Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

47 Buckley Street (Finnish Evangelical Mission Church of Quincy)

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The first Finns to settle in Quincy came in the spring of 1886 to work in the granite quarries of West Quincy. The Finnish population grew slowly and by 1890, the same year the Uljas Koitto Temperance Society was formed, there were seventeen adult Finns in Quincy. Eight years later the membership in the Society had swelled to over one hundred and a small building was erected in West Quincy for the sum of $1353. However, factions developed within the Society, and by 1912 two groups had withdrawn, one to form the Finnish Lutheran Church, 81 Suomi Road, and the other to establish the Finnish Evangelical Mission Church of Quincy at 47 Buckley Street, later known as the Finnish Congregation Church and still later as West Quincy Congregation Church.

The first members of the Finnish Evangelical Church, actually first called "Suomalainen Evankelinin Seurakunta", withdrew from the temperance society in 1895. Led by the Swedish Reverend Andrew Groop they decided to form a Christian Church Society. Meetings were first held in a hall on Copeland Street in West Quincy until the new church was built in 1900. This church was the center of life for Quincy's 200 Finnish residents. whose inability to speak English handicapped their ability to secure any work except hard labor. As late as 1965, the Sunday evening services were conducted in the Finnish language.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors records.
Quincy Patriot Ledger, July 3, 1965; September 25, 1965.
Quincy Patriot Ledger: 100th Anniversary. January 7, 1937, p. B-16.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Built in a traditional style and residential scale in 1900, the Finnish Evangelical Mission Church has only its finely detailed belfry atop its roof to indicate its ecclesiastical function. Set on a typical Quincy granite foundation, the structure is a longitudinal two-story building bisected in the center by a three story gabled section which is topped by the open and arched square belfry with a broach spire. Remnants of the original decorative elements, such as exposed purlins under the eaves, brackets under the roof, simple stained glass panels in the large arcbed window on top of the pedimented entrance and the elaborate belfry indicate that the church was conceived with a greater vocabulary of ornamention than is visible today. The present aluminum siding obliterates much of the original window enframements which had once enriched the facade. It was listed in the original Quincy inventory.

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