Quick History Stops, Milton, MA, Part 2

After visiting Forbes House Museum during my trip to Milton, MA in June, I made several quick history stops around the town. In my first post about these stops, I discussed local churches, short hikes, informational signage, a cemetery, a historic house, and memorial parks. In the second post, I will cover the buildings at the center of town, which is fittingly called Milton Centre and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988.

First Congregational Church of Milton began in 1678 and received its first permanent minister, Peter Thacher, in 1680. Proving that bivocational ministry, or a religious leader having a secular job, is not a new concept, Thacher was also the town doctor for both people and animals. The Greek Revival style whitewashed building is unique for its three front doors painted bright red with a second story window above each door. Otherwise, this church looks quite a bit like any other classic New England church.

During the Second Great Awakening of the late 18^th and early 19^th century, many churches in New England had disagreements about religion. The First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Milton broke off from First Evangelical Congregational Church in 1834 and constructed their own building next door. The churches look extremely similar except First Evangelical has a closed bell tower with a steeple, while Unitarian has a clock with an open bell tower plus a steeple. A second breakoff from First Evangelical occurred in 1843 when Second Evangelical Congregational formed another church across town, but those two church reunited earlier this year in 2025. My favorite feature of the Unitarian church was the shed or playhouse that looked identical to the larger church.

Sandwiched between the two churches and in front of the Milton Fire Department and Town Hall are a pair of statues. The first is a scantily clad young man holding aloft a torch. The statue is called “In Flanders Field” and was erected in honor of soldiers who died in World War I. Famed sculptor Daniel Chester French completed the sculpture in 1925. Other sculptures by French appearing on this blog include “Mother Town and Soldier Son” from Exeter, NH; the fountain in front of First Congregational Church of Lee, MA; and a statue of General Charles Devens Jr. near the Major Taylor Museum in Worcester, MA. The second sculpture is a monument consisting of a large rock topped by a bronze eagle statue. A plaque embedded in the rock explains that the memorial is dedicated “in grateful memory to our citizens who served in the Civil War 1861-1865”. According to the blog Massachusetts Civil War Monuments Project written by Patrick Browne, the statue was erected in 1934. The rock comes from Blue Hills Reservation, to be discussed next week, while the eagle was designed by Thomas F. McGann & Sons, a prolific but not well-documented foundry from Somerville, MA.

Milton Public Library formed in 1870, while the building was completed in 1904. The red brick Beaux-Arts style building was constructed by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, a Boston-based architectural firm that succeeded Henry Hobson Richardson, the pioneer of the Richardson Romanesque style. A few of their other works included Medfield State Hospital, Art Institute of Chicago, the original South Station in Boston, and John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Additions to the library were added in 1956 and 2009 with similar red brick and limestone as the original design but with modern features such as floor to ceiling glass on the top story. This concludes my quick history stops in Milton.