This
article by Allston-Brighton historian Dr. William P. Marchione appeared
in
the Allston-Brighton Tab or Boston Tab newspapers in the period from
July 1998 to late 2001, and supplement information in his books The
Bull in the Garden (1986) and Images of America: Allston-Brighton
(1996).
Researchers should, however, feel free to quote from the material, with
proper attribution.
Thomas W. Silloway:Allston-Brighton's Master Builder
- Thomas W. Silloway, a resident of Union Square,
Allston, may well hold the record as the architect of the
greatest number of churches in the country. When he died
at his 15 North Beacon Street home on May 17, 1910, at
age 81, the Boston Transcript credited him with having
designed over 400 religious edifices all over the eastern
part of the United States, from Maine to South Carolina
to Minnesota.
-
- Nor was Silloway's output limited to churches. This
incredibly prolific architect also designed schools,
academies, colleges, libraries, asylums, town halls, and
many private residences during a career that spanned some
sixty years. His best known structure is a landmark
government building: the handsome State Capitol in
Montpelier, Vermont. Other buildings by Silloway of
particular note included the Goddard Seminary at Barre,
Vermont and Butchel College in Akron, Ohio.
-
- What makes Silloway's architectural output especially
surprising is the dual track career he pursued, for in
addition to designing buildings, he was also a
Universalist preacher. It was in the capacity of a
minister, that he first appeared on the Brighton scene in
1863, as pastor of the Universalist Church at 541
Cambridge Street (the building that would later house the
Brighthelmstone Club and, more recently served as the
Allston Knights of Columbus Hall). Silloway had designed
this edifice in 1861.
-
- Thomas William Silloway was born in Newburyport
Massachusetts on August 7, 1828, the eldest son of Thomas
Silloway, Sr., a coppersmith who maintained a business on
Elbow Lane, and of Susan (Stone) Silloway. He was
educated in the public schools of his birthplace, at
Brown High, and the local Latin School.
-
- Silloway's youth was marked by much indecisiveness.
As a young boy, he worked as a clerk in a West India
goods store. Then in 1845, at age sixteen, his father
apprenticed him to Robert Gunnison, a housewright, to
learn the trade of carpentry. Silloway was probably
unhappy with Gunnison, for he soon abandoned this
apprenticeship and opened a West India Dry Goods store of
his own, but this too proved but a temporary arrangement.
In a day when young men were expected to make an early
commitment to a trade or occupation, this indecisiveness
must have generated a certain amount of family
tension.
-
- An additional source of tension stemmed from young
Silloway's 1844 decision to abandon the religion in which
his parents had raised him (Methodism) for Universalism,
a creed that rejected the doctrine of original sin and
held that all men were destined for salvation. Not only
did Silloway reject his parent's Methodist faith, but he
"ardently engaged in the promulgation of the doctrines of
[Universalism]."
-
- In 1847, at age twenty, Silloway left his parent's
home and moved to Boston to study architecture under Ammi
B Young, the man who, in 1838, had designed Boston's
handsome Customs House. Here he finally found his nitch.
Pursuing a full course under Young's capable tutelage, in
1851 Silloway began practicing architecture on his own
account in Boston.
-
- Silloway was a highly successful architect from the
start. His earliest commissions included two important
structures in Milford, Massachusetts, the Pearl Street
Universalist Church and a handsome new Greek Revival Town
Hall, both completed in the 1851-52 period. A
contemporary writer described the latter structure as
"built in the pure Roman style," large enough to
accommodate eleven hundred people standing, and costing a
substantial $20,000.
-
- In 1857, when he was only 29 years old, Silloway
received the most important commission of his career. He
was hired to design a new capitol building for the state
of Vermont. The original 1836 Vermont State House, the
work of his mentor, Ammi B. Young, had been gutted by
fire in January 1857. Since Young was then serving as the
principal architect of in Washington, D.C., he was
unavailable to supervise the Vermont project, and
presumably recommended his former pupil for the
assignment.
