Dorchester Illustration 2699 Chocolate at the Holidays
The Walter Baker chocolate company encouraged potential customers to enjoy the holiday season in this advertisement in Cosmopolitan Magazine, December 1919.
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William Edward Coffin was born in Gloucester, Mass., in 1813. He married Margaretta Cotton in Boston in 1840. This quote is from Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, “William Edward Coffin was a principal owner of the Boston Machine Company, the Pembroke Iron Works and the Franconia Iron Works. He became one of the merchant princes of Boston.”
The couple and their children moved to Dorchester in 1852. For a time they lived at the Tuttle House, a hotel that was located where the Cristo Rey School is now. In the late 1850s, William and Margaretta built “Cedar Cottage” in the Gothic Revival style on the south side of Savin Hill Avenue. When the estate was subdivided in the late 1890s, Cedar Cottage was moved to its current location on Playstead Road; much of the architectural detail has been removed.
Margaretta died in 1882; William died in 1894. On Sept. 16, 1894, the Boston Herald printed a lengthy obituary, which was reprinted in The Boston Globe. Source: Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Volume IX, 1890-1897. (Boston, 1908), 207-208.
The map is from the 1884 Bromley Atlas for Dorchester.
Dorchester Illustration 2697 Views of Dorchester 1830s
The top woodcut is in the collection of the Dorchester Historical Society in large album titled Old Dorchester Houses. It shows a scene from near the corner of Hancock and Bowdoin Street, looking toward First Church, the image is from John Warner Barber’s, “Historical Collections,” 1839. The bottom image is from the same book, where it appears in the section on Milton. It shows a view from Milton Village with Dorchester in the background.
Barber issued a book called, “Historical Collections, Being a General Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, &c., Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Massachusetts, with Geographical Descriptions.”
Barber was an engraver and historian. He started in a modest way with “Historical Scenes of the United States” (1827), then “Historic and Antiquities of New Haven” (1831) and “Religious Events” (1832).
Barber’s first large work was “Connecticut Historical Collections” (1836). “The illustrations depict each town center, with its homes and churches, academies and courthouses sailboats plying a river or harbor, an occasional factory belching puffs of smoke and always a tiny figure or two, often the artist in his top hat, sketching the scene or pointing to the view.” (The New York Times in Dec. 10, 1989)
Barber went on to document scenes all over New England and in some of the Atlantic states.
Today’s illustration is a composite of photographs of actress Chrystal Herne owned by the New York Public Library.
Chrystal and Julie Herne were the daughters of James A. Herne, a playwright, and his wife Katherine Corcoran, an actress. Both girls grew up in Dorchester; they lived on Beale Street.
Chrystal began her stage career at age sixteen in Washington D.C. She went on to appear in nearly forty Broadway plays. Julie and Chrystal once acted together in Sag Harbor, one of their father’s plays.
Julie was always interested in writing and became a playwright and screen writer. She worked for Paramount developing film scenes until about 1925 when she turned to writing for the stage.
Dorchester Illustration 2695 Harrison Square Unitarian Church
The Third Unitarian Church in Dorchester was organized in 1848, and its church building was pictured on the 1850 map of Dorchester. The photograph in today’s illustration is from a later year.
Their first meeting house was built in 1846 at the northwest corner of the intersection of Neponset Avenue and Mill Street (now Victory Road). It was built by another society, an offshoot from the Second Church of Dorchester, which did not flourish. The church was known from 1875 to 1894 as the Harrison Square Unitarian Church. In 1892, the congregation voted to sell the property and to purchase land near Elm Lawn Street. The society relocated to the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Dix Street in 1894. At that time, it took the name Christ Church.
The new building was designed by Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., who lived at 597 Adams St. The original design included a tower that was never built (middle image). The illustration was published in the Christian Register on Oct. 5, 1893. The bottom image is from postcard printed about 1910.
Lewis is most famous for his residential architecture and some of his designs are located in Dorchester at 15 and 22 Carruth St., 12 Alban St., 12, 60, and 75 Ocean St. Lewis designed similar church buildings for congregations in Braintree, Massachusetts, and in Keene, New Hampshire.
Jeremiah Clancy was born on June 17, 1916, in Ireland. He immigrated to the United States in 1939 and lived with his brother William on Sanford Street, and later, with his sister Mary Anne on Range Road. Jeremiah worked as a laborer at the William J. Driscoll Construction Company at 1190 Morton St. in Dorchester.
On Oct. 16, 1940, when Jeremiah registered for the draft for World War II, he was described as 5’ 8” tall, 166 lbs, light brown complexion, brown hair and gray eyes. Cpl Clancy was killed on Dec. 28, 1944, in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, while serving with the 87th Chemical Batallion, First Army.
Clancy’s body was returned to Dorchester in March 1949. His was funeral was held at St. Gregory’s Church in Lower Mills. He is buried in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline.
