Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1809

Postcard. Caption on front: Von Ting I Know, Mine Friends in Dorchester Shtick to Me Like Bulldogs Yes.  Postmarked Dorchester Center Station June 10, 1919. With one-cent stamp.  A pennant card.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1808

Dunn’s Grille was located at 770 Gallivan Boulevard, near Neponset Circle, where there is now a Verizon store.  Matchbook cover illustration.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1807

Located at 22 Bushnell Street at the corner of Lombard Street, the Ashmont Univeralist Church building is now used as a private residence.

Known as Ashmont Hall this bungalow-type building housed “elegant social evenings,” children’s dancing classes, a neighborhood kindergarten and a private school program.  Beginning about 1894, it was utilized as the Ashmont Universalist Church.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1806

Now known as Little House, the Channing Unitarian Church was organized in 1900 and was located on East Cottage Street, near Dorchester Avenue. 

Postcard. Caption on front: Channing Church, Dorchester.  Postmarked Uphams Corner Station, Dec. 28, 1907. With one-cent stamp.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1805

Today we have a postcard showing St. Margaret’s Church

St. Margaret’s R. C. Church, Dorchester, Mass.  Postmarked Dorchester Station Sep 2, 1908 with one-cent stamp.  On verso: The Rotograph Co., N.Y. City Printed in Germany 56479.

Notes from Boston Landmarks Commission neighborhood description:

St. Margaret’s Roman Catholic Church, by virtue of its tall, distinctive spire, is the major landmark in the area. St. Margaret’s was built in 1899-1904 at 802 Columbia Road from designs provided by Keeley and Houghton. St Margaret’s parish was set off from the older parish of St. Peter’s, June 10, 1893. The first services of the new parish were conducted in a hall on Cottage Street on July 16, 1893. From November of 1893 until 1900, the congregation worshipped in a wooden church on Boston Street, now the site of 180 to 190 Boston Street. In the mean time, the present 16-room rectory at 800 Columbia Road was completed in 1898.

The church was renamed for Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta when the St. Margaret’s parish and the St. William’s parish combined in 2004.  The rectory has been replaced with a school building in the past few years.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1804

The Wiswall-Blackman house stands at 29 Adams Street.  Owners at different times were William Wiswall, Lemuel S. Balckman, William D. Swan, Samuel Swan, and Robert T. Swan.  The Boston Landmarks Commission estimates the date of construction as about 1820 and says the house appears on the 1831 map.  Their survey form describes the house as a 5 bay hip-roofed Federal house with brick ends.  The porch and siding have been replaced.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1803

I know it’s not really time to think about Thanksgiving, but I saw my friend Bill Bauer this weekend, who offered a memory of Dorchester in the 1930s.

Bill’s dad owned a bakery on Washington Street from 1931 to 1945.  This memory is from the year Bill was 13 years old.  Bill is 88 now or will be in a week or two, so this was 75 years ago, or 1937.  The Ashmont Grille was a cafeteria-style restaurant at that time, but at Thanksgiving they roasted turkeys for the neighbors.  Bill’s dad went to the Ashmont Grille to cook turkeys for people from the neighborhood.  People would bring in their turkeys, and Bill’s dad would put them in the oven to roast at the proper time, do the basting, etc.  Then at the pre-arranged time, the neighbors would come by up to pick up their cooked birds.   Bill’s dad was the cook in the family, but that day he was so exhausted the family came to the Grille and ate their Thanksgiving dinner at the cafeteria.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Descendants Celebrations, 2012

Saturday, June 23^rd at 2 pm

Illustrated Book talk: Boston Organized Crime by Emily Sweeney

Sunday, June 24^th

Super Dorchester Trolley Tour about 2 ½ hours.  Noon at 195 Boston Street, $35 incl. lunch

Friday, June 29    Art Show Reception

6 – 8 pm  Opening reception for exhibit: Dorchester Artists Past & Present in collaboration with Dorchester Arts Collaborative

 Saturday, June 30^th    Talk, Art Show, Open Houses

10 – 4 Dorchester Artists Past & Present art exhibit continues

10-4 Open houses at Dorchester Historical Society historic buildings

Saturday, June 30^th at 10 am  St. Botolph’s Town – Boston, England, and Boston, Massachusetts

Wilfred Holton will speak about St. Botolph’s Town: Boston, England the Founding of Our Boston with a few notes from Earl Taylor about Dorchester, England, and Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Sunday, July 1

Art Show continues 10 am – 4 pm

Dorchester’s Collections wins award! 

You may have seen the message that the Dorchester Historical Society’s book Dorchester’s Collections: Illustrating a Community, 1630-1930, published for 2011’s Dorchester Descendants Celebration has won First Place in the New England Museum Association Publications Competition for books costing over $10.  You can buy a copy by sending a check for $25 to DHS, 195 Boston Street, 02125 or you can go to the sales shop tab on the website www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org