them were doused quickly.
But then at about one, a ma call came in reporting flames at Saint John’s church.

[45:26] Church, Rector Irving Letto described the scene of the Toronto Globe and mail in 2001.
It was on the southeast corner and at that time, we thought it would be out in a few minutes, but it went on and on for a long time.
He said we were hopeful, but then we became nervous that there was more going on than this.
And we saw that it was traveling under the roof and the firefighters couldn’t get at it and it traveled the whole length of the building before long, the copper roof was glowing red the roof.
The bell tower and the chime of 10 bells came crashing down.
Firefighters made the difficult decision to smash through the beautiful and historic stained glass windows to get inside and try to contain the blaze.
It took 100 47 firefighters 15 hours to get the fire completely out in the days that followed, parishioners saved what they could from the ruins.
But the press initially reported that the building would be a total loss that turned out not to be quite true.
After cleanup efforts were done, about half of the original structure was still standing.
The congregation made the difficult decision not to tear down what remained and build a replacement.
Though some people thought that a replica of the original could be made with the insurance money.
Instead, they decided to keep what was left and rebuild around it a much more costly and complicated alternative.

[46:56] The wooden church that had been built in Boston in 16 89 expanded in 17 10, replaced by a stone chapel and moved to Nova Scotia in 17 54 and then burned in 2000.
1 would have a chance at yet another rebirth to get it done.
They raised over 6.5 million Canadian dollars from around the country and they enlisted the help of the community.
A local stained glass artist volunteered to recreate the historic windows that had been broken during the fire.
Helga Sattler used photographs of the original windows to painstakingly recreate them even incorporating original glass panes and leading that had been salvaged from the ashes.
Local shipwrights, many of whom were suffering during a downturn in the local shipbuilding business turned their traditional woodworking skills to the puzzle of constructing beams, buttresses and trusses that could support the new church while incorporating what was left of the old building.
An astronomer from Halifax was enlisted to extrapolate from a single unburned panel and calculate an exact recreation of the stars in the night sky that would have been painted on the chancel ceiling over the altar.

[48:08] Finally, on June 12th, 2005, the reconstructed church opened its doors during the rededication service.
The same six firefighters who had saved the wooden altar on the night of the fire carried it back into the sanctuary.
Today. The unrestored charring on the altar is the only visible reminder of the fire to learn more about the many incarnations of King’s chapel.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 279.
I’ll have pictures of King’s Chapel as it looks today as well as the only drawing that I could find that shows how it looked in 17 10. With any accuracy.
I’ll link to the annals of King’s Chapel, which a lot of my research is drawn from as well as some articles about the architect Peter Harrison for primary sources.
I’ll link to letters among the Franklin family about their investment in the Quincy glass works and I’ll supplement that with histories by John and Abigail’s grandson, Charles Francis Adams and Arthur Wellington Braley.
Finally, I’ll include the full 1979 report on the archaeological dig that uncovered remnants of the original glassworks along the Quincy shoreline.

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Music

Jake:
[50:05] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.