Dorchester Illustration 2695 Harrison Square Unitarian Church

Posted on November 17, 2024 by earltaylor

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.

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Dorchester Illustration 2694 Jeremiah Clancy

Posted on November 10, 2024 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2694  Jeremiah Clancy

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.

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Dorchester Illustration 2693 John Edward Maloney

Posted on November 3, 2024 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2693 John Edward Maloney

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.

The following is from https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/okinawa/ie-shima-invasion.html

“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.”

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Dorchester Illustration 2692 Charles Ellery Stedman

Posted on October 27, 2024 by earltaylor

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 following is from Project Muse https://muse.jhu.edu/article/419526/pdf

“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.

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Dorchester Illustration 2691 Northwood and Dorchester apartment hotels

Posted on October 20, 2024 by earltaylor

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.

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Dorchester Illustration 2690 James and Anna Foster

Posted on October 13, 2024 by earltaylor

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.

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Dorchester Illustration 2689 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

Posted on October 6, 2024 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration 2689 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

The first service at St. Mary’s as an organized parish was held in Lyceum Hall on Aug. 23, 1847. A gift of land on Bowdoin Street at the corner of Topliff Street allowed the parishioners to build a church, which was completed in September 1849. The top image in today’s illustration is a drawing of that building shown on the 1850 map of Dorchester.

St. Mary’s became one of the strongest and most prosperous parishes in the Diocese outside of Boston. The building was enlarged in the 1860s, and in 1869 a tower with a bell was blown down but never rebuilt. The 1898 history of the church stated that the church experienced challenges in its finances, especially due to “the unexpected social results of the annexation of Dorchester to Boston — the centralization of all interests in the city proper, the removal of many wealthy citizens to the city and effects of the financial crisis following the great fire in Boston in 1872 [which] greatly affected the fortunes of the church.”  However they weathered their challenges.

Following a fire that destroyed the church in 1887, the congregation was able to acquire land on Cushing Avenue overlooking the Old Dorchester North Burying Ground. Henry Vaughan designed a new church in the Jacobethan Revival style, where the first service was celebrated on Dec. 25, 1888. The lower image in today’s illustration shows the church in the early years of the 20th century. The church contains an important collection of stained glass windows by Tiffany Studios, Wilbur H. Burnham, Harry E. Goodhue, and Charles J. Connick. The church was enlarged, and a parish house was added in 1907.

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Dorchester Illustration 2688 Mattapan Bank

Posted on September 29, 2024 by earltaylor

Mattapan Bank

Dorchester Illustration 2688

The image of the Mattapan Bank comes from a vignette on the 1850 map of Dorchester.

Mattapan Bank, was located at Harrison Square (just east of Fields Corner), it was incorporated in 1849. Its first president was Edward King, the Boston businessman who purchased the estate named Rosemont from Captain Frederick William Macondray. The estate stretched from Adams Street to Neponset Avenue and south of the mansion to Mill Street (now Victory Road). King made his fortune in the paint and drug business. He was president of the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad, and he bought much of the land at Harrison Square, which he subdivided into house lots.

In 1856, Charles Carruth became President of the Mattapan Bank. He was a younger brother of Nathan Carruth. They were also in the paint and drug business. Nathan later became known as a railroad pioneer, due to his presidency of the Old Colony Railroad. He devoted energy and capital to the introduction of railway lines in Massachusetts and in other New England states.

Frederick Beck was the cashier of the Mattapan Bank. He wrote: “None of the directors knew anything at all about a bank. It was necessary then to have one-half the capital in gold, $50,000.00, and that I borrowed myself of Foster, of the Grocers’ Bank. This I carted out to the bank in Dorchester; it was counted there by the Commissioners, kept overnight, and returned to the Grocers’ Bank the next day. I carried on that whole bank for about two years …”
 

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Dorchester Illustration 2687 Carney Hospital

Posted on September 22, 2024 by earltaylor

Carney Hospital

Dorchester Illustration 2687

This image is a postcard of the Carney Hospital, Dorchester, Massachusetts, circa 1953.

Carney Hospital closed its doors at the end of August. It was a casualty of financial decisions made by Steward Health Care Network. Carney Hospital owes its beginning to the generosity of Andrew Carney, a Boston clothing manufacturer. Originally founded in 1863 on the Howe estate on Dorchester Heights in South Boston, the hospital moved to its Dorchester location in 1953.

The hospital was operated by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. Later it became part of Caritas Christi system of hospitals. In 2010 it became part of the Steward Health Care Network.

The following is a telegram sent to the Carney Hospital from John F. Kennedy.

From: The White House Washington DC October 8, 1963

To: Sister Margaret Administrator Carney Hospital

I am pleased to send greetings and congratulations to the professional, administrative and volunteer staff of Carney Hospital as you commemorate a century of medical service to the citizens of Boston.

Your institution was conceived during a period of crisis and transition in American history when hospitals, although desperately needed to care for Civil War casualties, were few in number and inadequately equipped and staffed. Established in this period of great national need, Carney Hospital is among those institutions that have consistently pioneered for the best possible medical care.

Your continuing advances in clinical medicine, as well as your active support of medical research and education have helped to establish close cooperation between hospitals and medical schools and strengthened the quality and quantity of our nation’s medical resources.

Over the years Bostonians have come to look upon Carney Hospital with both pride and appreciation. The contributions of your institution, however, reach far beyond the geographical boundaries of the community you serve. Progress against disease and disability in any part of our country is a step toward better health for the entire nation—one of which all Americans can acclaim.

John F. Kennedy

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Dorchester Illustration 2686 Putnam Horseshoe Nails

Posted on September 15, 2024 by earltaylor

Putnam Horseshoe Nails

Dorchester Illustration 2686

Silas Putnam invented a machine to make horseshoe nails that would perform like handmade nails. His factory at the northern end of Port Norfolk was modest at the time his factory was pictured in “The Great Industries of the United States” in 1872.  

The operation grew to include many buildings, producing tons of nails for the U.S. Army and for local use. As the automobile replaced horse-drawn carts, the business dwindled after the turn of the 20th century.

Sometimes a picture helps us think about the past. The image of the cardboard box reminds us that the nails had to be packaged and sent out to customers.

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