Alexander Parris was an American architect and builder.
Background
Alexander Parris was born on November 24, 1780 in Hebron, Oxford County, Maine, United States. He was descended from Thomas Parris, who came to New England from Topsham, England, in 1683, and later served as the first schoolmaster of Pembroke, Massachussets Alexander's father, Matthew, married Mercy Thompson of Halifax, Massachussets, on February 1780, and the couple moved at once to Hebron, Maine, where Alexander was born. Other families from Pembroke settled in this portion of Maine at about the same time; Paris Hill takes its name from the Parris family, and Alexander's cousin Albion K. Parris, in time became a United States senator and governor of Maine. Alexander's father died when his son was only three and apparently the widowed mother returned to Pembroke.
Education
Alexander Parris educated in the school in Pembroke and there apprenticed to a carpenter and builder.
Career
For a time Alexander Parris was teacher of a common-school. Between the time of his marriage and the War of 1812, he worked for a while in Portland. The Richard Hunnewell (Shepley) house in Portland, of which his drawings are preserved, dates from 1805. During the War of 1812 he was captain of a company of artificers (engineers) stationed at Plattsburg, New York, and after its close he settled in Boston. Here his most important work was done. The David Sears House, on Beacon Street, now altered and used as the Somerset Club, is dated by a stone in the basement as 1816; Parris' name appears as architect. In 1819, he was the architect of St. Paul's Church on Tremont Street (still extant), which was built by Solomon Willard, the architect of Bunker Hill Monument; this church, the first large classic-revival church of temple type in Boston, marked the end of the colonial tradition and the beginning of the age of revivalism. During the next decade, Parris' marked engineering skill found scope in his work with Col. Loammi Baldwin as consulting engineer in building the masonry dry dock at the Charlestown Navy Yard. At the same time he built various sea walls in Boston Harbor. He appears to have served as superintendent for Charles Bulfinch in the construction of the Massachusetts General Hospital (completed in 1823), and in 1825 he was the architect for the market hall and the surrounding buildings of Faneuil Hall Market, a scheme of civic betterment remarkable for its day in its combination of broad practical and esthetic ideals. It was much praised at the time, and its continuing usefulness today bears witness to the soundness of his design and execution.
During this period he is also credited with the design of the Marine Hospital in Chelsea, and the arsenal at Watertown. It is possible also that he superintended the erection of the Boston Customs House, though the plans are known to be the work of Ammi B. Young. Between 1834 and 1836, Richard Upjohn was one of Parris' draftsmen. His diary (in the possession of his grandson, Hobart B. Upjohn) shows that in that period he was working on the Boston Court House (usually attributed to Bulfinch), on a fire-engine house, and on further work at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the navy yard in Charlestown. In 1847 or 1848, Parris was appointed civil engineer of the navy yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a post which he held until his death. Under his direction much levelling was done, the sea wall was completed, and many buildings were enlarged and repaired. In 1840 Parris had bought the Elisha Briggs estate in the north part of Pembroke, his childhood home. Taken ill in Washington, in the spring of 1852, he was removed to his estate and died there on June 16, 1852. He was buried in the Briggs cemetery, North Pembroke.
Many of his drawings are preserved in the Boston Athenaeum Library. Among them "Plans and Elevations of the Massachusetts General Hospital erected under the superintendance of Alexander Parris, 1823", plans of the Hunnewell House, of a house for Mr. Preble, and of "Pr'th church" (possibly St. John's, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, still standing). The Massachusetts Historical Society owns his competition designs for the Bunker Hill Monument.
Achievements
Connections
On April 19, 1801, Alexander Parris married Silvina (or Sylvina) Stetson. His wife died on October 3, 1853.