Address
76 Eldredge Street
Newton
Massachusetts
Eastern
02458
United States
Grace Episcopal Church in Newton was founded in 1855 by families from three adjacent neighborhoods – Newton Corner, Watertown and Brighton (Boston) – who were faced with a 4.5 mile journey to Christ Episcopal Church in Waltham or an even longer trek to St. Mary’s Lower Falls, the first and the only Episcopal Church in Newton. Newton at that time was a Puritan/Congregational town of 6,768 souls. Flourishing in rented space over Mr. Brackett’s butcher shop in Newton Corner, Grace built a wooden chapel in 1858 at the corner of Washington and Hovey Streets, now the location of a new Walgreen’s Pharmacy. Wood and coal-burning engines pulled passenger trains of six cars from Boston to West Newton, speeding through Newton Corner at up to sixty miles per hour on four tracks that were then at street level. Within a dozen years, Grace’s congregation had outgrown the chapel (and had become weary of the railroad smoke and clatter). Consequently, the parish purchased our current site on newly-laid out Eldredge Street, opening our present building on St. Andrew’s Day in November, 1873, becoming the first stone church in Newton.