The Boston Seaman's Friend Society (est. 1827) or Seafarer's Friend is a charitable religious organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. It aims to improve the welfare of mariners. [1]
The Boston Seaman's Friend Society (est. 1827) or Seafarer's Friend is a charitable religious organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. It aims to improve the welfare of mariners. [1]
"Lyman Beecher and a group of congregational ministers organized" the society in c. 1828. "They appealed to the public for funds and interested a number of prominent shipowners in the welfare of the sailors." The Boston Seaman's Friend Society incorporated in 1829. [2]
The society oversaw the Mariner's Church (built 1830) and the Sailor's Home on Purchase Street, Boston, the latter located in the former home of shipping merchant Lott Wheelwright (1836-1845), and replaced by a new building in 1845. "The building presents a front on Purchase street of sixty-two feet in length, and thirty-five feet on Gibbs' Lane, now Belmont Street, with an L extending in the rear of about thirty feet. It is four stories high, with a basement and attic, presenting an elevation from the street of about seventy feet. The basement and first story are of hewn granite. On the top of the building is an observatory, mounted with a flag-staff, which commands the whole view of the harbor. The rooms and apartments of the house are admirably arranged. It contains, among other rooms, seventy-two dormitories for the use of the boarders, and a large and spacious reading-room, which is furnished with a library, the newspapers, and periodicals of the day." [3] In 1841: "the Mariner's Church has now about 150 members, more than half of them males, two-thirds of whom were once living in all the wretchedness and vice of drunken sailors. The Sailor's Home received the last year 873 boarders." [4]
In Boston the society also ran the Seaman's Chapel on Hanover Street (c. 1880s). In 1887, "the chapel and reading-room of the Boston Seaman's Friend Society is at 175 Hanover street. They have a large, well ventilated hall, which will accommodate about 350 persons. The society has a chaplain, Capt. S.S. Nickerson, who has been a 'deep-water' sailor for twenty-four years. ... He is assisted by three missionaries." [5] In 1899, the Society called a Conference of Sailors' Workers to form a committee "to promote and strengthen missions on this continent and among the islands in which we are now interested", [6] 32 years before the first formal meetings of the North American Maritime Ministry Association (NAMMA). [7]
On Martha's Vineyard the society oversaw the Seaman's Chapel, Vineyard Haven (c. 1900).
Officers and staff of the society have included George W. Bourne (pastor c. 1850s), Jonathan Greenleaf (pastor 1830-1833), Alpheus Hardy, [8] Elijah Kellogg (pastor 1854-c. 1865), [9] Daniel M. Lord (minister 1834-1848). [10] Anniversary events commemorated the society's activities through the years, held for example at Park Street Church (1842), [11] Tremont Temple (1850-1851, 1855, 1862), [12] [13] [14] [15] and Boston Music Hall (1853, 1856). [16] [17]
The Boston Seaman's Friend Society was described in 1900: "Its ministry is to the 3,000,000 sailors of the world, and in particular to the 160,000 who annually visit Boston, and the 50,000 who yearly make harbor at Vineyard Haven. Its chapels and reading-rooms are open to sailors of all nations every day in the week. Its chaplains and missionaries supply relief to destitute seamen, comfort the sick in hospitals, and bury the dead. They give social entertainments to men in port, and good reading matter to those going to sea." [18]
As of 1999, "the society is now known as 'Seafarer's Friend' and its geographical reach extends to ships arriving in Portland, Maine, and Portsmouth, N.H., as well as Boston." [19] While Seafarer's Friend has historic ties to the United Church of Christ, it is now an independent, non-denominational ministry. [20]
Park Street Congregational Church, founded in 1804, is a historic and active evangelical congregational church in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The Park Street Church is a member of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. Typical attendance averages over 2,000 people across all Sunday services. Church membership records are private, but the congregation has over 1,200 members. The church is located at 1 Park Street, at the corner of Tremont Street.
