Dorchester Illustration 2717 Dorchester Poor House

Posted on April 20, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2717 Dorchester Poor House

The Dorchester Poor House was located on Hancock Street opposite Kane Square and opposite the end of Bowdoin Street. The Dorchester Poor House was one of several almshouses that provided food and shelter to the homeless. It was operated by the town of Dorchester and later by the City of Boston.

The Dorchester Poor House building was built by the town of Dorchester in the 1860s and was taken over by the city when Dorchester was annexed to Boston in 1870. The building appears on the 1866 Map of the City of Boston and Its Environs, created by Henry Francis Walling. The last map in which the building is labeled an almshouse is in the Bromley Atlas of 1884. After that, the building was used by the public works department.

Each year, as part if its annual report, Dorchester listed the number of poor living in the almshouse. During the year the poor house also provided meals and lodging for the transient. In addition, the town reported the expense on behalf of the poor who were placed in institutions such as the Insane Hospital.

Residents of the Almshouse for a few selected years:

  • February 1, 1863 14 (during the year, 4 were admitted, 2 discharged, 1 ran away, 2 died)
  • February 1, 1864 13 (11 admitted, 9 discharged)
  • February 1, 1865 15 (10 admitted, 4 discharged, 1 died)
  • February 1, 1866 20 (6 admitted, 8 discharged)

The building appears to have been taken down in 1924 or 1925. A building permit states that construction of the new building for the public works department was completed on Oct. 26, 1925.

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Dorchester Illustration 2716 Frederick J. Brand

Posted on April 13, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2716 Frederick J. Brand

Frederick J. Brand was born in Plainville, Connecticut, and came to Boston after receiving his education in the schools in Plainville. He started out as a salesman for A. B. Crocker & Co., at that time, the largest felt manufacturer in the country. After the death of the senior member. Brand organized the Boston Felting Company, he led the company until the formation of the American Felting Company, which merged all the major felting companies in the country. Brand became manager of the Boston branch of the company.

Felt is a textile that is produced by matting, condensing, and pressing fibers together. It can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur or from synthetic fibers.

In the 1890s, Brand moved to the house at 4 Melville Ave., at that time, called the handsomest house on the street.

Brand was a member of the Boston Common Council in 1908 and served as chairman of the Board of Aldermen in 1910.

Among many other leisure pursuits, he was a president of the Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club, chartered in 1890 but not officially organized until 1899. The club members organized horse races where the horses pulled the carts driven by their masters. Originally, the weekly races were held on Blue Hill Avenue between Talbot and Callender Streets but as Blue Hill Avenue became more of a major traffic artery, the club petitioned the city of Boston to allow them to grade a portion of Franklin Field for a speedway and grandstand.

In the lower part of today’s illustration, Brand is seen with his pacer Dr. G., in front of the carriage house at 4 Melville Ave.

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Dorchester Illustration 2715 Sarell James Willis

Posted on April 6, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2715 Sarell James Willis

Sarell James Willis was born in Dorchester on Sept. 11, 1830. He attended public schools in Dorchester. At the age of seventeen, he became an apprentice to a tinsmith, he worked four and a half years in that capacity. Then went into business for himself.

In 1864, he decided to change his life and became a member of the company at the Boston Theatre, where took the stage name of John Scott. Soon he went back to his own name and continued acting until 1870. Then he became bookkeeper for John F. Bispham, a lumber dealer at Harrison Square.

Wills took the position of cashier in 1876 at the Blue Hill National Bank, a job he held for 42 years. His father-in-law, Eleazer Bispham, Jr., was president of the bank. Sarell and his wife, Mary, and their children lived with Eleazer Bispham on Washington Street in Lower Mills, until 1894 when the family moved to Adams Street in Milton. Sarell died on Feb. 28, 1922.

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Dorchester Illustration 2714 Scutching Knife and Hackle

Posted on March 30, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2714 Scutching Knife and Hackle

Last week, we saw a flax break. This week we have a photo of the Clapp family scutching knife and hackle (sometimes called a heckle).

After the stems were broken with the flax break, the debris on the outside of the stems was scraped off using a wooden knife, called a scutching knife. A bundle of flax was held up against an upright board, the edge of the wooden knife is scraped along the fibers to pull away pieces of the stalk. The action is repeated until all of the stalk has been removed, and the flax is smooth and silky.

The fibers are then drawn through a hackle, which combs the straw and some of the shorter fibers out of the desirable longer fibers.

