Dorchester Illustration no. 2500 Waiting for the Hour

Posted on February 21, 2021 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration no. 2500  Waiting for the Hour

Carlton was a portrait and genre painter who was active in the Boston area from 1836 till after the Civil War.  He moved to Dorchester in the 1850s and lived a little west of Four Corners. Perhaps his most famous painting is the one called Watch Meeting –Waiting for the Hour, now in the collection of the White House.  He depicted a group of slaves waiting for the Emancipation to take effect on January 1, 1863.

The following is from:

Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society Volume VIII 1880-1889. (Boston: The Society, 1907), p. 349-350

William Tolman Carlton, of Boston, Massachusetts, a Resident Member from 1871, was born in Boston, January 30, 1816, and died in Dorchester, Massachusetts, June 28, 1888. 

He was the son of William Leeds and Mary Jane (Millet) Carlton.  The name of Carlton was spelled Kelton by the earlier generations, and the change to Carlton was made by William L. Carlton, father of the subject of this sketch.

The greater part of his childhood was passed in his father’s residence at the corner of  Williams Court and the present Court Square, where his father carried on a West India goods store in the lower front of the building.  Later the family removed to Dorchester, where he was educated in the common school and the Dorchester Academy.

Conditions of health frustrated an intention on his part to prepare for college, and he directed his attention to an artist’s career.  He spent several years in Europe, mostly in Italy, and journeyed in Germany and France for the examination of art galleries, and followed his career of an artist for part of a year, in Paris.  He returned to this country in 1840, and practiced portrait painting, and gave instruction in drawing to private classes.

Between the years 1847 and 1850 he was in Albany, New York, where his work was the painting of portraits, mostly.  He resumed his professional work in Boston, in 1850, and during the following year, was selected by Mr. George Hollingsworth, an artist of repute, as his assistant in carrying on the school for free instruction in art, which had then lately been opened by the Lowell institute.  The school was closed after twenty-seven years because the method of instruction introduced in 1850 was generally adopted by teachers in schools of free instruction and in private schools.

He married, June 1, 1864, Mary Elizabeth Blanchard, of Portland, Maine.  This was her name by adoption, Raynes having been her ancestral name.

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2499 Sharp and the Victoria Regia

Posted on February 14, 2021 by earltaylor

Sharp and the Victoria Regia

Active as a lithographer and photographer on Dexter Street, Washington Village, William Sharp lived and worked at the same address starting in the late 1850s.  Sharp would have been a Dorchester resident except that the Washington Village area  (Andrew Square) was taken from Dorchester and added to South Boston in 1855.  Father-in-law of James Wallace Black, he apparently learned the photographic process from Black, and added photography to his repertoire in 1858.

An English emigrant to American, William Sharp arrived in the United States in 1839 and worked on perfecting the recently developed chromolithographic process during the following decades. The culmination of his efforts was the publication of the illustrations for John Fisk Allen’s Victoria Regia, or The Great Water Lily of America in 1854. For the publication, six illustrations in all were executed on elephant folio sheets. The most beautiful of all these images are these four, showing the stages from the beginning of the Bloom to the Complete Bloom.

To achieve the proper coloration, four separately inked stones were utilized. The resultant images are among the finest botanical chromolithographs ever published. Chromolithographs were first executed around 1835 in England and France. Sharp had been one of the first to explore this process while in England, and he continued his experimentation after he immigrated to America in the late 1830’s. As opposed to hand-colored lithographs, which consisted of printing the image in black and white and then adding color by hand, chromolithography called for the printing of the image in successive stages of color. Initial attempts in chromolithography used two stones in the creation of any image. The first stone was normally inked in black. After the image was thus defined, a second stone inked in one color was applied to the black and white image. As the process was refined, more colored stones were utilized in creating the final colored image. Sharp’s illustrations for Allen’s Victoria Regia are among the most sumptuous images to use the medium ever done, and major landmarks in the history of printmaking.

