The Parish at the Northern Tip of Benefit Street
By
Margaret B. Stillwell
Throughout the preceding pages we catch glimpses of how the church began and developed as a result of the efforts of many people. The following narrative shows the development through the eyes of a young girl many years after her childhood recollections. While centering somewhat on one important, philanthropic member of the parish, it gives a very picturesque account of the life of individuals in the parish – and consequently of the parish as a whole. We also get to share what the interior of the church and parish house looked like.
The story was shared with the congregation in 1969 and 1970 at the request of then rector, the Reverend Frederick G. Kirby. The vehicle for the telling of this experience was The Parish Record, in which one page was set aside from March 9, 1969 to February 22, 1970. In Father Kirby’s words, "We are grateful to Miss Margaret B. Stillwell for her fine article telling us of her impressions of the early days of The Church of the Redeemer."
The recollections of the child are made when Margaret Stillwell was probably well into her eighties, but the telling is done in a pleasantly light and insightful manner.
The following is transcribed exactly as it was written in those years.
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The parish that for fifty years or more flourished just beyond the northern tip of old Benefit Street was unique in that it had the flavor of a parish in an English countryside. It was founded something more than a century ago and the first Church of the Redeemer was erected about 1860 to meet the needs off two classes of people. Parishioners of St. John’s Church – as the Cathedral was then called – whose homes were located on Prospect Street high on the hill, or beyond it, had been advocating a parish of their own which would be more easily accessible than St. John’s at the base of the cliff. And a colony of newcomers had settled in Providence on the hillside just beyond where Benefit Street, cutting horizontally across the face of the cliff, merges into North Main Street. This colony extended from Olney Street to North End Cemetery, and up the hillside from North Main to Camp Street, which runs near the crest. These were Church of England people who, driven out by labor difficulties at home, had recently emigrated like many others to the mill-towns of New England.
The original advocates of a new parish thus found themselves in the minority. They had wanted the church to be over the hill, as the "new" Church of the Redeemer is today, on upper Hope Street. But the Bishop and the vestrymen of St. John’s felt that placing the church in the colony would help to make the newcomers feel at home and would not work a serious hardship on the residents over the hill, since the relatively gentle grade of Olney Street would make the church not difficult to access.
Thus it came about that the first Church of the Redeemer was built on North Main Street somewhat north of Olney Street and, as it happened, opposite some of the buildings of the American Screw Company that were located on the down-slope of the hill. And thus it also came about that Mr. Edwin G. Angell, who was the President of the American Screw Company, became the benefactor of the church. These people whose homes clustered about the church were his people. Therefore their parish was his parish. For years his generous spirit dominated the parish, and he became an American version of the English country squire.
The present Rector – the Reverend Frederick G. Kirby – discovering that I am not only one of the oldest members of the Church, but that in my childhood I knew Mr. Angell well, has asked me to write my recollections of him and of the church as I knew it. In fact, by tradition my knowledge of the parish goes back to its origin, because my father, Edward A. Stillwell, as the first organist of the church, knew its founders and was a close friend of its first Rector, the Reverend Charles Wheeler, and of its leading families. During his two terms of service, totaling nearly forty years, the growth of the parish was his greatest interest and concern.
It may seem odd that a child should know the leading figure in the parish personally. This was due to several factors. In the first place, Mr. Angell lived at 30 Benefit Street, in the red brick mansion diagonally opposite Halsey Street and the present St. Dunstan’s School. We lived only half a dozen doors away. It was a quiet, friendly neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone and stopped to chat pleasantly with one another, even with the children. Added to that was the fact that several generations of the neighborhood’s children had counted the Angell house as almost a second home. Although both Mr. Angell and his bride had been exceptionally fond of children, to their sorrow they had none of their own. They had compensated for this by making succeeding age-groups of the neighborhood children welcome in their home. By my time, Mrs. Angell had died. An adopted daughter had married and moved away. But Mr. Angell continued the tradition. My two playmates and I, however, were the last of the line. There were no younger children in the immediate neighborhood, and Mr. Angell was already an elderly man. We three children kept together on all occasions, except that we attended different churches. My playmate’s roots were as well in American soil as my own, for Hope Reynold’s grandfather, William Reynolds of Providence, subsidized the experiments of Alexander Graham Bell and took him abroad to demonstrate the use of the telephone to Queen Victoria and the Russian Czar; and Louise Sweet’s grandfather and uncles, descendents of the so-called "natural bone-setters of Rhode Island, were locally noted as surgeons.