King's Chapel is an American independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed in what was for a time after the Revolution called the "Stone Chapel", an 18th-century structure at the corner of Tremont Street and School Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The chapel building, completed in 1754, is one of the finest designs of the noted colonial architect Peter Harrison, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 for its architectural significance. The congregation has worshipped according to a Unitarian version of the Book of Common Prayer since 1785, currently in its ninth edition.
The Mission to Seafarers is a Christian welfare charity serving merchant crews around the world. It operates through a global Mission 'family' network of chaplains, staff and volunteers and provides practical, emotional and spiritual support through ship visits, drop-in seafarers centres and a range of welfare and emergency support services.
The International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA) is an ecumenical association of 26 Christian organisations, Protestant and Catholic, representing different churches and Christian communities actively engaged in welfare work for people who work at sea, including seafarers, fishers and the families of both. The Association is registered as a charity in the UK and, through its members, operates internationally.
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.
Edward Beecher was an American theologian, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher.
The Congregational Library & Archives is an independent special collections library and archives. It is located on the second floor of the Congregational House at 14 Beacon Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The Library was founded in 1853 by a gathering of Congregational ministers and has since evolved into a professional library and archives that holds more than 250,000 items, predominantly focused on 18th to 21st century American Congregational history. The Library's reading room is free and open to the public for research but the Library's stacks are closed and book borrowing privileges are extended exclusively to members.
The Seamen's Church Institute is an American organization that serves mariners through education, pastoral care, and legal advocacy. Founded in lower Manhattan in 1834, it is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. With a budget of over $7 million, SCI is the largest, most comprehensive mariners’ agency in North America. The institute is headquartered in New York City and operates a seafarers’ center in Port Newark, and maritime education facilities in Paducah, Kentucky, and Houston, Texas.
The Tremont Temple on 88 Tremont Street is a Baptist church in Boston, Massachusetts, affiliated with the American Baptist Churches, USA. The existing multi-storey, Renaissance Revival structure was designed by Boston architect Clarence Blackall, and opened in May 1896. It replaced a much smaller 1827 structure which had repeatedly suffered damage by fires.
The Mariner's House is a historic hotel at 11 North Square in Boston, Massachusetts.
Elijah Kellogg Jr. was an American Congregationalist minister, lecturer and author of popular boys' adventure books.
Ashley Day Leavitt (1877–1959) was a Yale-educated Congregational minister who led the State Street Church in Portland, Maine, and later the Harvard Congregational Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. Leavitt was a frequent public speaker during the early twentieth century, and was awarded an honorary degree from Bowdoin College for his pastorship of several congregations during wartime.
A seamen's haven is a social welfare organization for sailors, often operated by Christian churches or missionaries. Havens were most prominent in North American port cities in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were widely used during the Great Depression and declined in popularity afterward. Some provide comprehensive social services such as food and shelter, while others are mainly social organizations.
The Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 740 Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts, was built in 1862 from a design by architect Hammatt Billings. In the late 1960s it became the New Hope Baptist Church.
Edward Thompson Taylor was an American Methodist minister. He joined the New England Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1819 and was an itinerant preacher in southeastern New England for 10 years. In 1829, the Port Society of Boston hired Taylor to be the chaplain of the Seamen’s Bethel, a mission to sailors. In Boston, “Father Taylor” became famous as an eloquent and colorful preacher, a sailors’ advocate, and a temperance activist.
Samuel Chenery Damon was a missionary to Hawaii, pastor of the Seamen's Bethel Church, chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen's Friend Society and editor of the monthly newspaper The Friend.
A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship.
The Seamen's Bethel in Boston was a Methodist church whose pastor was the famous preacher Edward Thompson Taylor. The building was purchased by Italian immigrants and became the Sacred Heart Church in 1888.
The North American Maritime Ministry Association (NAMMA) is an ecumenical Christian seafarers’ welfare organization and professional association for seafarers’ welfare workers.
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