-
- Silloway did an extraordinary job in Montpelier. The
great architect Stanford White later described the 1858
Vermont Capitol as the finest example of Greek Revival
architecture in the country. But to the manifest
annoyance of those charged with overseeing the project's
finances, Silloway insisted that only the very best (and
most expensive) materials be used in his building. This
emphasis on quality resulted in his being fired from the
supervising architect's post just as the project was
brought to conclusion. In 1862, however, perhaps by way
of compensation, the University of Vermont conferred an
honorary M.A. on the young man in recognition of his
significant contributions to the architecture of that
state.
-
- In 1862, Silloway entered upon his second career,
that of a Universalist minister. Over the next five years
he served churches in Kingston, New Hampshire, in
Boston's North End (the First Universalist Church of
Boston at the corner of Hanover and North Bennett
Streets), and, finally, the Brighton church, over which
he officiated from 1863 to 1867, relinquishing the post
only when the increasing number of architectural
commissions became so burdensome as to preclude his
properly attending to his pastoral duties. In the last
year of his Brighton pastorate, this master builder
executed no fewer than twenty-five commissions, which
included twelve new churches, seven remodeled churches,
four residences, and two schools. Another factor that may
have prompted his retirement from the ministry was his
bachelor status. Silloway never married, and a pastor
without a wife is always at a distinct disadvantage.
-
- After relinquishing his pulpit, the busy architect
lived for a time at 71 Green Street in Boston's West End,
in the same building where he maintained his
architectural office.
-
- But Allston-Brighton had not seen the last of its
distinguished minister/ architect. About 1870, Silloway
moved back, and built the ornate Queen Anne style house
at 40 Gordon Street in Allston, now the community's only
San Francisco style "painted lady."
-
- Silloway also involved himself in public affairs. In
1870 he spoke before a committee of the Massachusetts
legislature urging adoption of the so-called Six Mile
Bill, which would have incorporated Brighton, Brookline,
and West Roxbury into the City of Boston. As an
architect/ builder, he was distressed by the low quality
of the public services that the Town of Brighton was then
providing its residents, especially in the areas of
street repair, sewerage, and lighting, and believed that
absorption by Boston would lead to improvements that
would foster desirable residential development.
-
- Silloway was also a man of broad interests, who
published several books. His writings ranged from
architecture, to theology, to sacred music, to travel.
One of his best known works was Cathedral Towns of
England, Ireland, and Scotland, which he wrote with Lee
L. Powers. Silloway was also deeply interested in
history. He was an active member of the New England
Historical Genealogical Society from 1864 to the end of
his life.
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- In the late 1870s, Silloway sold his Gordon Street
residence and moved back to the West End. In 1886, when
an earthquake did major damage to Charleston, S.C., he
received another key commission---the job of supervising
the reconstruction of six of that city's churches. Then,
in 1890, he moved back to Allston, to 15 North Beacon
Street (a house that was demolished many years ago),
where he resided during the final twenty years of his
life.
-
- For the benefit of readers who might wish to view
some of the Silloway-designed structures in the general
area, I offer this additional list: The Church of the
Unity at 91 West Newton Street in the South End (1859),
the First Universalist Church in Arlington (1860), the
Fourth Baptist Church in South Boston (1864), the Second
Methodist Church in East Boston (1865); Dean Academy in
Franklin (1867); the North Congregational Church in
Newburyport (1867); the South Abington Congregationalist
Church (1867); the Milton Congregationalist Church
(1867); The Rockport Town Hall (1869); the Winthrop
Street Methodist Church in Roxbury Highlands (1869); the
Cambridge Soldier's Monument (1869); the North
Congregationalist Church in Lynn (1869); the Pilgrim
Congregationalist Church, in Cambridgeport (1871); the
Attleboro Town Hall (1871); the Medfield Town Hall
(1872); the Wood Memorial Church in Cambridge (1883); and
the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South End
(1900).
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