Mr. Angell’s aged mother, a member of the Gorham family, occupied a suite on the second floor of his home, together with a companion or nurse. Aside from their area, in our quiet well-trained way we had the run of 30 Benefit Street and its carriage house – under the general supervision of Mary McLain, the housekeeper; the two maids; the cook; and Jones, the coachman. On Saturday afternoons in winter, we would be apt to find Mr. Angell sitting by the fireside in the library, and in his kindly way he would ask whether we would like to join him in a game of hearts or old maids. Or he would read to us from Mark Twain, whose stories he thought were immensely funny, our consolation being that Mary would presently come in with a plate of cookies. Sometimes we would be invited to lunch on the following Saturday, in the formal dining room with its great rubber plant standing in front of the south windows and reaching nearly to the ceiling. In summer we were occasionally invited to drive out to Brook Farm near Lincoln, which Mr. Angell operated through a manager so that he might have fresh eggs, chicken, and vegetables for his own table. Jones would pick us up at four o’clock. We would drive to the office of the American Screw Company down on Randall Square and wait until Mr. Angell joined us. At the farm we would ride in on a load of hay; or watching the farm hands as they milked the cows, we would take turns in drinking fresh, foamy milk from a large tin dipper; or down in the fields we would pick the thimbleberries that grew along the wall. Presently, the business of the day concluded, we would hear Jones calling us. Then we would scamper back to the carriage, and on the long homeward drive we would tell Mr. Angell all about what we had been doing.
On Sundays I was always busy and happy about going to church. On the rare occasions when my mother was not able to attend the eleven o’clock service, I was not deterred. I could go with Father, and this meant an early start. There would be no one at the church except Miss Ida B. Smith of the Altar Chapter darting about, in and out of here and there; and Mr. Irons, the janitor, one of the kindest and most dependable of men. I would find our pew, the third from the front facing the pulpit, and say a little prayer because I felt certain that God would hear the thoughts of even a very little girl in a very big church.
Then I would scramble up on to the seat to watch proceedings. Father would be busy arranging music on the organ rack and distributing on the choir seats the cards on which he had printed the numbers of the hymns and anthems to be sung during the service. The choir members would begin to assemble in the Sunday School room at the left of the organ loft. I could see them through the leaded glass partition. Dr Bassett would come down the south aisle and go into the robing room at the right of the chancel. His three sisters meanwhile would take their places in the first pew facing the pulpit –Mrs. Hummel, draped in black, a widow for many years; Miss Helen, tall and stately, always beautifully dressed in the stiff and rather upholstered fashion of the time; and little Miss Norah, rather vague and fluttery, who in spite of the fact that everyone always seemed to be trying to look out for her, managed to go her own way as independently as a humming-bird.
By that time Mr. Mowry and his large family would be coming down the north aisle – "Lawyer Mowry" he was always called. Some of his young people would go off to the left to join the choir and the others would file into the pews facing the choir loft and organ. Behind them would be the Heathcotes and then Mr. Stedman, the Treasurer of the Church, with his wife and daughters. Turning toward the right, I could see, just beyond the center aisle, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, whose young people were in the choir; and then Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, their daughter Clara, and her future husband, Mr. Reese. Directly behind them were the beautiful Lenz sisters, one of whom had on her hat a long, graceful plume, which Mother said was a bird of paradise. It swept around the back of her hair until it almost came to rest on her shoulder. It not only seemed to frame her profile but whenever she moved her head it would float airily for a moment. This greatly intrigued me. I could watch it indefinitely, or until my attention was distracted. For in the pew behind these elegant ladies was little Mrs. Carder, the oldest member of the parish, who frequently dropped this and that and meanwhile munched peppermints, her constant diet.
