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The following is an excerpt from Swedenborg Chapel Planning Study by Mark Careaga, AIA.

Quincy St 50 DSC_8865 — View of the Chapel from Kirkland Street, near the Quincy Street intersection. CHC Collection.

The Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem – the formal name of the congregation that worships at Swedenborg Chapel – was formed in 1888. The following year, the New Church Theological School purchased the Treadwell-Sparks house at 48 Quincy Street, directly south of the site where the chapel would later be built in 1901. Named for Jared Sparks, professor of ancient and modern history and president of Harvard University (1849-53), the Treadwell-Sparks house would become the home for the theological school for nearly 70 years. Ten years after the school moved into Sparks House, planning commenced for the chapel, which would serve both the congregation and the school.(26)

chapel drawing — Original exterior details of the Chapel for the New Church Theological School by Warren, Smith and Biscoe Architects, ca. 1901. Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem Archives.

warren sketch — Drawing of the Chapel by the architect, ca. 1900. CHC Collection.

The chapel’s architect was Herbert Langford Warren (1857-1917), a prominent Boston architect among whose many accomplishments include being a founder and president of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. He was also the first “dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard, having taught there continuously since offering the first course in architecture in 1893.”(27) Warren was a lifelong practicing Swedenborgian, influenced by his father’s commitment to the faith. As an architect, Warren had distinct preferences for English styles,(29) which may stem from his roots (he was born, reared, and educated in Manchester, England (30), from Swedenborgianism’s roots (the church was founded in England in 1787 by devotees of Emanuel Swedenborg’s distinctive Christian theology (31), or both. The chapel’s design reflects the English gothic style consistent with Warren’s deeply felt affection for the medieval English parish church, which he expressed to his students in his lectures.

Below is a description of the Chapel published by the Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem.

cambridge society desc full 2

chapel and sparks house — View of Sparks House to the right of the Chapel, later moved to Kirkland Street. Undated photograph, CHC Collection.

In the 1960s, the school decided to relocate to Newton, Massachusetts and sold the Sparks House property to Harvard. Given the historical significance of the house, Harvard relocated it a short distance away on Kirkland Street, where it remains today as the home for the minister of Harvard Memorial Church. As Robert Kiven observed in 1968, this was in fact the second time that Sparks House had been moved.(32) As City of Cambridge preservation planner Sally Zimmerman notes, “in 1901, the house was turned 90 degrees and moved south on its lot to make room for the chapel’s construction.”(33)

The New Church Theological School’s establishment at Sparks House marked the beginning of a century-long transformation of Quincy Street. Starting in the 1840s, Quincy Street began to unseat “Professor’s Row” (Kirkland Street) “as a prime residential location for those connected to [Harvard College], and it remained so up to the end of the nineteenth century, as a cosmopolitan group of noted academics settled along the street’s length.”(34) This can be seen in the 1865 map below, which shows five faculty houses on the west side of Quincy Street, in Harvard Yard, eventually replaced by expansion of academic facilities – in particular, Robinson Hall, Sever Hall, and Emerson Hall.

1865 map 2 — Map of Cambridge from 1865 showing faculty housing on Quincy Street. The Chapel would be built where “Prof Lovering” is located, just below “Kirkland St.” City of Cambridge GIS.

1916 Bromley map 3 — Map from 1916 showing the Church of the New Jerusalem, now known as the Swedenborg Chapel. Bromley 1916 atlas, CHC Collection.

The transformation began with the Fogg Museum, designed by architects Coolidge, Shepley, Bullfinch, and Abbott of Boston and built in 1927, taking over 28-36 Quincy Street. In 1963, the Le Corbusier-designed Carpenter Center was completed, with its iconic ramp structurally integrated with a basement library book-stacks facility that was added to the back of the Fogg in 1961 to expand the Fine Arts Library.(35) In 1963, the Minoru Yamasaki-designed William James Hall was completed to house Harvard’s Department of Psychology, which William James was instrumental in establishing.(36) James’ father, Henry James, Sr., was deeply influenced by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.(37) Six years later work began at 48 Quincy Street to construct Gund Hall for the Harvard Graduate School of Design (“GSD”), bringing the school that Herbert Langford Warren had founded in the late 1800s directly next door to the chapel he designed for his fellow Swedenborgians and affiliated theological school. Lastly, the Sackler Museum was constructed in 1985, replacing the 1951 Allston Burr Lecture Hall,(38) an outdated science building that had supplanted two smaller residential buildings for Harvard College.

View of lancet window with hand carved detailing. Photo courtesy of M. Careaga.

By the time it relocated to Newton in the 1960s, the New Church Theological School had changed its name to the Swedenborg School of Religion (SSR), and the school constructed an annex on the north side of the chapel, facing Kirkland Street. Designed by Cambridge architect Arthur Brooks, it provided fellowship space and other ancillary functions to support the Cambridge Society congregation, which continued to hold services at the chapel after the school’s departure. By the late 1990s, SSR announced its intentions to sell the chapel property to raise much-needed capital to support its operations. Concerned about the potential loss of a significant work of architecture, the local community and the Cambridge Historical Commission lobbied successfully to obtain City of Cambridge landmark status for the chapel in 1999, paving the way for the Massachusetts New Church Union and the Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem to purchase the property from SSR in 2001. The chapel site is the only parcel of land that the university does not own on the city block bounded by Quincy Street, Kirkland Street, Sumner Road, and Cambridge Street. Regardless of its status as private property separate from the university, the chapel and its land are intimately connected to Harvard, woven into the physical fabric of the university’s campus as well as through the intersecting histories of Harvard University and the Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem.

View of reredos and alter. Photo courtesy of M. Careaga.

Today, along with its own congregation, the Swedenborg Chapel hosts two other worshipping communities as well as a monthly Taize candlelight service.

