George Meacham

George Frederick Meacham (July 1, 1831 - December 4, 1917) was an architect in the Boston, Massachusetts, area in the 19th century. He is notable for designing Boston's Public Garden; the Massachusetts Bicycle Club; and churches, homes, and monuments in greater Boston and elsewhere in New England. He was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, to Giles Meacham and Jane Meacham.[1][2][3] He was graduated from Harvard College in 1853. After college he worked as a civil engineer for the Jersey City Water Works.[4] By 1855 he returned to Boston and worked for an architecture firm there. He practiced as an architect from 1857 through 1891, and in that time produced numerous designs.[4] People associated with the office of G.F. Meacham included Henry Martyn Francis,[5] George Pyne,[6] and Shepherd S. Woodcock.[7] Meacham married Mary Warren (d.1877) in 1859; they had two children who died very young.[4] Several years after the death of his first wife, he married Ellen Louisa Frost in 1881.[4]

Selected designs

1862 advertisement for Woodcock & Meacham, Architects

• Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts (1860)[8][9]
• Burial ground, Shirley, Massachusetts (ca.1864)[10]
• South Congregational Church, New Britain, Connecticut (1865-1868)[11]
• Workers' lodgings, France (ca.1866).[12]
• Soldiers' monument, Brighton, Massachusetts (1866)[13]
• Completion of Merrill G. Wheelock's design for the Masonic temple, Boston MA (1867)[14]
• Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Riverside Cemetery, Main Street, Fairhaven, Massachusetts (ca.1868)[15]
• Alterations to Charles Bowdoin Fillebrown house, Newton, Massachusetts (ca.1874-1910).
• Tremont-Street Mall curb and fence, Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts (ca.1875)[16]
• Addition to Newton Public Library (ca.1880), Newton, Massachusetts[17]
• House, 10 Melville Ave., Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts (1880)[18]
• Channing Church, 75 Vernon Street, Newton, Massachusetts (1881)[19]
• Massachusetts Bicycle Club, 152 Newbury St., Boston, Massachusetts (1884)[20][21]
• Hartley Lord house, Kennebunk, Maine (1884-1885)[22]
• Levi B. Gay house, 303 Franklin St., Newton, Massachusetts (1887)[23]
• Eliot Church, Newton, Massachusetts (ca.1888)[19][24]

References

1. George F. Meacham dead, was old-time architect. Boston Globe, Dec. 5, 1917; p.10.
2. Harvard graduates' magazine. 1918.
3. Harvard alumni bulletin. 1917.
4. Report of the Harvard Class of 1853. 1913.
5. Ellery Bicknell Crane. Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts. Lewis Pub. Co., 1907; p.304.
6. Who's who in New England. A.N. Marquis, 1909.
7. Boston Directory 1862.
8. City of Boston. "Public Garden".
9. Landscape Architecture and Urban Design. Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998.
10. Seth Chandler. History of the town of Shirley, Massachusetts: from its early settlement to A.D. 1882. S. Chandler, 1883.
11. The Congregational quarterly, 1871.
12. William Richards Lawrence. Charities of France in 1866. Gould and Lincoln, 1867. Includes illustrations.
13. New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 1867.
14. William D. Stratton. Dedication memorial of the new Masonic temple, Boston. Lee and Shepard, 1868.
15. "Fairhaven memorials". Millicent Library. Archived from the original on 2008-07-03.
16. Boston (Mass.), Engineering Dept. Annual report, 1868.
17. "Two Hundred Years of Libraries in Newton". City of Newton.
18. Douglass Shand-Tucci. Built in Boston: city and suburb, 1800-2000, 2nd ed. Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2000; p.96.
19. King's handbook of Newton, Massachusetts. 1889.
20. S.H. Day. The new house of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club. Outing and the Wheelman: an illustrated monthly magazine of recreation. 1884-1885; p.429+
21. AIA guide to Boston, 3rd ed. 2008.
22. Kevin D. Murphy. The architecture of Summer Street, Kennebunk, Maine. The Magazine Antiques (1971) v. 168 no. 2; p. 54-63. Includes illustrations.
23. "Discover historic Newton Corner". City of Newton.
24. Church Building Quarterly. American Congregational Union, 1888. Includes illustrations of the church.

Further reading

• Curb, stone or fence: what is the best plan for enclosing the Common? Hearing on the Subject in the City Hall, Yesterday. Boston Daily Globe, May 26, 1875. p. 8.
• "George F. Meacham (1831-1917)". A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine. 1984.