Dorchester Illustration 2737 Mary Green

Posted on September 7, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2737 Mary Greene 

The season for elections seems like a good time to tell the story of Mary Geene, Mrs. Vincent L. Greene.

Mary Greene was nearly always referred to as Mrs. Vincent L. Greene. Using the husband’s name for a married woman was common until the last quarter of the 20th century. The couple lived at 34 Mayfield St., Dorchester. They had two sons, Vincent L. Greene, Jr., and Richard Greene.

Mary Greene was president of the League of Catholic Women and vice-president of the Ladies of Charity of Carney Hospital. She was active in many other organizations including Children of Palestine Community Fund, the Red Cross and the League of Women Voters. She received an honorary Doctor of Humanities from Emmanuel College in 1945. Mary was a friend of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In 1963, Mary entered the race for Boston City Council, one of several people recruited by the New Boston Committee. The Committee was formed in 1950 because “Boston’s older citizens are losing faith in Boston and in its ability to solve common problems.” The Committee called on “younger voters to inspire their older leaders and to re-energize them with faith.” (The Boston Globe, May 7, 1950)

Mary Greene said that she found it appealing to have been asked to step into political life without being committed to any group or program. (The Boston Globe, June 21, 1963). Mary Greene was not elected.

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Dorchester Illustration 2736 John Barnard Swett Jackson

Posted on August 31, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2736  John Barnard Swett Jackson

 
Today’s illustration is a portrait of John Barnard Swett Jackson and a recent image of his house at 10 Pleasant St.

Jackson was born in Boston on June 5, 1806. He graduated from Harvard College in 1825 and from Harvard Medical School in 1829. He studied in Edinburgh, Paris, and London. He married Emily Jane Andrew in 1852, and they had two sons, Henry Jackson and Robert Tracy Jackson.

In 1865, Jackson bought the house at 10 Pleasant St., Dorchester, and lived there until his death.

Jackson was a surgeon and a pathologist. He became the first curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum now housed within Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library of Medicine. He served as dean of Harvard Medical School from 1853 to 1855. The position of Shattuck Professorship of Morbid Anatomy was created for him 1854.

Jackson died of pneumonia on Jan. 6, 1879.

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Dorchester Illlustration 2735 Anna Harris Smith House

Posted on August 24, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2735  Anna Harris Smith House

 
The Anna Harris Smith House at 65 Pleasant Street was designated a Boston Landmark on Aug. 6, 2025.

The study report states that “the house is historically significant at the local, state and regional levels for its association with the locally prominent Clapp family, including Anna Harris Smith, the founder of the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Smith (the granddaughter of Samuel Clapp, who build the house) was born in the house in 1843 and lived there until 1908. Under Smith’s leadership, the Animal Rescue League of Boston grew into a widely impactful institution, which became a model for humane societies across the country, and which continues today to serve communities throughout Eastern Massachusetts.

“The Smith House is architecturally significant to the city of Boston as the best-preserved example of a five-bay by two-bay Federal-style vernacular house in Dorchester. It was built in 1804 by Samuel Clapp and is one of the oldest surviving
houses in Boston.”

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Dorchester Illustration 2734 Doll Carriage Parade

Posted on August 17, 2025 by earltaylor

The activities planned for the celebration of Dorchester’s birthday in June 1954 were reported in The Boston Globe on May 30, 1954. They included a variety show at the Riverview Ballroom with a 1954 Ford convertible as the door prize. A block dance at the Y on Washington Street; soft ball tournament; horseshoe pitching contest; boxing bouts; school essay contest; square dancing; community singing; guest speakers; dramatics; bonfire; and a doll carriage parade.

Today’s illustration is a photograph (possibly from the Boston Herald) of the winners of the doll carriage parade (left to right) Barbara MacDonald, 4, the prettiest; Linda Pucci, 3, most original; and Edith Ammidown, most patriotic.

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Dorchester Illustration 2733 William Spencer Hutchinson

Posted on August 10, 2025 by earltaylor

William Spencer Hutchinson, or W. Spencer Hutchinson, was born into a family of furniture makers who lived on the west side of Old Morton Street.

Huchinson attended Dorchester High School and went on to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1892. In 1893, he was curator of the MIT exhibit at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He went on to become the fourth head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. He was a member of the engineering division of the National Research Council, also a member and director of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, and member of the council of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America.

The 1930 U.S. Census lists William, his wife, Elizabeth and his daughter, Virginia Hope Hutchinson, at 45 Old Morton Street.

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Dorchester Illustration 2732  Asa and Jame Robinson

Posted on August 3, 2025 by earltaylor

Asa Robinson was a farmer who lived on Highland Avenue (now Hallett Street) in Neponset. He owned a tidal grist mill at the southern border of Dorchester in the 19th century, just west of the bridge to Quincy. The site is now part of Pope John Paul II Park.