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2498 William Munroe Trotter program

Posted on February 13, 2021 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration no. 2498 William Munroe Trotter program

The Dorchester Historical Society welcomes Historian Kerri Greenidge, author of “Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter

About this Event

William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934, in Dorchester 1899-1909) published the Guardian, a weekly Boston newspaper, for more than 30 years, bringing his vision of Black liberation to readers across the nation. Learn about this little-known but seminal figure in American history, whose life offers a link between the post-Reconstruction work of Frederick Douglass and Black activism in the modern era.

If you have not already registered or notified Earl Taylor, please register on the Dorchester Historical Society website from the home page.  This link will take you to the registration page directly.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-radical-the-life-and-times-of-william-monroe-trotter-tickets-140927922209

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Dorchester Illustration 2497 Mason Regulator Company interior

Posted on February 7, 2021 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration no. 2497 Mason Regulator Company interior

Note: Dorchester Historical Society program to be presented through Zoom has been scheduled

for Sunday, February 21, at 2 pm.  Historian Kerri Greenidge will speak about her book Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter.

If you want to attend, email Earl Taylor at earltaylordorchhistsoc@gmail.com, and he will send a link for the Zoom meeting.

The Mason Regulator Company was located in Lower Mills, in the building where Standish Village is now.

caption to photo: Part of our assembly room showing testing apparatus and material for Navy Department ready for final inspection and test. Mason Regulator Company, Dorchester Center, Boston, Massachusetts.  Photograph by Curtiss Photographers, Boston, Mass., from the years of the first World War.

illustration comes from Naval History and Heritage Command

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-115000/NH-115112.html

The Mason Regulator Company produced machine parts, i.e., speed and pressure regulators, balanced valves, and steam traps. The company moved from Jamaica Plain to Lower Mills in 1898 establishing itself as a new industry in the Lower Mills area.  The company’s products were used in steamships, railroad engines, automobiles and manufacturing facilities.

The products were portions of a steam pressure regulator system.  The purpose of the system is to keep a constant amount of pressure in a steam pipe supplying steam to an engine, compensating for variations due to the intermittent shoveling of coal into the boiler or heavy usage of steam by another machine sharing the same supply etc.

The Mason Regulator Company was known for constructing the first engines to be used in the legendary Stanley Steamers.

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Harold Grant Mitten

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

Harold Grant Mitten

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Harold Grant Mitten was born at home, at 37 Folsom Street in Dorchester, on August 2, 1895, to George A. and Nellie Frances (Weeks) Mitten. George was born in Quebec, Canada, the son of William Andrew and Catharine (Grant) Mitten. He immigrated with his family to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in the mid-1860’s. George later moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, and lived with Mitten relatives before moving to Boston with his brother where they started their business, in 1883. Nellie was born in Lowell to Serlo Bartlett and Mary E. (McLaughlin) Weeks. George and Nellie were married in Lowell in 1891. They had seven other children, all born in Boston: William in 1891, Olive in 1893, twins Ethel and Irene in 1896, Dorothy in 1902, and twins Madeline and Evelyn in 1909. Olive died in 1894. William, like Harold, served in World War I.

George was a provisions dealer, co-owning with his brother, John, the Mitten Brothers store at 1351 Washington Street in the South End. They advertised “Provisions, Poultry, Game in season, Fruits, Vegetables and Canned Goods of all descriptions … The most fastidious buyer will find meats, or other articles suited to his needs at this establishment.”

By 1898, the Mittens were living at 30 Folsom Street, which they owned. According to the 1900 census, the family employed a live-in maid, Mary Mahoney, a twenty-five-year-old recent Irish immigrant. By 1910, the Mittens had moved a short distance to 12 Chamblett Street. That June, Harold graduated from the Phillips Brooks School on Perth Street.