For the heroism he demonstrated in his service to our country Cpl. Clancy was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and the Bronze Star. The intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Becket Street was a designated a hero square named for Jeremiah Clancy.
John Edward Maloney, 1925-1945. Maloney was born on Aug. 16, 1925. His draft registration card for World War II, reports that he was living at 47 Chickatawbut Steet in Dorchester. At the time, he was working for the Watertown Arsenal. He was described as 5 feet nine inches, 155 pounds, with a light complexion, brown hair and blue eyes.
Maloney served in World War II as a gunner’s mate, 3rd class, in the U.S. Navy. He was killed on April 16, 1945, off Okinawa Shima on a littoral combat ship, a small surface vessel, designed for near-shore operations.
Maloney Circle was named by an act of the Legislature in 1949 to honor Maloney. The monument was installed the following year at Neponset Circle.
“Okinawa Campaign: Invasion of Ie Shima: April 16, 1945
The second phase of the Okinawa Campaign consisted of the objectives of Ie Shima, which housed the big airfield of the islands, and Motobu Peninsula. With Rear Admiral Lawrence F. Reifsnider, USN, commanding the attack group, the U.S. Army’s 77th division landed on April 16, 1945. The invading force thought that the Japanese had abandoned the airfield due to aerial photo reconnaissance, but they met about 3,000 men as they moved towards the center of the island. Not unlike the Battle for Iwo Jima, the island had networks of underground tunnels enhanced by Mt. Gosuki, but the island was secured on April 21.”
Dorchester Illustration 2692 Charles Ellery Stedman
Today’s illustration highlights Charles Ellery Stedman and an illustration that he drew during the Civil War titled, “The Blockade.” The illustration depicts a man in uniform surrounded by fashionably dressed young women. The two pictures of Stedman show him at different stages of life.
Charles Ellery Stedman was born in 1831, in Chelsea, where his father was the surgeon at the U.S. Marine Hospital. Stedman attended Boston Latin School and entered Harvard College in 1848, graduating in 1852. He graduated from Harvard Medical College in 1855. In 1854, he was appointed Surgical House Pupil to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Stedman then worked at Rainsford Island Hospital and later the United States Marine Hospital.
Stedman married Edith Ellen Parker, and they moved to Dorchester in 1858. He served as a navy surgeon during the Civil War.
“The artist whose life and work are this book’s subject was a Massachusetts physician turned naval surgeon. He did sea duty from 1862 to 1865 on a steam corvette and on a monitor, blockading and supporting invasions of the South’s Atlantic coast. Finally he was on a supply ship which plied both Atlantic and Gulf waters. An amateur artist who had already published a volume of lithographs satirizing yachting, Stedman sketched during the war and subsequently drew a set of finished illustrations for the library of the Bay State’s Military Order of the Loyal Legion.”
Dr. Charles Ellery Stedman was a visiting physician at Boston City Hospital from 1872 to 1886. In the 1870s, he lived on Downer Court, and during the 1880s and 1890s, he lived at 6 Monadnock Street. He died in 1909 at his home in Brookline.
Dorchester Illustration 2691 Northwood and Dorchester apartment hotels
At the corner of Columbia Road and Stoughton Street, there is now a one-story building housing Santander Bank.
From the early 1880s to at least 1933, the site was occupied by the Northwood and Dorchester apartment hotels. The apartment hotels provided fully-furnished suites for rent.
The top image in today’s illustration shows the Northwood Hotel (left portion of the four-story brick building) and Dorchester Hotel (right portion).
The lower image is from the 1884 atlas showing the location of the hotels. Jones Hill was just beginning to be developed, with only one new house at the corner of Cushing Avenue and Wilbur Street. The large house, labeled Julia Dyer, was an old house formerly owned by a branch of the Clapp family. It is now the location of the Strand Theatre.
Dorchester Illustration 2690 James and Anna Foster
Please join the Dorchester Historical Society and the Boston Preservation Alliance for look at the Dorchester Old North Burying Ground on Sunday, October 20, 2:30 to 4:30.
Registration required at bostonpreservation.org/cemetery
The subjects of this stone are James Foster (1651-1732) and Anna (Lane) Foster (1664-17320. Anna was James’ second wife. The stone was damaged and removed from the cemetery about 20 years ago. it has been repaired and was re-installed in the Dorchester Old North Burying Ground this week.
Three generations of the Foster family, all named James, were stone carvers in Dorchester.
The first James married first Mary Capen on September 22, 1674. Mary died Feb. 8, 1678-9. He married Anna on October 7, 1680. She died Sept. 29, 1732, and James died a few days later on October 4, 1732. She was 68, and he was 81 in the “82nd year of his age”.
The carving is attributed to James’s son James (1698-1771). The coat of arms and the acanthus leaves seem to be unusual for him. Acanthus leaves are a symbol of enduring life.
The stone has suffered a great amount of damage with attempts at repair. Some of the pieces are lost. In 2024, the stone was again repaired and re-installed in the cemetery this week.
