[3] It was completed in 1845 and in 1846 the congregation called its first pastor, John Turner Sargent, an associate and defender of Theodore Parker, the transcendentalist.

[4] The building was destroyed by fire in 1852 and replaced in 1853-54 with a new church designed by architect Thomas W. Silloway,[5] which burned in 1867.

In 1893 the City purchased the building as part of the site for the new Somerville High School, which was begun the same year.

They designed the building in the then-popular Richardsonian Romanesque style, named for Henry Hobson Richardson, who was not related to the architect of the Somerville church.

The church is a handsome stone structure, with a tall and steeply pitched gable roof, and a square tower at its right front corner.