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Dorchester Illustration 2713 Flax Break

Posted on March 23, 2025 by earltaylor

 New Englanders grew flax to make linen. One of the steps in the processing of flax is to crack the stalks to separate the fibers from the woody core of the flax plant.

Today’s illustration is a photograph of the Clapp family flax break at the Dorchester Historical Society. It is a double break, allowing two people to work at the same time.

In the photograph, the pounder on the right side has been propped up to show the surface of the tool. The slats in the pounder fit into the spaces between the slats on the surface, allowing the weight of the pounder to break the stems of a bundle of flax. It requires a fair amount of strength and stamina to operate the pounder for any length of time. The break cracks both the outside of stalk and inner core to free the strong fibers that run vertically the length of the stalk, fibers. Those fibers can be spun into linen thread.

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Dorchester Illustration 2713 Flax Break

Posted on March 23, 2025 by earltaylor

 New Englanders grew flax to make linen. One of the steps in the processing of flax is to crack the stalks to separate the fibers from the woody core of the flax plant.

Today’s illustration is a photograph of the Clapp family flax break at the Dorchester Historical Society. It is a double break, allowing two people to work at the same time.

In the photograph, the pounder on the right side has been propped up to show the surface of the tool. The slats in the pounder fit into the spaces between the slats on the surface, allowing the weight of the pounder to break the stems of a bundle of flax. It requires a fair amount of strength and stamina to operate the pounder for any length of time. The break cracks both the outside of stalk and inner core to free the strong fibers that run vertically the length of the stalk, fibers. Those fibers can be spun into linen thread.

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Dorchester Illustration 2712 Elbridge Torrey

Posted on March 16, 2025 by earltaylor

Elbridge Torrey was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1837, to a farming family. He attended the public schools in Weymouth and went on to graduate from the Bridgewater State Normal School. He became the principal of an elementary school, then principal of the South Weymouth High School. From 1862 to 1874, he was businessman in Boston. In 1875, he became a partner in Torrey, Bright & Capen, a carpet retailer. His firm imported many fine carpets, some of which are now in American museums.

Elbridge Torrey served as president of Torrey, Bright & Capen Co. until he retired in 1907. He was a “corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, from 1876, also a member of its Prudential Committee, serving until he resigned in 1893; Trustee of Mount Holyoke College from 1899 until his death; was elected a member of the Board of Trustees at Hartford Theological Seminary, and served 17 years, the last 3 of which he held the office of President. He then declined a re-election; President of Central Turkey College, and at the time of his death, of the Cullis Consumptives’ Home. He was one of the original members of the Boston Congregational Club. He was at one time unanimously elected its President but declined to serve. He was also a member of the Board of Council of the Home for Aged Couples and for fifty years was identified with the Second Church of Dorchester, was Deacon forty-five years, and Chairman forty-two years of the Board of Assessors of the Parish. He was Vice-president of the Congregational Church Building Society and a Director in the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was for several years on the Board of Directors of the Elm Hill Home for Aged Couples. He was also for seventeen years on the Board of Trustees of Bradford Academy. He was a pillar in the Second Church of which he was a member for fifty years. His mind took delight in dwelling upon great themes.”

Torrey was wealthy enough to have the house in today’s illustration built at the corner of Washington Street and Melville Avenue. The image is a photograph of the Torrey House published in American Architect and Building News, April 3, 1880. Cabot and Chandler, architects. Corner of Melville Avenue and Washington Street.

Elbridge Torrey died at his home in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Jan. 2, 1914. The house was taken down in the 1930s.

Source: Samuel Atkins Eliot. Biographical History of Massachusetts. (Boston, 1914)

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Dorchester Illustration 2711 Charles A. Ufford

Posted on March 9, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2711 Charles A. Ufford

Charles Augustus Ufford was born on Aug. 29, 1856, to Samuel N. Ufford and Mary E. Ufford. At that time, his father, Samuel, and his uncle, Hezekiah, were operating a stove and lamp business in Boston. In the late 1870s, both his father and uncle began to operate separate wire-form businesses in Boston. One of Samuel’s products was a dress form as pictured in the company’s advertisement shown in today’s illustration. At 24 years of age, Charles was listed in the Boston Directory as a partner in his father’s business for the first time in 1880. The factory was located in Dorchester.

In the early 1870s, Samuel Ufford built a large double house at 240 Norfolk St. Charles Ufford lived in that house for the rest of his life.