Far to the right on the south aisle I could se Louise Schuyler and her sister Hilda; the Macomb sisters with their two tall and thin brothers standing like poplar trees in a group of round and sturdy evergreens; the bald and scholarly-looking Mr. Droz; and Professor Upton of Brown University with his wife and two daughters not far from my own age. In winter he always wore a tight sealskin cap with ear muffs. Since this was difficult to remove, he would wait until he was seated and had taken off his gloves. Then he would tug and tug to get the cap off and I would watch breathlessly until sure of his success. This survey completed the range of my vision, for my mother had taught me that I must never turn around. By moving ever so little to the left or right, however, and looking out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the church was full even back to the entrance doors.
Then, while the opening voluntary was being played, Mr. Angell would come down the center aisle – tall and majestic in his frock coat, his tall silk hat in his left hand, the crook of his cane hanging over his wrist. Seeing me alone, he would pause, hold out his hand, and quietly usher me into his pew, directly in front of ours. I would not have thought of feeling lonely. There was too much to observe. Yet somehow when I moved forward to sit with him, there was a difference. I felt suddenly safe and secure. But one thing troubled me. It troubled me quite a bit. He never joined in singing the hymns. He never even held a hymnbook. Instead, he would turn slowly to the right, surveying the people across the aisle and even those at the rear of the church. During the next hymn he would turn slowly to the left and repeat his survey. This bothered me. I wondered why his mother had not told him that one should not turn around in church. I decided it must be because she was so very old. On the various occasions when I had seen her, she looked older to me than Methuselah. Evidently I thought she had always been that way.
But when I grew older and could study the matter better, I discovered what he was doing. Like Sir Roger de Coverley, he was surveying his flock. In particular he was observing who was present, or more precisely, who was not present. At the close of the service he would use this information to good advantage, for he had singled out those to whom he especially wanted to speak that day. In his courteous and rather formal way he would note with pleasure that someone who had been ill was able to be at church again, or noting someone’s absence, he would inquire regarding his health. He would bow to Mrs. Carder and say he was glad to see her there in spite of inclement weather, and in thanking him she would laugh and in her high, thin voice reply that she had not missed a service in thirty years and she did not want to break her record. Thus he would work his way down the aisle. After he had passed the center register in the aisle, his manner would become even more attentive. Here he was among his people, and his inquiries regarding a new baby in the family, an aged parent who was ill, or someone who had met with an accident were a matter of personal concern. His people clustered around him, at the entrance door, in the vestibule, on the steps.
There was no reason at all why the people from the colony should have sat en masse at the rear of the church. All the pews were free. No assignments had ever been made. It was just that they liked it that way – perhaps because they liked to sit among their friends and neighbors; perhaps that is where they had been accustomed to sit in their churches in England. I rather think the latter had something to do with it. One could easily imagine one of the elderly English women dropping a little curtsey when Mr Angell passed by, as if he really were Sir Roger de Coverley.
It probably never crossed their minds that the parish was being run as an effort towards making newcomers feel at home in America – a popular movement at that time. Americanization it was called, and America herself was often spoken of as "the melting pot." The colony certainly had every reason to feel itself royally received. This was no poor and struggling parish. It seems to have been everybody’s pet. Although the members over the hill gave more than their share to the support of the parish, no one expected the members of the colony to subscribe their share per capita. The Bishop and the leaders at St. John’s Church and St. Stephen’s were deeply interested in the parish. Colonel Goddard and his wealthy friends used to contribute generously when special repairs were needed or some improvement. At the end of the fiscal year, Mr. Angell would ask the Rector – the Reverend Doctor Frederick J. Bassett – if there were a deficit, and a check would be quietly passed. But as an American, Mr. Angell did not approve the rather intangible separation between the two groups comprising the parish and he determined to do something about it.
