First Parish Church Fire of 1967

On December 27, 1967, two days after Christmas, fire destroyed the meetinghouse of the First Parish on the west side of the Town Common in Billerica Centre. The town had built it in 1797 as its fourth house of worship, the 1797 meetinghouse, and in 1844 the parish turned it to face the Common and gave it a Greek Revival portico. The pulpit, pews and other furnishings put in at that time came from the Second Church of Boston, then being taken down, and the pulpit was the one Ralph Waldo Emerson had used during his three years as minister there. The white church with its steeple, between the Bennett Public Library and the town hall on Concord Road, was the central landmark of the Common.

The fire largely destroyed the building. The Doric portico, much of the front and the steeple of the 1844 remodeling survived, and Emerson's pulpit was saved, protected by the wet plaster that covered it; it was damaged but later restored. The parish's Hammil organ was destroyed.

The parish decided to rebuild the church as it had been. In May 1969 it voted to borrow $75,000 from the Central Savings Bank of Lowell on its Concord Road land, and the architects Merton S. Barrows and Theodore B. Hanna designed a replica of the old meetinghouse that kept the surviving portico and steeple, with a two-story church school wing to the west. Parishioners, townspeople and local businesses gave toward the work. The 1969 town report printed a photograph of the "Restoration, Unitarian Universalist Church, Billerica Center." The new building, the parish's fifth, was dedicated on November 22, 1970. The library trustees, the church's neighbors, wrote in the 1970 town report: "We are proud to welcome back our old friend the First Parish Church which had previously stood beside us for so many years. But we must admit that our library looks somewhat dowdy and shopworn in comparison to the beautiful new church."

The rebuilt church, now the Billerica First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, kept the Common's look. When the Billerica Town Common District was nominated to the National Register in 1973, the church was described as "a 1970 reconstruction of the original building, erected in 1797, altered to Greek Revival style in 1844, and burned in 1968," containing "the original Doric portico and much of the original facade and steeple from the 1844 remodelling." The steeple appears on the town flag adopted in 1971. The Second Church in Boston later used photographs of the restored Emerson pulpit to make a replica for its own sanctuary.

References

1. First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Billerica, History: 1844 remodeling and Second Church furnishings, Emerson's pulpit, the fire two days after Christmas 1967, Hammil organ lost, dedication Nov. 22, 1970.
2. National Register nomination, Billerica Town Common District (1973), p. 3: First Parish Church a 1970 reconstruction, burned in 1968, keeping the original Doric portico, facade and steeple of 1844.
3. Billerica Annual Report for 1969, p. 82: photograph, "Restoration, Unitarian Universalist Church, Billerica Center."
4. Billerica Annual Report for 1970, p. 49, Library Trustees: "proud to welcome back our old friend the First Parish Church"; photograph of the restored church.