Image of the Month for December 2005

The first service of the West Somerville (Mass.) Universalist Church was held in May 1881 in the Clarendon Building, 92 Dover Street, in Davis Square. The Third Universalist Parish of Somerville was organized on July 13, 1881. On May 25, 1883, the congregation voted to buy a piece of land at the corner of Elm and Morrison Streets (now College Avenue and Morrison Avenue). The chapel was dedicated on Dec. 31, 1884, but the vestry was not finished until the summer of 1887. In 1897 the church was extended 25 feet and the tower moved from the Morrison Street side to the Elm Street side. The congregation is last listed in the 1953-54 The Universalist Directory. The building is currently owned by the Haitian Bible Baptist Church.

The library recently received records of the West Somerville Church (bMS 528).  [Photo of the church building with the tower on Morrison Street, mounted under glass and attached to a photo of Thomas E. Potterton, minister of the church from 1893 to 1901 (credit: Chadbourne Photo Co., Concord, N.H.): bMS 902/38 (2)]

For information on obtaining a copy of this image or using it for publication, see the library's Digital Reproduction Policy.

To see past images of the month, visit the images of people and images of congregations pages.

These images, often buried deep in our collections, are selected by Clifford Wunderlich; please address corrections to him.