Mark Careaga is Principal and Founder of Mark Careaga Architect LLC, in Cambridge MA. He can be found online at http://www.mcarq.co and on Twitter and Instagram @mcarqco

References

26. Maureen Meister, Architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard’s H. Langford Warren (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2003), 110.
27. Meister, 1.
28. Meister, 7-8.
29. cf. Meister, 5, 110.
30. Meister, 8.
31. Meister, 8.
32. Robert H. Kiven, “Letter from the Editor,” The Messenger 188, no.10 (October 1968): 142-143.
34. Sally Zimmerman, “Church of the New Jerusalem / Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy Street, Landmark Designation Study Report,” prepared for the Cambridge Historical Commission, March 5, 1999, 8. This report can be accessed online at: https://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/historicalcommission/pdf/Landmark_reports/lm_quincy_50.pdf.
35. Zimmerman, “Landmark Designation Study Report,” 8.

36. Natalie Moravek, “William James Hall,” in “William James’ Cambridge,” website designed and hosted by the Cambridge Historical Society, accessed February 7, 2019, https://cambridgehistory.org/james/James 5.html.
37. “Famous Swedenborgians,” part of the website of the Swedenborgian Church of North America, accessed February 7, 2019, https://swedenborg.org/famous-swedenborgians/henry-james-sr/. The web page cites the following source: Alfred Halbegger, The Father: A Life of Henry James, Sr. (New York: Frrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).
38. Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2016), 817. Allston Burr was designed by architect Jean-Paul Carlihan of Coolidge, Shepley, Bullfinch & Abbott.

Sharpen your pencils, sit up straight, it’s almost time to head back to class. We all remember the excitement, and sometimes a little dread, of returning to school in the fall. There have been so many great teachers in Cambridge but today’s post looks at a Cambridge teacher about whom we only recently learned. This teacher lived from 1830 to 1930 and taught in public and private schools for about forty of her ninety-nine years. Her name was Miss Emma Harris.

Emma Forbes Harris was born on December 16, 1830 in Milton, Mass. to Dr. Thaddeus William Harris and Catherine Holbrook Harris. She was the third of eleven children and the second oldest girl. The Harris family moved to Cambridge when Emma was two years old. Emma’s father took a position as the college librarian at Harvard. He also taught natural history to students that included Henry David Thoreau. The family settled at 8 Holyoke Place in a house built in 1844.

In 1853, Emma Harris resigned from her position as a public-school teacher at the Webster Middle School. She purchased a one-story building, formerly a post office and dry goods store, and moved it from Norfolk Street to Cotton Street (now Hancock Street) and converted it to a school. The building, which measured 20’ wide by 32’ long, was sited on a lot of land opposite Chatham Street that Harris leased from J. Warren Merrill of Harvard Street. Her school opened in 1854 for boys and girls up to fourteen years of age. Miss Harris operated her school in this location for over thirty years. In 1886 she began construction on a new larger school at 3 Acacia Street. The first school house was then moved to 277 Broadway and used by E. C. Heubel as a boot and shoe store. It was demolished in 1949.

Harris_CottonStreetSchool_1857advert — Advertisement for the Cotton Street School, a private school run by Miss Emma Harris of Cambridge. Cambridge Chronicle, 22 August 1857.

Harris_schoolhouse on Hancock circled_1873 — Emma Harris purchased a one story building and moved it from Central Square to Cotton Street, near Harvard Street. Cotton Street was located between Harvard Street and Broadway and was renamed in 1865 to be an extension of Hancock Street. Hopkins Atlas of Cambridge, 1873.

Harris_schoolhouse_CTribune01281888JPG — This article details the life of a building that started as a post office, then was moved for Miss Harris’ school, then moved again to become a shoe store. Cambridge Tribune 28 January 1888,

The new school building on Acacia near the corner of Ash was 2½ stories high and built in the Queen Anne style with an asymmetrical gable roof, corner porch, and decorative shingles. It was designed by her younger brother, Edward Doubleday Harris and constructed by local builder F. B. Furbish. The new school opened in September of 1887. Both boys and girls were accepted for enrollment. Miss Harris’s mother Catherine died in the spring of 1888. This change in her family circumstances may have led to her decision to retire. But the fall of 1888 was the last year that she advertised for new students to enroll in her school.

Harris_house circled at 3 Acacia_1894 — Miss Harris’ new school was built in 1886 on Acacia Street near the corner of Ash Street in the Half Crown neighborhood. This two story building was converted in 1890 to a dwelling. Bromley Atlas of Cambridge, 1894.

Acacia St 3 google street view — This house at 3 Acacia Street was built first as a school in 1886 then adapted for the residence of Charles Harris and family in 1890. Google Street View image, June 2018.

In 1890 she pulled a building permit to convert the school to a residence. This may have involved a small addition at the rear of the building. The house was occupied by younger brother Charles Harris and his wife Elizabeth Hovey Harris and their children. The house still stands on Acacia Street, with sunroom and tower additions that were constructed in 1994. Miss Harris resided in the family homestead at Holyoke Place until 1929 when it was purchased by Harvard and demolished for the construction of Lowell House. At that time she went to live with her sister Elizabeth Harris at 68 Sparks Street. Miss Emma Harris died in June 1930 and is buried in the Cambridge Cemetery. Miss Harris touched many lives and imparted knowledge to countless school children.

Harris_obit_CTribune06211930 — Obituary of Emma Forbes Harris, who died in 1930 in her hundredth year. Cambridge Tribune 21 June 1930.

Thank you to all the teachers who are heading back to school to prepare for the children that will be learning from them this year! Who was your favorite teacher?

Tag: teachers

50 Quincy Street – Swedenborg Chapel

School Days: Emma Forbes Harris