After Chase's visit, 20 Quincy residents gathered to form a parochial association for a new church named after St. John the Baptist.

A frame church was erected on North Sixth Street, between Hampshire and Vermont, a block from the current location, and Chase consecrated the building on June 24, 1838, the Nativity of John the Baptist.

Architect Charles Howland designed an early Gothic revival edifice that was built with native limestone, completed in the 1850s.

It occupies a building on the south side of Quincy of modern construction but design similar to the historic St. John's Parish.

[1] The church interior includes a reredos designed by Ralph Adams Cram and two stained glass windows crafted by Louis Comfort Tiffany.