This illustration is the 1874 map, the land outlined in red belonged to Asa Robinson. The land at the river’s edge was the location of the mill.

Asa Robinson married Jane Pillsbury in 1831. Asa is listed in the 1870 U.S. Census, as a farmer. Their son, James, was operating the mill. Another son, John was a clerk in a dry-goods store. Their daughter, Jane, was a dressmaker, and another daughter, Julia, had no listed occupation.

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Dorchester Illustration 2731 16 Harley Street

Posted on July 27, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2731  16 Harley Street

The top portion of today’s image is a photo postcard from about 1910, showing 16 Harley Street and its carriage house. The buildings are still standing. The bottom portion of today’s image is a painting of 16 Harley Street by Frank Henry Shapleigh from the 1870s.

Douglas Shand-Tucci, in his book, “Ashmont,” calls the house the Reed-Loring House. However, the Reed family never owned the house. George Derby Welles, through his agent, Edward Ingersoll Brown, had the house constructed in the early 1870s before selling lots for further development. In 1875, Welles sold the house at 16 Harley Street to Stephen L. Emery. In 1877, Welles sold Emery another 3,000 square feet of land contiguous to 16 Harley Street, and in 1882, Welles sold Emery another 3,000 square feet of land. In 1892, Emery acquired another 1,500 square feet of land from another owner. Emery then had the carriage house built.

Charles Henry Reed married Ellen Emery, Stephen’s daughter, in 1870. Charles operated a hide and leather business. The Reed family lived in Boston except for the year 1879, when they lived with Ellen’s parents on Harley Street. Charles Henry Reed died in 1882. Stephen Emery died in 1899 and left the property in a trust. By 1900, the grandchildren, Clara Elinor Reed and George S. Reed, came to live at 16 Harley Street. Clara married Royden Loring in 1910. The property remained in a trust until 1952, when it was conveyed by the Trustee to George S. Reed and Clara Elinor Loring.

The house should be called the Emery House.

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Dorchester Illustration 2730 Charlotte Feldman

Posted on July 20, 2025 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2730 Charlotte Feldman

Charlotte Feldman, 7 years old, a student at the Atherton School in Dorchester.is pictured when she led an orchestra of 160 grade-school students, in a recital at the annual musical festival of the Boston Public Schools before an audience of 3,500 at Boston Symphony Hall on May 20, 1927. 

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Dorchester Illustration 2729 Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad

Posted on July 13, 2025 by earltaylor

William Richardson, Edmund P. Tileston, Asaph Churchill, Jonathan Ware, and Mark Hollingsworth joined to form the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad on April 16, 1846.

Today’s illustration is a one-hundred dollar bond at 6% per year with coupons worth $3 semi-annually. Two coupons out of 18 have been clipped. 

The Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad was a branch line off the Old Colony Railroad main line from Boston to Plymouth. The 3.3 mile road was completed on Dec. 1, 1847 from Neponset Village in Dorchester, through the town of Milton, to the village of Mattapan.

“Said company may locate, construct, and maintain a railroad, with one or more tracks, within the towns of Dorchester and Milton, in the county of Norfolk, commencing at the most convenient point, at or near the depot of the Old Colony Railroad, at Neponset Village, so called, in Dorchester, and thence running, on the most eligible route, through the southeasterly art of the town of Dorchester, to a point eastwardly of the road leading from Dorchester to Milton, over Milton Hill, then crossing Neponset river, and thence running through the northerly part of the town of Milton, to some convenient point in Dorchester or Milton, at or near the Upper Mills, so called.” (Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, from January 1838 to May 1848). Volume 8. (Boston, 1848), 645.

In 1929, the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line opened from Ashmont to Milton, using a portion of the former Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad.

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Dorchester Illustration 2728 Baker Chocolate Silos

Posted on July 6, 2025 by earltaylor

Eighteen large silos and a grain elevator were built in 1941 as storage, in anticipation of World War II and expected difficulties in securing cacao beans. The “Baker Chocolate” painted silos remained a landmark in the Lower Mills for four decades. The silos were never filled to capacity, and in 1987 they were demolished.

The following is from: “Sweet History: Dorchester and the Chocolate Factory.” Copyright The Bostonian Society, 2005.

“A large grain elevator and nine pairs of concrete silos, originally located behind the Forbes Mill, stored cocoa beans for many years. The silos were built in response to the outbreak of World War II, when there was a high demand to supply chocolate rations for soldiers. Baker’s stepped up its production because “there must be no shortage of chocolate, which is a chief essential of emergency rations for an army in the field.” The location of the silos near the Forbes Mill centralized roasting operations, simplified the manufacturing process, and saved on space and man power.”

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