Harvard-Epworth traces its history back to 1790, when pioneering preacher Jesse Lee made his first visit to Boston. In 1792 Lee helped organize the city’s first Methodist society. In the early 1800s, “praying bands” of Methodists organized across the Charles River, in East Cambridge. Ebenezer Chapel, founded in 1823, became a mother church for several others, including the Harvard Street Society, which built an East Cambridge church in 1843.

North Avenue Methodist, Harvard-Epworth’s predecessor, was organized in 1868 with the support of Harvard Street Methodist. (North Avenue took its name from the street, which was later renamed Massachusetts Avenue.) Three earlier efforts to form a church in Old Cambridge – the Cambridge of Harvard College and Brattle Street – were short-lived. But North Avenue thrived, with Rev. Abraham Merrill as its first pastor and Harvard College students as a mission. The first church building, a whitewashed frame chapel, was located just across the road from the north end of Cambridge Common.

North Avenue Methodist, Harvard-Epworth’s predecessor, was organized in 1868 with the support of Harvard Street Methodist. (North Avenue took its name from the street, which was later renamed Massachusetts Avenue.) Three earlier efforts to form a church in Old Cambridge – the Cambridge of Harvard College and Brattle Street – were short-lived. But North Avenue thrived, with Rev. Abraham Merrill as its first pastor and Harvard College students as a mission. The first church building, a whitewashed frame chapel, was located just across the road from the north end of Cambridge Common.

Worcester architect Amos Cutting was chosen for the project, with the Cutting and Bishop construction firm as contractor. Cutting’s Richardsonian Romanesque design featured a light red granite and red sandstone exterior, with a 110-foot tower with no bell. Stained glass windows would decorate the sanctuary, which would have curved, auditorium-style pews, and a new George Hutchings organ. Groundbreaking was held in October 1891 and the chapel was demolished. During construction the congregation met in Brattle Hall in Harvard Square and Harvard’s Appleton Chapel. In 1892 the church’s name was changed to Epworth Methodist Episcopal, from the England birthplace of Methodism founder John Wesley.

“Splendid Epworth,” as a Methodist historian dubbed it, was dedicated on Feb. 22, 1893, amid the last hours of a fierce northeaster. Rindge contributed a total of $53,500 of the project’s $73,000 cost, the equivalent of $1.4 million out of $2 million in 2020. The balance was raised from more than 500 other donors, including a penny from 12-year-old church member Eva Griffin.

Through the decades that followed, Epworth proclaimed the Gospel, campaigned for temperance, aided the poor of Cambridge, and helped European immigrants who arrived by ship at the Boston docks. During the last year of World War I, the Rev. Elmer Leslie provided evening study space and a canteen for U.S. Navy sailors getting “radio school” training. That fall the church weathered the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. At the pandemic’s peak Epworth was closed for three consecutive Sundays. The church prospered in the Roaring Twenties, then endured “the hardest years” of the Great Depression. Epworth and Harvard Street Methodist formally merged in November 1941, weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II.