Today’s illustration includes Neil McNeil (left) and Sylvester Parshley (right). The McNeil Bros. business was one of the largest contracting firms in Boston in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Neil went south during the U.S. Civil War on camp construction work for the Union army. On his return, he engaged in the building business with his brother Hector. Parshley joined with Hector and Neil as a junior partner. In 1871, the McNeil firm acquired land for a saw mill at approximately 96 Freeport Street, Dorchester. Hector McNeil died in 1886. Neil lived on Stanley Street, and Sylvester Parshley lived on Cushing Avenue.
The map detail comes from the 1884 atlas of Dorchester. It shows the location of the McNeil production facility on Dorchester Bay opposite the end of Shamrock Street (now Kimball Street). The red shading indicates that the building was made mostly of brick. The construction of the Southeast Expressway included making new land, so that the property no long has water frontage.
The firm is mentioned in A Half Century of Boston Building as the builder of notable homes and commercial buildings.
One of the largest contracting and building firms in the city is that of the McNeil Brothers, who have constructed a very large number of the most elegant and costly buildings in this city, as well as many in other parts of New England and New York. The business was established in 1868, and the office of the firm is in the Master Builders’ Association building at 166 Devonshire Street. The following are among the most important buildings erected by this firm: The elegant residences of William D. Sloan, John S. Barnes, Charles Lamier, and George H. Morgan at Lenox, Mass.; residences of Cornelius Vanderbilt, F. W. Vanderbilt, Mrs. H. Mortimer Brooks, J. M. Fiske, H. H. Cook, William Gamewell, G. M. Hutton and A. B. Emmons, at Newport, R. I.; the residences of Charles Francis Adams, H. C. Jackson, Mrs. H. Keyes, C. T. White, J. A. Beebe, Charles Head, H. H. Fay, Miss E. E. Sears, R. H. White and many others, in this city; residences of J. S. Barnes, James A. Garland and Charles Lamier, at New York. Among the mercantile and public buildings are the Hemenway, Chickering, Potter, Hunnewell, and R. H. White buildings, the Parker House, Boston Post Office and Sub-Treasury, Boston Real Estate Trust building, in this city, and a very large list of notable buildings in other cities. This firm is widely known as one of the most reliable and trustworthy, and has a very high reputation for the promptness with which all contracts are carried forward. Their business has very largely increased in the past few years and they are now engaged on several large contracts.