King's Chapel
The King's Chapel in 2009
The King's Chapel is a church in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. It belongs to an independent Christian Unitarian church, which is connected with the Unitarian Universalist Association. This means Unitarian Christianity in theology, Anglican worship and congregational administration. The building stands at the corner of Tremont Street and School Street and dates from the 18th century. It is part of the route on the Freedom Trail.
History
The King's Chapel was founded under the royal governor Joseph Dudley in 1686 during the reign of James II as the first Anglican Church in New England. The original building was made of wood and was built in 1688 at the corner of Tremont / School Street, where even today is the current church building. The church was placed on the former Public Burying Ground, because at the time of its establishment no inhabitants to was willing to sell land to a non- Puritan church.
Construction on the present stone, designed by Peter Harrison church building began in 1749 and ended in 1754. The stone church was built around the existing wooden construction around so that they could be dismantled after completion of the stone mantle and transported out through the windows of the new church. The wood was then transported to Lunenburg, where it was used to build the St. John 's Anglican Church there. This was almost completely destroyed by a fire in the night on Halloween 2001 and then to 2005, newly built, so that the original structure is virtually nothing left today.
During the American Revolution, the church was vacant and was only as the Stone Chapel ( Stone Chapel ) refers. The Loyalists emigrated to Canada, and stayed back in the U.S. opened the church in 1782 again. She became Unitarian under the minister James Freeman, who revised the Book of Common Prayer to 1785 by the Unitarian point of view. Although Freeman always assumed that the King's Chapel was episcopal, the Anglican Church to ordain him a priest refused. To date, the Church therefore follows its own Anglican / Unitarian hybrid liturgy. She is a member of the congregation in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Inside, the church is significantly characterized by its wooden columns rows, whose Corinthian capitals were carved by William Burbeck and his students in 1758 by hand. Outdoor seating, partly individually standing pews, most of which originally belonged to the families exchange for paying a regular rent and benches decorated according to their personal taste. Its present uniform appearance dates back to the 1920s.
The music is already playing for a long time an important role in the King 's Chapel, which acquired its first organ in 1723. The used today in the Church is the instrument overall and sixth in 1964 by CB Fisk, an organ builder from Gloucester, built. It is in view of the size slightly below average compared to most other organs, the mid-20th century European churches were built in with mitres and engravings of the organ from 1756 and decorated. For over 40 years the major U.S. composer Daniel Pinkham was the organist and music director of the King 's Chapel. He is succeeded by Heinrich Christensen.
The church bell was cast in England and in 1772 installed. In 1814 she got a crack and had to be re-cast by Paul Revere and hung up again. It is the largest bell ever made by the foundry of Revere, and the last, the Paul Revere himself cast. Since that time, the bell will ring at each service.
Inside the building is a monument that is reminiscent of Samuel Vassall, brother of the colonist William Vassall, patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company and one of the first aldermen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The monument to the London dealers mentions his opposition to the tax, which raised the English King Charles I on tons of money and pounds duties, especially since the Parliament of the United Kingdom had the request of the king, to extend this tax for life rejected. Vassall represented in the sequence from 1640 to 1641 the city of London in Parliament as an MP. Ironically, he later turned during the American Revolution with his brother William, after whom the city was named Vassalboro, Loyalists and fled to during the American Revolutionary War to England.
Pastor
King's Chapel Burying Ground
At the cemetery, next to King's Chapel are the graves of a number of historically significant personalities. He was from 1630 to 1660, ie 30 years, the only cemetery in Boston and, like the church itself, also a station on the route of the Freedom Trail.