On June 5, 1917, Harold registered for the draft. He was 21-years-old, medium build, “tall” height (5’9”) with brown eyes and brown hair. He reported that he was employed as a machinist, working for the William Hall Company of Wollaston, Massachusetts. The William Hall Company were makers of “cutters, dies, jigs, etc.” According to their advertisement in Machinery magazine in March 1917, they had “one of the busiest cutter departments in the East … Hall makes, and hardens correctly, high-grade cutters of every description, including cutters made to your own designs.”

Harold was drafted and inducted into the army in Boston on September 8, 1917. He was initially assigned to Company D, 301st Infantry, 76th Division. Ten days later he was attached to Headquarters Company, 102nd Field Artillery, 26th Division, or Yankee Division. Almost immediately he left for France, sailing from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the USCT Finland on September 22, and arriving in Saint Nazaire on October 5.He was made a private first class on November 2 and promoted to corporal on December 6.  According to family sources, he was a radio operator. His engagements included the Aisne-Marne offensive, July 18 through August 4; the Saint Mihiel offensive September 12 through 16; and the Meuse-Argonne offensive October 18 through November 11. Harold returned home in the spring of 1919, sailing on March 31 from Brest, France, on the USS Mongolia, and arriving in Boston on April 10. He was discharged at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, on April 28, 1919.

After the war, Harold lived with his family on Chamblett Street. On October 12, 1922, he married Agnes Louise Wellbrock of 223 Boston Street, daughter of August Conrad and Elizabeth Theresa (Ahlert) Wellbrock. They were married at Holy Trinity Church in Boston by Reverend Henry J. Nelles. Harold and Agnes had four children, George A. (1925-1991), Mary Elizabeth (1925-2005), David Vincent (1930-2002), and Harold Wellbrock (1932-1944).

Various Wellbrock family members had lived at 221 and 223 Boston Street since about 1890. Harold and Agnes purchased 223 Boston Street from her family and lived there for the rest of their lives. In 1930, Agnes’s brothers Edward and Leo, and her uncle, Clemens, lived with the Mittens. Harold broadcast his 20-watt amateur radio station, W1AHH, from the home in the late 1920s.

Harold worked for the Boston Police Department for over 40 years. He was appointed to the force on December 6, 1919, shortly after the Boston Police Strike of September 1919.  Early in his career he was assigned to night duty at the Fields Corner Station; in 1926 he was transferred to day duty. Two years later, he was promoted from patrolman to sergeant, and transferred from Dorchester to Charlestown. In Charlestown, Harold was the commander of a newly formed “liquor squad.” He was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to Division 4 in the South End in 1932. Harold’s police experiences sometimes made for good newspaper copy; in 1941, a story about Harold being asked to mediate a dispute over an arranged marriage was covered by the Associated Press and ran in newspapers all over the country. In April 1948, Harold was transferred to the Harbor Division. That November, he rescued a boy on Thompson Island suffering from appendicitis, rushing him to the mainland for treatment, Harold’s police boat, the William H. McShane, making “the 3 mile run in record time.”  In 1953, Harold, again in command of the police boat, assisted during a three-alarm fire at 88 Commercial Wharf. Two years later, he was transferred once again, this time to the city prison. He was appointed Keeper of the Lockup on April 1, 1960. Harold retired from the Boston Police Department on November 15, 1961.

According to his family, Harold loved fixing up old bikes for the children in the Boston Street neighborhood. He owned an old black Raleigh bike that he rode around everywhere in Dorchester. And, his grandchildren would always know he was visiting when they came home from school if his bike was tied up to one of the trees in their backyard. He also had a lifelong passion for playing the violin.

Agnes died in 1972. Harold died in Boston on February 20, 1989, age 93, after a short illness. Mass was said for him at Saint Margaret’s Church, Dorchester, and he was buried at Calvary Cemetery on American Legion Highway. He had been a member of the Boston Police Relief Association.

