Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1717

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church at 73 Columbia Road began as a mission of St. Mary’s, which is located on Jones Hill.  St. Mark’s replaced a building called Rose Cottage acquired from Edwin S. Davis.  The mission used the Cottage for a time before building the St. Mark’s building that we know today.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1716

The Gushee Dairy question is still getting responses.  Dan Jenkins has lots of info about the family and believes they had a dairy operation on Hillside Street in Milton as well as on Fuller Street, Dorchester.  He provided today’s illustration–a photo of a Gushee Milk Bottle that sold on eBay.  It is a cream separating baby face type.  A separating spoon device closed the small opening in the neck so the cream on top could be poured off.  I have added a close-up of a baby-top from a Cosgrove milk bottle from another Dorchester dairy.

Charlie O’Hara says: In regards to the Gushee Farm Dairy February 1 & 3 Illustrations # 1712 & 1714, one of the Gushee family homes still stands and is a small Victorian house at 104 Fuller Street. It is the 3^rd house just west of the foot path that leads from Fuller Street into the Woodrow Wilson School yard.  The first two houses are 3 families [at nos. 98 and 102] and then the 3^rd one is the Gushee’s.

 Just east of the foot path stand two small 1950–1960 Cape houses # 90 & 94 where the barn and bottling plant were located.  As a boy attending the Woodrow Wilson School in the early 1940’s I, along with other students, would stop at the barn, which was always open and we would feed the horses our lunch apples.  It was a small operation with only two or three milk delivery wagons of the kind with small truck wheels and rubber tires similar to those used by the Hood and Whiting milk companies.  Part of the pasture land remained until WW II when the newer single family houses were built on it South of Fuller Street and West of the dead end Mercier Avenue and Hurlcroft Avenue and extending to the Boston Home property.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1715

Jacob Fottler.

From: One of a Thousand. A Series of Biographical Sketches of One Thousand Representative Men Resident in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, A.D. 1888-89. Compiled under the editorial supervision of John C. Rand.  Boston: First National Publishing Company, 1890.

Fottler, Jacob, son of John and Mary (Donald) Fottler, was born in Dorchester, Norfolk County, August 19, 1839. 

He obtained his school training in the common schools of Belmont and Brighton, and at the Eliot High School, Jamaica Plain. He worked at home on his father’s farm—a tract of land now included within the boundaries of Franklin Park—also for a time at Hingham; at the age of nineteen he left home for California, and for some time was employed on a ranch in that state; coming back to Boston, he secured a situation in Faneuil Hall market.  In 1872 he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Sands, Furber & Co., which business relation still continues.

Mr. Fottler was married in Sanbornton, N.H., March 12, 1865, to Lucy Ann, daughter of Captain Edward and Phebe (Morrison) Evans.  Of this union are two children: Frances Bell and Milton Evans Fottler. 

Mr. Fottler was a member of the Boston Common Council in 1885, ’86 and ’87, and served on the following committees: public parks, public institutions, markets, elections, and sale of reservoir lot.  He was a member of the House of Representatives, 1888 and ’89, and served on the committee on the state-house.  He is a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce—elected to serve on the board of directors for a term of three years; a member of the Boston Fruit and Produce Exchange, and also of the Bay State Agricultural Society.

He is member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts—receiving a lieutenant’s commission June 6, 1887.  Mr. Fottler visited England in July, 1887, as one of the delegation of the “Ancients,” who were invited by the Honourable Artillery Company of London to be present and assist in the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of that company.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1714

Today’s illustration shows Almond S. Gushee. The day before yesterday we saw a milk bottle from the C W Gushee dairy on Fuller Street.  Responses for the request for more information have come in:

From Dan Jenkins:

It appears the dairy was owned by Almond Shaw Gushee  and when he died his son Chester Ward Gushee took over per WWI draft reg.   Almond was married to Ida Smith, and she is mother of his children. He 2nd married a Therese Peters in 1900, who was of German origins.  Almond  was born in Appleton, Maine, to an old N. E. family that arrived from France in the 1600s.  Name properly was Gatchet.  So the bottle was from Chester’s era.  WWII draft reveals Chester at 104 Fuller St., owner of a milk business, so maybe cows and barns still there.

1942 .  Chester was married to Ruth Hotchkiss/Stone, and they had 3 children: Ruth 1921 who has descendants ,  Robert 1925, and Almond Chester Gushee b 1923.  Almond Chester enlisted in the Army 11-4-1942 and died in Maryland in 2004 and is buried at Mullen Hill Cem. in Lakeville, MA.  There are living members of this family and I will forward  today’s  illus. to one of them that has done research.  Maybe she can add info.

I forgot to mention that Chester’s brother William had a grocery store, likely nearby.  So probably sold Gushee milk.