THE PARISH HOUSE
My father came home one day in a state of much excitement. This was notable because he was a benign and philosophic man, seldom moved to anger or to demonstrations of pleasure. But that day was different. We knew at once that something amazing had happened, and we clamored to know what it was.
He had met Mr. Angell and they had had quite a sidewalk conversation. Mr. Angell had just had a conference with an architect whom he had commissioned to draw up plans for a parish house, which he planned to erect beside the church. In fact, he had just authorized the blueprints and he felt that this building with its multiple uses would unify the two groups within the parish. Then Father took a pad and drew us a plan of the building as he understood it.
An enclosed passageway from the Sunday School Room adjoining the church would lead into a long central hall running parallel to North Main Street. At the rear of the hall would be stairways leading up and downstairs and behind them a serving room connected by a dumbwaiter to a large basement kitchen. At the right of the central hall, as one entered it, would be the Men’s Coat Room and then the doorways opening into an Auditorium. At the left of the central hall would be first of all the Ladies Coat Room and then a series of three rooms overlooking North Main Street. Each would open into the hallway, and between them there would be large open doorways, which could be closed by doors sliding out from the wall. Thus the rooms could be used individually for committee meetings, or with the doorways open, they could provide one large room for receptions or church suppers.
Upstairs, above them, would be a series of rooms for the use of the Sewing Circle, the Pastoral Aid, and the Women’s Auxiliary, and other organizations. And across the way, on the other side of the central hall, there was to be a balcony overlooking the Auditorium.
This was in reality to be a little theatre, for it was to have a high platform with a stage-curtain, footlights, wings, several sets of background scenery, and stairs on either side leading down to dressing-rooms underneath the stage. The main floor, however, was to be level, so that its large area might be available for bazaars, festivals, basketball, and other activities. In the basement there was to ge a bowling alley, and always in later year, as I attended the dancing class in the Auditorium, I would hear the rumble and click of the balls.
Father cautioned us to absolute silence. Mr. Angell had told him out of friendliness and, no doubt, because of the excitement of having just signed the contract. No word of all this was to be spoken until the official announcement had been made. Happily for our powers of restraint, this was not long in coming, and construction began soon afterward. When the connecting passageway was done and the doorway cut into the vestibule adjoining the Sunday School Room, there was of course a barricade. But after service, Mr. Irons would move this sufficiently so that Father and I could get through. Thus as we climbed around in the new building, we literally saw it grow room by room. Most exciting of all was the period when the furnishings began to arrive. Folding chairs appeared in the Auditorium, equipment in the kitchen and bowling alley, small tables and comfortable chairs in the committee rooms. There were window seats with leather pads and above them handsome draperies.
In the first room, a memorial honoring Mrs. Angell, the furnishings were fairly elaborate, like a room in a fine home. The walls were paneled in dark wood. There was a wide fireplace and above the mantle a large oil portrait of Mrs. Angell. A long rectangular table stood opposite the fireplace, and dotted around were groups of willow armchairs gleaming with gold leaf, with fitted backs and seats of rich red velvet. Against the dark wainscoting they were very effective. At a reception, with a fire on the hearth and the long table used for serving tea and coffee, the room was the focal point for the two large rooms adjoining it.
In the first of these, opposite the windows, was a large and handsome cabinet which had been at Mr. Angell’s. It was about five feet high and its horizontal shelves were filled with large portfolios containing photographs of architecture and European art treasures. In the early days of photography, everyone who made the grand tour of Europe returned with quite enormous photographs of St. Mark’s, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the cathedrals of England and France, the treasures of the Louvre. Usually these were either framed or kept in portfolios to be studied at leisure. In fact, on top of the cabinet there was a tall and handsome rack with a magnifying glass of unusual size. It must have been fully sixteen or eighteen inches in diameter. This was kept fertically in position, and a different photograph was placed each week on the rack behind it so that everyone in passing could stop to study the picture in detail.
