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 …”