From Bob Rugo:

Almond Shaw Gushee was born in Appleton, Maine in 1857. He was living on Fuller Street in 1886 when his son William Shaw Gushee was born and in1888 when his son Chester W. Gushee was born. He was described as a milkman and as a milk dealer on his sons’ birth records.

In 1897 Almond’s wife died at 92 Fuller Street and in 1900 he remarried, living at the same address.

Almond was active in establishing, in 1899, the Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club  which held races at the Franklin Field Speedway. His daughter Edith made news when she was the first woman to race there in 1911 when she was 20 years old.

 The C. W. Gushee name on the milk bottle is presumably the son, Chester W. Gushee (1888-1963). When Chester’s wife died in 1949, they were living at 104 Fuller Street and when Chester died in 1963, he was living at 37 Bailey Street.

In 1940 the Chester W. Gushee Co. was a low bidder on a contract to provide subsidized milk to the poor. Other successful bidders included H.P. Hood and the Whiting Milk Company. At that time the Gushee Company was shown as based in Watertown. One possibility is that Chester’s younger brother, by 15 years, Charles had taken over the company by then. Charles had bought property in Belmont in 1937.

Also from Bob Rugo — From someone’s family tree online:

“Chester Ward Gushee 30 Sept 1888 Boston, MA married Ruth Hotchkiss/Stone

 1930 Federal census Boston, Suffolk, MA 8 April

Gushee, Chester head age 41 born MA propietor dairy business”

Report of the Harvard Class of 1909 (listed right after George Gund)

WILLIAM SHAW GUSHEE

Address 113 Fuller St., Dorchester Center, Mass.

Residence Ditto.

Occupation Milk Dealer, 113 Fuller St., Dorchester Center, Mass.

Married Beatrice Emily Hall, Dorchester, Mass., Oct. 16, 1913.

Children Beatrice Eleanor, Sept. 22, 1918.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1713

Captain John Codman  

Source:  Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, State Street Trust Company, Boston, Mass., 1919.

Captain John Codman was born in Dorchester in 1814, being the oldest son of the Rev. John Codman.

Captain Codman always showed a great fondness for the sea, and as soon as he saw an opportunity he shipped on one of the famous clippers. During the Crimean War he commanded the ship “William Penn,” which was used as an army transport to carry troops from Constantinople to the Crimea, and during the Civil War he was in command of the steamer “Quaker City, which was engaged in carrying stores to Port Royal.

Captain Codman was very fond of riding, and once, when about seventy-five years of age, he rode from New York to Boston in the middle of winter. He had a horse which he called “Grover Cleveland” in order to show his admiration for the President, and he always caused great interest when on the hotel registers he signed his name and underneath it “Grover Cleveland.” He also wrote a number of books and newspaper articles and made many speeches on travel shipping, and tariff.  He used to say that “his little Latin and his less Greek had been very useful to him.” “It was like being vaccinated,” he said. “You may not feel it, but it is there all the same and does you a heap of good.” Captain Codman owned a ranch in Idaho and a house at Cohasset, the latter being so near the water that people used to remark that his villa on some boisterous night would undoubtedly go to sea without taking out clearance papers. He gave up the sea for the last thirty years of his life, but still owned a number of ships which were most successful, one of them, the “Morea,” in one year’s time making for him one hundred thousand dollars in tea. He was a graduate of Amherst College. He died at the age of eighty-six.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1712

C.W. Gushee was the name of a dairy farm at 92 Fuller Street.  Almond S. Gushee owned about 2 acres there, a farm that appears with his name on the atlases from 1884 through 1918.  Sometime after 1918 and before 1933, the land was subdivided for new houses.  92 Fuller Street is on the south side of Fuller on the section of Fuller that runs between Dorchester Avenue and Washington Street, close to Washington Street.

Does anyone know any more about this operation?

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1711

Ray Bolger

From Wikipedia

Ray Bolger (January 10, 1904 – January 15, 1987) was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow (and the farmworker “Huck”) in the 1939 film classic, The Wizard of Oz.

Ray Bolger was born Raymond Wallace Bulcão to a Roman Catholic family of Portuguese and Irish extraction in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a heavily Irish neighborhood at the time.

His father was a house-painter, his mother a homemaker. He was inspired by the vaudeville shows he attended when he was young to become an entertainer himself. He began his career as a dancer. His limber body and ability to ad lib movement won him many starring roles on Broadway in the 1930s.

His film career began when he signed a $10,000 a week contract with Lionsgate Films in 1936. His best-known film prior to The Wizard of Oz was The Great Ziegfeld (1936), in which he portrayed himself.

Bolger’s studio contract stipulated that he would play any part the studio chose; however, he was unhappy when he was cast as the Tin Man. The Scarecrow part had already been assigned to another lean and limber dancing studio contract player, Buddy Ebsen.

