Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1660

Located across from the First Parish Church on Meetinghouse Hill, the Soldiers Monument (Civil War commemoration) was erected in 1867 by the Pickwick Club.
The  Monument lists the names of Dorchester men who fell in the service of their country during the Civil War. 

Postcard. Caption on front: Dorchester, Mass. (Meeting House Hill) Soldiers Monument. Postmarked Aug 30, 1910. Dorchester Station, Boston, Mass. On verso: The Hugh C. Leighton Co., Manufacturers, Portland, ME., U.S.A. 27889. Made in Germany.

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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. 1659

Yes, there were two gas tanks.

Aerial photograph of Commercial Point in 1985 or 86 from an undated Annual Directory of the Dorchester Board of Trade.

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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. 1658

Located at 2 McLellan Street, Dorchester, the William Endicott School was designed by James E. McLaughlin and built in 1906.

Postcard. Caption on front: New W.E. Endicott School, Blue Hill Ave., Dorchester, Mass. Postmarked May 20, 1909. Everett, Mass. With one cent stamp. On verso: Made in Germany. Reichner Bros, Boston, Munchen, Leipzig.
William Endicott (1842-1903) 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 started teaching in the Christopher Gibson School in Dorchester in 1866.

Source: What’s In a Name? Names of Boston’s Schools: Their Origin. Boston: School Volunteers for Boston and the Boston Public Schools, 1980.

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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. 1657

The Milton Station car barn was located at approximately 2262 Dorchester, where a Boston Housing Authority high-rise now stands near Lower Mills.

Postcard. Caption on front: Milton Station Car Barn, Dorchester, Mass.  Postmarked Nov 3, 1908. Dorchester Center Station, Boston. With one cent stamp. No. H 12791 The Robbins Bros Co., Boston, Mass. & Germany.

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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. 1656

The St. Leo’s Church building that we saw on Friday has been taken over in recent years by the Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church. 

The following is from Charlie Tevnan.

The former St. Leo’s Church was purchased from the Archdiocese of Boston in 2006 by the Bethel Pentecostal Tabernacle Church, and was completely rehabbed.  Here is a short narrative on the recent history of the church building:

The church building is part of the campus of the Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church, Inc. (“Bethel Tabernacle”), which Bethel Tabernacle purchased from the Catholic Charitable Bureau of the Archdiocese of Boston, Inc. (“Archdiocese of Boston”) in 2006.  The Bethel Tabernacle campus sits on several contiguous lots of land which totaling approximately 57,640 square feet (bounded by Esmond Street, Harvard Street, and Bicknell Street), having addresses of 100 Esmond Street, 177 Harvard Street, 173 Harvard Street, and 12 Bicknell Street, Dorchester, MA 02121, and consists of a church building, administrative building, food pantry, parking area, recreation area, etc.  The rectory building, as shown in the 1909 postcard photo, is no longer extant.

In recent years, after St. Leo’s closed its doors, portions of the campus were vacant and were in extreme disrepair.  It was considered a haven for drug dealers and other illicit activity. After Bethel Tabernacle purchased the property from the Archdiocese of Boston in 2006, together with the Sanctuary and two adjacent parcels and buildings, the entire property was rehabilitated and transformed, and in the process, the Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church restored an asset in the Dorchester community, and has remade it into a vibrant focal point of the community.

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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. 1655

St. Leo’s building is located on Esmond Street near Harvard Street.  

Postcard. Caption on front: St. Leo’s Church and Rectory, Dorchester, Mass. Postmarked Aug 19, 1909. Dorchester Center Station, Boston, Mass. With one cent stamp.  On verso: No. B13517 Published by The New England News Company. Boston, Mass., Leipzig-Berlin.

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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. 1654

Reaction from Doug Wynne to yesterday’s photo with the hose hanging down –

Good morning, Earl.

The hose on the left looks like an illuminating-gas line for her desk lamp, most likely hooked up to a ceiling fixture.  If I remember correctly, such gas lines were visible in the series of Victorian interiors you provided earlier this year.  That ceiling fixture might be an early example of the “dual-fuel” concept, i.e. both illuminating-gas and electric, because I think I see an electric cord hanging down on the right, maybe for an electric desk lamp.  Based on my reading about the early development of toy electric trains, initial attempts at home electric power were unreliable.  So maybe the gas light indicates this picture was taken before Tesla’s more reliably generated and transmitted AC reached ascendency over Edison’s DC, which was limited to very local generation and distribution.  By the way, for someone who composed such lighthearted tunes, she doesn’t look all that lighthearted herself.  The influence of George Washington looking down from the wall over the bookcase?

Today’s Illustration:

A Methodist Church was located on Parkman Street at no. 29.  Today the land at no. 29 has been added to no. 27, and the whole is owned by the Shawmut Congregation.  There is a modern church building on the site.

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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. 1653

Elsie G. Phelan, who lived at 175 Glenway Street, was a composer of light-hearted music in the early 20^th century.  Internet searching that she composed the music for the following: Toy-Shop Jingles. No. 5 The Monkey on a String, Litle Leaves and I, Little Story by the Chocolate Soldier, On Parade with Christmas Canes, Playing Injun, Roly-Poly at the Popcorn Ball, Caramels Hide in Their Paper Coats, Jack Rabbit Steals a Molasses Kiss, What Makes the Thunder Sound, The Jumblies, Sugar Sailor Who Would Roll About, First Snow, Giant Killer, On the Gridiron March.

What is that hose hanging down on the left side of the photograph?

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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. 1652

The following is from the Boston Landmarks Commission neighborhood description of Lower Mills.

Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church at 2221 Dorchester Avenue represents an earlier church of 1863-64 that was extensively rebuilt between 1895 and 1902. Originally designed by Brooklyn, New York-based church architect Patrick C. Keeley, its present appearance dates to the turn-of the-century remodeling by Boston architect Patrick W. Ford. This Gothic Revival church is constructed of red pressed and common brick with brownstone and molded brick trimmings. It rests upon a rubble and quarry-faced granite foundation. The floor plan is that of a Latin Cross with two sacristies flanking the sanctuary at the head of the cross. The steeply pitched roofs of the nave and the transept are clad with gray slate tiles. Rising from the point of the nave and transepts’ gable roofs’ intersection is a low octagonal copper belvedere with louvered windows and pyramidal roof cap. The unusual main facade is characterized by a broad central gable flanked by round, conically capped. gold cross-topped towers. These distinctive towers render this church a major landmark on the Lower Mills “skyline” and when viewed from elevated areas such as Codman Hill, serve to locate and contribute to the still-discernable village qualities of this area. The central gable’s first floor is treated as a pointed arch loggia with entrances set within the two center arches. Above the entrances is a great recessed brick and brownstone trimmed pointed arch which contains five lancet windows of graduated height.

Rising from the center of the brownstone-edged central gable is a gold cross. St. Gregory’s side walls are pierced by six tall lancet windows. Noteworthy interior features include oak pews, a ceiling elaborately stenciled with geometric and floral designs in red, blue, green, black and gold leaf. The interior columns were once marbleized and each has a shallow Corinthian capital. The Corinthian acanthus leaf motif is continued in the gilt cornice below the ceiling as well as in the smaller half-columns and pilasters found throughout the 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. 1651

Since there was some interest in Friday’s illustration of the Church of the Holy Spirit, today we have another. 

Scan of photo of Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan, Mass., published in The American Architect and Building News, Dec. 25, 1886.  Rotch & Tilden, architects.
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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