Early history of the parish – based on William L. Perkins, "Church of the Good Shepherd:
The Story of 75 Years Service (November 1, 1868 – November 1, 1943)":
Pleasant View, the neighborhood in which Good Shepherd is located, was once a sparsely settled community populated mainly by New England Yankees and recent immigrants from England, most of whom were Anglicans. Since there were only two Episcopal churches in Pawtucket in the late 1860s (St. Paul’s and Trinity), and because the distance between Pleasant View and the other two churches was so great, members of Trinity Church decided to found a mission congregation in the neighborhood to their north.
The "Pleasant View Protestant Episcopal Sunday School" was officially organized on Sunday, November 1, 1868, with eighteen students in attendance. The construction of a building was made possible a few years later when Louisa Adelaide Smith, a communicant of Trinity Church who died in 1871, willed a substantial sum of money to the new mission. (Miss Smith is memorialized in the "Good Shepherd" stained glass window above the altar in the sanctuary of the church.)
an illustration of the church (digitally enlarged) that appears in an 1877 map of Pawtucket, which is available at the Library of Congress website
With the assistance of the rectors of three nearby churches – Trinity, St. Paul’s, and St. George’s, Central Falls – Thomas March Clark, the bishop of Rhode Island, laid the cornerstone of the church (on the corner of what is now Broadway and Woodbine Street) on March 9, 1872. George A. Coggeshall, the rector of St. George’s, also served as the priest in charge of the mission, and he officiated at the first service in the new building on June 23, 1872.
an early photograph of the church building and rectory
Benjamin Eastwood, the first settled rector, took charge of the mission on Easter Sunday, 1874, and the first parish vestry was elected in March, 1875, under the leadership of Senior Warden George H. Perkins and Junior Warden Michael J. Ludgate. A rectory for Mr. Eastwood was completed in 1874, and the church building was expanded in 1875. In May 1883 the mission was incorporated as "The Parish of the Good Shepherd in Pawtucket," and as soon as the mortgage had been paid off, the church was consecrated by Bishop Clark on June 16, 1883.
Mr. Eastwood served as rector until June 30, 1898 when declining health forced him to resign. He was succeeded by Asaph Swift Wicks, who was then rector of Church of the Advent, Pawtucket, on January 1, 1899.
a photograph of Benjamin Eastwood, rector between 1874 and 1898, with a group of young men
During Mr. Wicks’s tenure the parish hall was constructed in 1904, and the pipe organ was installed in 1913. At the time of the fortieth anniversary of the mission’s founding (November 1, 1908) Good Shepherd relinquished all financial contributions from the Diocese and became a self-supporting parish. The congregation continued to grow in the ensuing years, and according to the Journal of the 1915 Rhode Island diocesan convention, the parish had a membership of slightly more than 400 adult communicants as well as 265 children in the Sunday School.
a photograph of Asaph Swift Wicks, rector from 1899 to 1931, with choir members
Following Mr. Wicks’s retirement in 1931 his lengthy and notable service at the parish was commemorated in a stained glass window, depicting Christ’s Resurrection, that is located on the rear wall of the church’s nave.