All Souls Church

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

All Souls Church is a religious building at 196 Elm St. in Braintree, Norfolk County, built in 1904-1905 in an early English rural Gothic style and listed in the National Register in 2015.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with local-level significance in community planning and development, religion and architecture. Its period of significance runs from 1905, when the building was dedicated, to 1965, spanning a 1958 basement renovation.

Physical character

The church is built of fieldstone and cut stone under a slate roof, with stepped buttresses capped in Indiana limestone and a three-story battlemented tower beside a long nave. Inside, open rafter ceilings paneled in Carolina pine rest on king-post trusses above leaded glass windows.

Historical context

The congregation grew from a liberal group gathered by George A. Thayer in 1859 and a Universalist parish begun in 1886; the two began worshipping together in 1900, and in 1904 the Universalists gave their assets to the new building fund and disbanded. Frederick R. Griffin, called as the church's first minister in 1901, served until 1909. The church bought the Everett D. Barker house for a parsonage in 1922, and from 1981 leased its basement to the Magic Years Nursery School.