Charles Ufford is considered the father of the legislation that established rapid transit service for Dorchester. Starting in 1900, Ufford, almost by himself, promoted the idea for rapid transit for Dorchester. For years, he addressed various groups using a “magic lantern” (an early slide projector) and a collection of slides. At first, he thought there should be a connection between the Shawmut Branch (now the T with stops at Fields Corner, Shawmut, Ashmont) and the Midland Division of the New Haven Railroad at Mattapan (commuter rail). Later, his plan was to bring rapid transit to Dorchester along the line of the Old Colony Railroad. In 1927, after the successful passage of legislation that brought the red line to Dorchester, he was a passenger on the trial train that rode out of Andrew Square to Fields Corner.

Ufford died at the age of 73 in 1929.

Sources: The Boston Directory; The Boston Globe, March 9, 1923; November 3, 1927; October 10, 1929

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Dorchester Illustration 2710 John Joseph May

Posted on March 2, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2710 John Joseph May

John Joseph May owned an estate on the west side of Dorchester Avenue in the area of Dorchester Avenue between Pond Street (Crescent Avenue) and Mayfield Street. His father had founded one of the earliest hardware companies in Boston and he became a partner in his father’s business.

May married Caroline Simpkins Danforth in 1837. In 1845, he bought his Dorchester land and moved there to the the estate he called Mayfield. The couple were philanthropists and supported many organizations that promoted good government, promoted education, prevent sickness and preserved historic monuments.

May was a president of the Dorchester Historical Society and a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. He published a genealogy of his family and one for his wife’s family.

John Joseph May was “a firm Abolitionist … When it was rumored that the Southerners would try to prevent the inauguration of President Lincoln in 1861, … he went to Washington to join the president’s bodyguard … He personally equipped the Dorchester company of the Forty-second regiment and contributed largely to other companies.” 1

A letter to the editor of The Boston Evening Transcript, published on Oct. 19, 1903, which was about the earliest use of double-decker street cars, said it was the Dorchester Avenue Railway Company that was the first in Boston. (At that time, streetcars were pulled along the tracks by horses.) The letter stated, “that this company was formed, and the road built and equipped, largely through the enterprise and public spirit of John Joseph May.”  Unfortunately, this is not as wonderful an achievement as it may sound. “It is related … that [the Dorchester Avenue Railway Company] was equipped at one period of its brief existence with double-deck cars, and that after passing through a series of discouraging annoyances by its competitors, met its death by an accident to four if its passengers, who purposely tumbled from the top of the car on which they were riding and then sued the company for damages. Judgment was rendered against the corporation, and this, with other unfortunate circumstances, caused its collapse … the property and franchise of the Dorchester Company passed into the hands of the Metropolitan Railroad Company, October 1, 1863.” 2

John Joseph May died in 1903.

1. Source: Arthur Wellington Brayley. Schools and Schoolboys of Old Boston. (Boston, 1894) and a biography of May that appeared in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April 1904.

2. Source: History of the West End Street Railway. (Boston, 1891), 18.

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Dorchester Illustration 2709 Ivers Adams

Posted on February 23, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2709 Ivers Adams

Ivers Adams was the elder statesman of baseball in Boston, sometimes called the father of professional baseball in Boston. He was the first president of the Boston Baseball Association in 1871. “The Association’s baseball team was a charter member of the National Association during its inaugural season in 1871, played five seasons in that league, and then became the Braves franchise in the National League.” They are now the Atlanta Braves.

Adams was born in 1838, in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. He came to Boston in 1857 to start a business career. He married Sarah Shepard, and they lived on Delle Avenue in Roxbury. In the 1880s, they moved to a mansion at 98 Washington Street, Dorchester, at the intersection of Washington Street and Columbia Road. There is now a Burger King restaurant on the site of their home.

When the Cincinnati Red Stockings disbanded, Adams recruited brothers Harry and George Wright for his new Boston team. The team’s first organizing meeting occurred in 1871. “Behind the capable leadership of Harry Wright, the Boston team finished the 1871 season in second place in the National Association standings, runner-up to the champion Athletic club of Philadelphia.” Adams served only one term as president. He was busy making money in his business of carpeting.

“The Boston baseball team captured four consecutive National Association championships, from 1872 through 1875, and then two National League pennants in 1877 and 1878. Business was booming in Boston, as the baseball success had indeed helped turn Boston into one of America’s leading cities, Adams’s original goal. By the time the Boston team had won its sixth title in seven years, Adams was well on his way to becoming a millionaire as a partner at John H. Pray, Sons & Company.”

Source: “Boston’s First Nine: The 1871-75 Boston Red Stockings” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/813abb83

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