Saint Francis of Assisi Chapel

During our walk through Boston’s North End, we stopped at the small brick building beside Old North Church that now houses its gift shop. The cross above the roof and the carved entrance suggest its earlier purpose. Built in 1918, it was once the Saint Francis of Assisi Chapel, serving a community of Italian Protestant immigrants.

These immigrants belonged to the Waldensian tradition, a Christian movement that began in twelfth-century Europe, centuries before the Protestant Reformation. Associated with the religious reformer Waldo, its followers emphasized voluntary poverty, biblical teaching, and a simpler religious life. Despite repeated persecution, Waldensian communities survived, particularly in the Alpine valleys of northern Italy. Some eventually brought their faith to Boston.

In 1914, Old North’s rector, William Dewart, offered the congregation a place to worship on Sunday afternoons. An Italian-speaking minister, Henry Sartorio, led services in their native language. Financial support from Cecelia Frances Lincoln and William H. Lincoln helped make a separate chapel possible on church property. It was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day in 1918.

The relationship between the congregations included both assistance and prejudice. Old North supported the chapel, yet some members resisted sharing other parish spaces with Italians. The chapel’s history records the difficulties newcomers encountered even within institutions that offered them help.

Over the following decades, members moved away from the crowded North End, and the small congregation dwindled. In 1955, the chapel was sold to Old North Church and adapted for museum and retail use, eventually becoming the gift shop. Original features—including carved entrance columns and interior marble railings—preserve connections to the people who once worshipped here.