Dorchester Illustration no. 2292 Mattapan Bridge
Today’s illustration is a postcard that shows the bridge from Dorchester’s Mattapan Square across the Neponset to Milton. It is unusual to find a photographer’s name on a postcard. Although Frederick Frizell was a studio photographer, we have found 5 postcards of outdoor scenes that have his copyright.
Frederick Andrew Frizell (1864-1937) was a photographer in the Lower Mills area of Dorchester in the early 20th century.
Frederick was born in Dorchester, October 5, 1864. Frederick married Amelia Eliza Adams 6 August, 1889, when he was 25 and she was 27. They had two children: a son, Lee Adams Frizell, was October 12, 1890, and a daughter Dorothy Ruth Frizell was born December 16, 1893.
Frederick’s father Charles was a contractor, and Frederick worked as a carpenter and ladder maker for his father and brother. The census shows Frederick as a carpenter through 1899. In 1900 both the census and the Boston Directory show him as a photographer at Lower Mills. At first he kept his studio in the house where the family was living at 27 Sanford Street. Later he established a studio at Pierce Square. The family moved to King Street in 1900 and later to Butler Street in 1912.
Frederick probably opened his studio at Pierce Square prior to the family moving to King Street but at least as early as 1904, since his advertisement in the 1904-1905 Milton Directory places him there.
Frederick A. Frizell, Photographer, House Portraiture a Specialty, Portrait Studio, Pierce Sq., opp. W. Bakers Chocolate Mills. Telephone Connection.
In December 1906, Frederick exhibited a large number of photos of Milton scenes at the Milton Public Library. Some of these views may be the same as postcards that he published the year before: Moonlight on the Neponset, Mattapan Bridge, The Chocolates from the Big Chimney.
The entry in the 1916 Boston Directory for Frizell is under Portrait Photography.
Frederick’s favorite subjects for studio photographs was his daughter Dorothy, born 1893, and later her daughter Eleanor, born 1924.
Frederick passed away in 1937, and Amelia in 1949.