The remaining room was the so-called Library. Between the windows were black walnut bookcases with glass doors. Some of the books, no doubt, were of a religious nature, but this was not exclusively so, for the books I remember were The Five Little Peppers; the Henty books of adventure; a highly illustrated edition of A Tale of Two Cities; and a heavy book called All Sorts and Conditions of Men, which fascinated me so much that as a teenager I read it several times.
As I look back through the years, I can see the parish-house, its activities and all the familiar church people there. There was always something going on. Usually several things at once. Yet I do not remember ever having seen Mr. Angell in the building. This would be quite in keeping with his modesty and his self-effacing character. He had thought of every possible way of making the parish-house efficient and its use enjoyable. He would be interested in its maintenance and in its program of activities. But he had given the building to the parishioners to use as they wished. To have gone there himself would, I believe, have seemed to him an intrusion.
The building was an asset to the community as well as the church. Its occasional plays, lectures, and recitals attracted everyone within range, regardless of denomination. As a parish-house it was a beehive of activity. Yet all was not sweetness and light. A few years before my parents and I moved to New York, an incident occurred which nearly split the church and threatened the withdrawal of its most generous supporters.
THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY
The fortieth anniversary of the founding of the church was approaching. Plans were being made for a quite elaborate celebration, ending with a church service to which the Bishop and clergymen from all over the state were to be invited. My father had been working on the program a long while, selecting the anthems, planning the solos, seeking to make it a most beautiful and memorable service. It was to be his swan-song, he said, as he planned to retire directly after the celebration.
It gradually became known, however, that some of the young members of the church had become restive. They wanted "new blood" in the choir, new soloists, new leadership, a spectacular service arranged by new people. They had their sights set on Dr. Jules Jordan, the leader of all the musical festivals in Providence. As the conductor of the long-established Arion Club and as a composer of music and incidentally an organist, he could attract the leading soloists of the state.
They wanted him as organist and choir leader. When knowledge of all this reached my father, he gave the matter much thought. Then he quietly sent in his resignation, so that there would be no obstruction to this movement. On the contrary it split the church. The younger element was jubilant. The older members were outraged. They said father was being pushed out. They said this would not be allowed to happen if Mr. Angell were still living. They recalled that Father had been the first organist and insisted that he should be at the organ at the fortieth anniversary. They demanded that Father’s resignation be refused. Otherwise, so some said, they would withdraw from the parish.
Then father gathered himself together and entered the fray. He said he had given the matter much thought and had come to the conclusion that this enthusiasm on the part of the young people was a wholesome thing. A fortieth anniversary could be looked at inn two ways. It was the end of an old era. It was also the beginning of a new one. In his belief, it was a good thing for the parish that the young people wanted to take over this festival. It augured well for the future, for they were the ones who would be running the church. With a twinkle in his eye, he pointed out that the parish was celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the church, not his fortieth year as organist. In the home circle we knew that this was a difficult position for him to take and that, as the church had for so long been a vital factor in his life, it was a disappointment not to have a part in the celebration.
But under his quiet reasoning, the crisis passed. His resignation was accepted. Dr. Jordan was installed as organist. New soloists were added to the choir. Plans for the anniversary went forward. And it became known that new anthems were to be sung, composed – in some instances specially composed – by Dr. Jordan. Finally the week of the anniversary service arrived. The Altar Chapter had its deep-laid plans, and we heard there was to be a choir rehearsal every evening except Friday.
Late in the afternoon on Friday our doorbell rang. Dr. Bassett had come to see Father, but he asked that Mother and I should be present. He looked completely wilted. "The church is in trouble," he said, "very serious trouble. Never in my life have I had a more difficult task than to come to you for help." It seems that earlier in the day Dr. Jordan had been seized with an attack of strangulated hernia. He was in the hospital. By no possibility could he be at the service on Sunday. And turning to Father, Dr. Bassett said, "Could you find it in the goodness of your heart to take his place?" "Yes, of course," said Father simply. Dr. Bassett gripped his hand, held it a moment, and prepared to go. "There will be a rehearsal tomorrow night at seven thirty." "No," said Father with a sudden firmness. "I cannot undertake this on one rehearsal. I have never worked with these new singers. I know nothing about their voices or the way in which they have been trained. I have never seen or heard the music. I cannot take this over on one rehearsal. Tonight the choir must sing to me; they must lead me. Tomorrow night I will lead them and give them the support of the organ. We must rehearse both tonight and tomorrow."
