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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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.
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.”
Frank Thayer Merrill (1848-1936), was an artist and book illustrator. He lived at 16 Tremlett St. Today’s illustration is an original pastel, owned by the Dorchester Historical Society, that was used as an illustration for a publication of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” by Alexandre Dumas.
Jessie S. Aldrich, Merrill’s wife, bought the land on Tremlett Street on May 13, 1886 for “One dollar and other valuable considerations.” The quitclaim deed specifies that “no dwelling house shall be erected on said land to cost less than Five Thousand Dollars, and shall be set back in the line of the house recently built and occupied by said Mansfield” (number 18, destroyed by fire in the early 1970s). The third floor of the house contains a large studio lit by a Palladian windowed dormer. The house backed up to the Colonial Club on Washington Street (the former Walter Baker mansion now the site of a charter school on Regina Road).
Merrill drew the illustrations for many books of fiction, including “Little Women” and “The Prince and the Pauper.”
Dorchester Illustration 2707 Winter Garden Rollerway and Riverview Ballroom
On April 30, 1932, the Winter Garden organization opened the Winter Garden Rollerway at 725 Gallivan Boulevard, located approximately where the Expressway off-ramp is now between Staples and the gas station at Hallet Street – maybe set as far back as the Expressway itself.
Every summer beginning in June 1933, the roller skating moved to Nantasket to allow the use of the facility in Dorchester as the Riverview Ballroom where many traveling name bands performed, including Rudy Vallee, Fred Waring, Isham Jones, Cab Calloway, Larry Clinton, Gene Krupa, Fats Waller, Ina Ray Hutton, Tommy Dorsey and many others. Note, however, that “jitter-bugging” was never permitted at Riverview, while the Old Time Dance Tempo of Ed Andrews caught on and became popular with dancers of all ages.
The Winter Garden Rollerway celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1942 with the publication of a booklet with photographs of many of the personnel of the organization as well as many of the skaters. The Winter Garden Tattler was published here until 1936 when its name changed to Roller Skater’s World Tattler. By 1942 this weekly publication had a circulation of 7,500 each week with demand coming from all over the country. Fred and Lou Freeman managed the entire organization.
Here are some comments taken from the Dorchester Atheneum 2. These comments made between the years 2007 to 2012.
“The Sholes rink at Neponset was located where Staples is now. Across the street where Bickford’s presently is, was Linda’s Fried Chicken. That’s where we went, after skating, (if we were fortunate enough to have the extra 0.15 cents), to get an ice cream.”
“I used to skate here in 1955-56. The organist’s name was Harry Garafola. I grew up in Dorchester, and South Boston….and I not only skated at Sholes, but also at Chez-Vous on Rhoades St. Back then, between the side entrance of the Morton theatre, and the auto parts store, (which used to be a car dealer), there was an old wooden fence which had a hole in it, and we used to cut through to get to the diner, (which used to be where the doughnut store is now). The last that I heard, Sam Sholes was living in Florida, (don’t know if he’s still alive). A pity that the young people have lost interest in the sport, and opted for video games. Trying to keep a certain culture is like trying to stop the tide. As a young lad back then….with no car, or license….I didn’t have occasion to go near the Lincoln-Mercury property. I used to arrive via trackless trolley at Neponset Ave. and Gallivan Blvd. and walk to the rink. The drive-in was there, along with the Keystone Camera Company, as well as….of course….the rink. Rayco auto seat covers was next to the car wash at the circle, (I don’t remember how long the car wash has been there). There really wasn’t a lot on Gallivan Blvd., don’t forget….the expressway wasn’t even there in 1956. That’s supposedly the reason that they destroyed the rink, (for the X-way).”
Benjamin Winslow Harris he served in the Massachusetts House in 1857 and the Massachusetts Senate in 1858. He lived in Dorchester, from 1869 to 1872.
In 1869, he presented an argument against the annexation of Dorchester to Boston in hearings of the Joint Committee on Towns in the Massachusetts Legislature. He tried to refute the arguments of those in favor of annexation, in part, by alleging improper conduct in a meeting held in Dorchester to consider the petition for annexation. When the Act for Annexation came out of the legislature, annexation was recommended, and a date in June 1869 was set for Dorchester and Boston to vote on the issue. The vote was in favor, and Dorchester became part of Boston on Jan. 1, 1870.
Excerpts from Harris’s comments follow.
“It is said that there are 860 names on the petition from the town of Dorchester…. how were the names obtained and what influenced the petition?… A hired messenger traveled through the town with a petition praying for the annexation of the whole of Dorchester; and he got 829 names, 233 of which are neither voters, nor, so far as we know, residents…This was a canvass…in which the person canvassing, says, ‘We don’t want Dorchester divided; but if they are going to take a portion, let them take the whole!’ ”
“They say there were 544 voters in favor of action to 6 opposed…when you count upon 544 voters in that meeting in favor of annexation, you mistake.. The town of Dorchester has not had a full discussion of this matter.
“It did seem to me that Mr. Upham, who was last year the chairman of the committee chosen to oppose annexation, but who happens to be, this year, a convert to annexation, — it did seem to me a little strange that under his management, fair play could not have been a little better secured…. where a majority of the committee opposed to annexation, of which he was chairman, had a written report ready to present to the meeting, Mr. Upham did not do quite the fair thing reading a report signed by himself as chairman, and having it acted upon before the majority of the committee could get a chance to make it know that they had a report ready, and he the chairman of the meeting too… he did not give the opponents of this measure quite a fair chance.
“But how was that meeting constituted? Mr. Putnam, who runs a large nail factory, hires two four-horse wagons, and hires 42 voters to and vote for annexation…. He had 42 voters in his employ who would vote in favor of annexation, and he said, ‘Boy, I will pay you your wages, nothing shall be deducted from your day’s labor, and I will pay your transportation up and back, if you will go and vote for annexation;’ and they went.” B. W. Harris. The Annexation Question. Closing Argument of B. W. Harris, Esq. (Boston, 1869)
