Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

40 Beale Street (Wollaston Methodist Church)

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
One of the first Methodist Churches or Chapels in Quincy, located in the newly settled area of Wollaston Hill at North Central Avenue and Beale Street. was erected in 1874 and moved to Beale and Safford Streets in 1896. Membership continued to increase and in 1922 yet another corner Beale Street lot was purchased, this time at Clay Street in what was to be the hub of downtown Wollaston. A parish House was built by 1924 and used as the church until the new $85,000 sanctuary, designed by F Leslie Ford of Auburndale and constructed by C. C. Fulton & Son, Inc., of Milton, was erected in 1952. The Minnie A. Lane Memorial Chapel and more classrooms for religious education were completed in 1959.

Wollaston Hill in 1870 was described as "presenting nothing but wide open spaces and a future" by D. Foster Taylor. The Old Colony and Newport Railroad established a "Wollaston" station for the prospective new residents and Joseph H. Beale conceived the idea in 1869 of buying up land in Wollaston Heights as a speculation. The Wollaston Land Associates was formed first with about 100 acres but this was soon augmented by land purchased from George W. B. Taylor, John Faxon, and N. F. Safford. Religious amenities were clearly needed to service the new Wollaston residents and First Church established a congregation in 1870, First Baptist Church in 1871, followed by the Wollaston Methodist Church in 1873.

The Wollaston Methodist Church is significant both as the first and oldest Methodist Church congregation in Quincy and in the development of Wollaston as a community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors records.
Building Permit.
Quincy Patriot Ledger, May 29, 1968; November 23, 1974, p. 3.
Quincy Patriot Ledger, 100th Anniversary. January 7, 1937, p. C-16.
D. Foster Taylor. "Wollaston as it was in 1870's". Quincy History, Quincy Historical Society, no. 11. January 1985, p. 3.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The construction of the Wollaston Methodist Church was conceived to be done in two stages. In 1924, a parish house was built in a style particularly favored for some of the larger residences of Quincy, the Tudor Revival. The style is exemplified by the use of elaborate half timbering in the large front gable, granite on the ground floor and a clipped side gable which enhances the picturesqueness of the structure. The entrance's gabled portico reiterates the half timbering motif. Fenestration is irregular small openings in the ground floor facade, a band of four windows filled with small panes in the gable and rectangular windows on the side elevation. This building was used by the Methodist congregation as a church until 1951 when F. Leslie Ford designed a felicitous juxtaposition, a sanctuary. He employed the same architectural idiom, the Tudor Revival thus endowing the complex with architectural unity. A large gabled front faces the street. Like the parish house, it is filled with half timbering, with only a slight variation ... some of the straps are curved as in struts. The entrance is capped with a fine granite gothic label hood, while the corners are strongly articulated with nascent buttresses. The Wollaston Methodist Church is a noteworthy architectural statement in Wollaston East and significant as a fine example of ecclesiastic Tudor Revival.

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