Dr. Bassett looked in despair. "Some of the new soloists, I understand, live out of town," he said. "They may not have telephones." "Then in that case," said Father, "some of the young people of the church must go out as runners. They must explain the seriousness of the situation. They must have the singers at the church tonight at seven thirty." And I remember that my heart swelled with pride, for Father sounded like a general marshalling an army.
Dr. Bassett may well have felt that asking Father to come to the rescue was one of the most difficult things in his life, and I am sure he must have remembered the next few hours as among the most hectic. By some miracle of organization the majority of the singers were at the church at seven thirty, so Father told us, and others kept coming in during the evening. They worked until nearly midnight. At first they sang the anthems to him a cappella, over and over. Then he let them lead him as he read and played the new music on the organ. On Saturday he practiced almost all day, and at the rehearsal he had everything under control. He was pleased with the new singers. "They are like an opera troupe that has met with a catastrophe behind the scenes," he said. "They are on their toes to see that everything will be right."
At church the next morning it was good to see Father in his choir robe, laying out music on the organ rack. He looked as serene as ever, as if nothing at all had happened. Mother, seated beside me, was tense and nervous. She realized the tension he was under. She knew that if anything went wrong it would be dreadful in the service and a catastrophe for Father. For me, there were no such misgivings. I felt as carefree as a bit of thistledown floating on a sunbeam. But I did bring myself down to earth sufficiently to watch the changing expressions on the people’s faces as they came into church. It really was something to see.
Telephones were not so common as today and news did not travel too fast. Some of the elderly parishioners, Father’s ardent supporters, must have heard what had happened, for they looked smug and pleased. Others, entering stony-faced and grim, looked suddenly startled, bewildered, staring at Father in the choir loft as if they could not believe that what they seemed to be seeing was really true. Then, with nods and glances back and forth with family and friends, they would settle down, mystified still, but nevertheless content. Among the younger set the picture was reversed. Entering cocky and assured, they suddenly looked dumbfounded. They whispered among themselves, and several retreated to the back of the church. There they must have learned what had happened, for they returned rather breathless and with chastened looks.
Then came the chords of the opening voluntary blending into the processional hymn as the Bishop and the clergy, followed by the vested choir, came slowly down the center aisle, the high notes of the sopranos and the rich swell of the organ filling the church like an angel chorus. It was a magnificent service, without a sense of hesitancy or a blemish anywhere. Father, in his dreams of a swan-song, could not have envisioned it half as gorgeous as the actual swan-song proved to be.
And no one could have imagined – with the parish apparently well-established, the spirit of its members alive and vital, and the parish-house perfectly equipped for efficient and gracious service – that the changing times would cause the parishioners to move away, the church and its parish-house to be sold, and now within recent months to be demolished. At the "new" church a second period of fifty years has passed since that first anniversary celebration. The location and the material possessions have changed, but the spirit prevails as the parish moves forward in its second century.
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As a footnote, it is interesting that the large cabinet and magnifying glass referred to as having belonged to Edwin G. Angell are still in the possession of the church. The cabinet resides in the Angell Room and the magnifying glass is kept in the attic. The collection of some thirty portfolios of photographs was of little interest to most of the parishioners, so, in 2005 the collection was sold for $3,000 to Brown University, where it could be available for all interested people.
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Margaret Stillwell was curator of Annmary Brown Memorial at Brown University from 1917 to 1953. She was a well-known scholar, writer and poet. Her book, The Heritage of the Renaissance, was published in 1982. She bequeathed $1,000 to the church in 1985.
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