Dorchester Illustration 2663
A newly-acquired unused photo postcard from about 1910 shows a picture of the Harris School.
In 186,1 the Harris School on Adams Street at the corner of Victory Road (formerly Mill Street) was erected and named in honor of the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, who was the pastor of the First Parish for many years. The property was conveyed to the Boston Housing Authority (in the 1970s?) for the construction of apartment buildings.
Sometimes it was called the school on the Lower Road, before the naming of the streets. Adams Street was the lower road through Dorchester, and Washington Street was the upper road. From the early settlement of Boston and Dorchester, the road from Boston to Plymouth led to Roxbury and meandered along the eastern part of Dorchester to Lower Mills and on to points south. In the mid-seventeenth century, the upper road was constructed to provide a more direct route from Boston to Roxbury to Lower Mills. It was not until 1804-1805 that the Dorchester Turnpike (now Dorchester Avenue) and the South Boston Bridge were constructed to provide an even more direct route from Boston to Lower Mills.