Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1787

Sometimes when we drive around Dorchester we concentrate so much on the traffic that we don’t see the monuments and the artwork displayed on our streets.  Today we have the World War I monument at Kane Square, the intersection of Bowdoin and Hancock Streets.

Dedicated by Francis G. Kane Post 60, American Legion, in memory of the heroes of Dorchester who made the supreme sacrifice in the World War. Erected by the people of Dorchester.

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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. 1786

Endicott School Building

The Bridge Boston Charter School will occupy the former Endicott School Building, beginning this summer. The new school will serve 108 students in pre-K through first grade and add one grade per year until it reaches grade 8 with a total of 335 students.

Located at 2 McLellan Street the school building was opened in 1906.  It was named for
William Endicott (1842-1903), who served for 40 years in the Boston Schools. He was Master of the Christopher Gibson School. Born in Canton, Mass., he served in the Civil War; then he began teaching in the Christopher Gibson School in Dorchester in 1866.

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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. 1785

In the era of trolley cars, the building occupied by Yale Electric today was once the power house for the Boston Elevated Railway Company.

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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. 1784

Today we have a photo of Richard Clapp’s house, which was located on Columbia Road approximately where the Russell School is today across from the Blake House.

The following is from The Clapp Memorial. Record of the Clapp Family in America … Ebenezer Clapp, compiler.  Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1876

Richard, son of Lemuel and Rebecca (Dexter) Clapp, and brother of the preceding (William), was born in Dorchester, July 24, 1780, and died Dec. 16, 1861, aged 81 years.  He was a tanner by trade, and his yard was only a few rods south of his brother William’s [on Boston Street].  At one time in early life he was engaged pretty extensively in brick-making, the business being carried on upon lands of his own in South Boston.  Bricks there made were used in 1812, in the construction of the house he afterwards occupied, now standing on Pond Street [now mostly merged into Columbia Road], near the Five Corners [Edward Everett Square].  A few feet east from this house is the site of the one in which Rev. Richard Mather lived, and in which his son President Increase Mather was born. 

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1783

Postard circa 1910 of Savin Hill Depot.  The illustration of the blimp in the sky seems to be printed on the card but printed in a different way than the rest of the card is printed.  At first I thought it was a drawing in ink, but it seems too fine for that.  So why was there a blimp over Savin Hill?

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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. 1782

Today’s illustration is a copy of an advertisement for a Henderson Footwarmer from 1912.  The Dorchester Pottery company was founded in 1895 by George Henderson to produce commercial and industrial stoneware.  Its first big hit was the stoneware hot water bottle known as the Henderson Footwarmer.  It was used to keep feet warm in a cold automobile and also to warm hospital beds.  It later became known as the porcelain pig.  In the early years the opening in the bottle was closed with a cork stopper, but within a few years Henderson patented a metal fitting with a screw cap.

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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. 1781

Photograph of man doing handstand on MDC sign on Malibu Beach ca. 1950

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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. 1780

Last evening the Boston Landmarks Commission approved the nomination of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to the National Register of Historic Places based on the contribution of the church complex to the local architectural history of Boston. 

The nomination was presented to the Commission by Timothy Orwig, a consultant, who has successfully nominated more than two dozen sites to the National Register of Historic Places.  The St. Mark’s complex comprises 3 shingle buildings: the chapel, a parish house and a rectory.  In today’s postcard, postmarked in 1908, we see the chapel building.   The architectural design was by Edmund Quincy Sylvester, and the cornerstone was laid in 1904.  St. Mark’s was begun as a mission of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.  Note the steeply pitched roof and the projecting entry porch with elements of half-timbering.

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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. 1779

Yesterday, we saw a painting of Savin Hill, and today we have an electro-type version of that painting from Antique Views of Ye Towne of Boston by James Henry Stark.  First published in 1882.  This page may have been from a turn-of-the century edition.  The engraving is from a painting made in 1830.

The Stark family emigrated from England to Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century, eventually settling in Dorchester, Massachusetts. James Henry Stark attended Boston schools including the Boston Latin School, but he left school in 1864 to learn the trade of stereotyping and electrotyping, which he pursued until 1900, when he opened a real estate office. He was president of the Photo Electrotype Co., and he was the publisher of the book Antique Views of Ye Towne of Boston.  An avid yachtsman, he founded several local yacht clubs and helped organize the Savin Hill Yacht Club. He helped organize and later served as vice president of the Dorchester Historical Society and authored several guide books and historical works, including The Loyalists of Massachusetts.

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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. 1778

The painting of Savin Hill is by Michael Olcott Barry.    Savin Hill 1830 represents one of the finest accomplishments of 19^th century landscape artistry in Dorchester.  In this painting we see Savin Hill from Pope’s Hill.  Barry was married to Martha Howe Worthington whose father owned nearly all the land shown in the painting.   Today the area known as Savin Hill is home to thousands of residents.

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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