In time, the roles were switched. While Bolger was pleased with his role as the Scarecrow, Ebsen was struck ill by the powdered aluminum make-up used to complete the Tin Man costume. (The powdered aluminum had been inhaled and coated Ebsen’s lungs, leaving him near death. Ironically, Ebsen would outlive all the principal players of Oz.) Ebsen’s illness paved the way for the role to be filled by Jack Haley.

Bolger’s performance in Oz was a tour de force. He displayed the full range of his physical, comedic, and dramatic talents playing the character searching for the brain that he’s always had. The Scarecrow’s sympathy for Dorothy Gale‘s plight, his cleverness and bravery in rescuing her from the Wicked Witch of the West (played by Margaret Hamilton) and his deep affection for her shone through, endearing the character — and Bolger — in the public mind forever. Whenever queried as to whether he received any residuals from broadcasts of the 1939 classic, Bolger would reply: “No, just immortality. I’ll settle for that.”[2]

Following Oz, Bolger moved to RKO. He starred in several more films and had a sitcom called Where’s Raymond? from 1953 – 1955 (also known as “The Ray Bolger Show”). He also made frequent guest appearances on television. In 1985 he and Liza Minnelli, the daughter of his Oz co-star Judy Garland, starred in “That’s Dancing” — a film also written by Jack Haley, Jr., the son of late Tin Man actor Jack Haley. Liza Minnelli and Jack Haley, Jr. would have a brief marriage some years later.

Ray Bolger died in Los Angeles, California of cancer just five days after his 83rd birthday, and is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, in the Mausoleum, Crypt F2, Block 35.

He was survived by his wife of 57 1/2 years, Gwendolyn Rickard. [3]

At the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the main Oz cast. An editorial cartoon the day after his death featured the Oz cast dancing off into the setting sun, with the Scarecrow running to catch up. 

Source: Wikipedia 2006

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February 19, 2012  at 2 pm.

Submit your best creation to the Great Chocolate Cook-Off 2012. 

To participate, call or email Earl Taylor 617 293-3052 or ERMMWWT@aol.com

Deliver your creation to the Dorchester Historical Society by 11:00 am on Feb. 19th. 

February 19, 2012  at 2 pm.

Chocolate program – Chocolate History, Production and Tastings by Rebecca Scheier, Chef at Tie Your Apron Cooking School

There will be a Sampling of colonial chocolate and a Children’s Corner for reading a book about cocoa called “Cocoa and Ice”.

Dorchester Historical Society              

195 Boston Street                                      

Dorchester, MA  02125            

www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1710

The following is a footnote in the Clapp genealogy.

Rev. John Codman, D.D., was born in Boston, Aug. 3, 1782.  He was son of Hon. John Codman and Margaret Russell his wife, grandson of John, of Charlestown and great-grandson of Capt. John, who came to an untimely end by being poisoned by his three negro slaves about the middle of the 18^th century.  It is recorded by the biographer of Rev. Dr. C. that one of these slaves was executed for his crime on the northerly side of the Cambridge road, about a quarter of a mile above the peninsula, and that another, a female, was burned at the stake, about ten yards from the gallows!—the only instance, it is said, in the history of this country, of that method of punishment under the authority of the law.  Dr. Codman graduated at Harvard College in 1802, studied for the ministry under the Rev. Henry Ware, then of Hingham, and in 1805 embarked for Europe, to finish his theological studies there.  After spending three years broad, he returned home, and in August, 1808, first preached to the Second Church in Dorchester, then recently organized, their new meeting-house having been dedicated Oct. 30, 1806.  He was ordained pastor of this church Dec. 7, 1808, the Rev. Dr. Channing (from whom he very soon after separated in theological belief) preaching the ordination sermon.  In about a year after his settlement, commenced the celebrated controversy between him and many members of the parish, which lasted for three years, but neither the merits nor the details of which can be here entered into.  In 1821, an interesting journey by Dr. C. and his wife was made to the state of Georgia, including a Sunday passed at Midway, among the descendants of the people of Dorchester who emigrated thence in 1695.  They then took passage for Europe, returning home the next year.  Two other visits to Europe were afterwards made by Dr. C.  The position attained by Dr. Codman as pastor of the Second Church, and as a leading and able minister in the denomination to which he belonged, was elevated, and his death, which took place Dec. 23, 1847, in his 66^th year, was much lamented.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1709

Thomas Groom had an estate on Humphreys Street near Upham’s Corner.

The following description of Thomas Groom appears in the book The Rich Men of Massachusetts: Containing a Statement of the Reputed Wealth of about Fifteen Hundred Persons, with Brief Sketches of More than One Thousand Characters.  By A. Forbes and J.W. Greene.  Boston: Published by W.V. Spencer, 1851.

Thomas Groom

Worth: $75,000

An Englishman by birth, though no one acquainted with his business shrewdness would ever mistrust that he was not a genuine Yankee. Has made his money in the stationery trade.  A man highly respected for his honorable and fair dealing.  He never shrinks from doing his part in bearing the burdens of community.

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