Sources:

Family Sources; Jennifer Mitten

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA: Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

Leading Business Men of Back Bay, South End, Boston Highlands, Jamaica Plain and Dorchester. Boston, MA Mercantile Publishing Company, 1888: 61; Books.Google.com


Census Records, Federal, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, Ancestry.com

“7911 Diplomas in Boston Schools,” Boston Globe, 23 June 1910: 5; Newspapers.com

Advertisement, Machinery. March 1917, New York: Industrial Press: 165; Books.Google.Com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940. Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Archives at St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; FamilySearch.org

Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Ancestry.com

Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, The National Archives at College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

LaBranche, Ernest E. An American Battery in France. Worcester, MA: Belisle Printing & Publishing Company, 1923: Archive.org

Battle Participation of the Organizations of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, Belgium, and Italy 1917-1918. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920; Archive.org

“Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915,” database  citing Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States, State Archives, Boston; FamilySearch.org

Amateur Radio Stations of the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1928: 3; Archive.org

Record of the Police Commissioner January 1, 1921, to December 31, 1921, City of Boston, Volume 58: 1480; Archive.org


“Dorchester District,” Boston Globe, 28 July 1926: 9; Newspapers.com

“Shakeup Orders Give Police Jolt,” Boston Globe, 4 July 1928: 4; Newspapers.com

“Bunker Hill District,” Boston Globe, 3 September 1929: 10; Newspapers.com

“Bunker Hill District,” Boston Globe, 23 November 1932: 7; Newspapers.com

“New Police Division 4 Officially Opened,” Boston Globe, 27 February 1933: 5; Newspapers.com

Associated Press, “Officer Tells Gypsies Settle Fight at Home,” Fitchburg Sentinel, 26 March 1941: 2; Newspapers.com

“60 Boston Police Officers Are Transferred,” Boston Globe, 15 April 1948: 1; Newspapers.com

“Appendicitis Victim Taken From Island,” Boston Globe, 18 November 1948: 3 Newspapers.com

“Fires Menace Beach, Wharf; $150,000 Loss,” Boston Globe, 4 August 1953: 1 Newspapers.com

“Sullivan Promotes 4 Boston Officers,” Boston Globe, 15 September 1955: 3; Newspapers.com

Report of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston for the Year Commencing January 4, 1960, and Ending December 27, 1960. Boston: Administrative Services Department Printing Section, 1961: 69; Archive.org

City Record, Volume 53, Number 46, November 18, 1961, Boston, MA; 883; Archive.org

“Deaths,” Boston Globe, 10 September 1972: 73; Newspapers.com

Deaths, Boston Globe, 21 February 1989: 18; Newspapers.com

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Charles Francis Maurice Malley

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

Charles Francis Maurice Malley

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Charles Francis Maurice Malley was born on December 1, 1871, in Milton, MA. His father, Patrick, was a coachman for the Angell family on Adams Street. Patrick was an Irish immigrant, as was his wife Margaret (Hanigan). Patrick immigrated to the United States in the 1850s. He and Margaret were married in 1865 in Charlestown. They had two daughters: Nora born in 1867 and Mary born in 1873.

When Charles was young, the family moved to Dorchester. By 1890, they lived at 2209 Dorchester Avenue in Lower Mills. Charles attended Boston Latin School, class of 1890, and won a Franklin Medal, a prize for outstanding students created by a codicil in Benjamin Franklin’s will. At Harvard, he did four years of coursework in three years, graduating magna cum laude in the class of 1894. His classmate later remembered of him, “He seems never to have refused a challenge of any kind whatsoever. … he never claimed to own but one book, and even that claim was disputed. In class, he used to look over his neighbor’s elbow and several professors noting this, sought to catch him napping. But he always whipped off his translations with such speed and accuracy that they ceased to be suspicious. He did his work scurrying through the libraries. It was one of his bewildering powers to have everything needful, for any occasion what so ever, at his fingers’ ends, but no one ever knew when or how in the world he got it all.” He earned an LL.B. at Harvard Law School, completing the three-year program in two years.

He went to work for the law firm of Churchill and Churchill in Boston in December 1895 and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 1897. He then entered the office of Charles Francis Jenney, who was later an associate justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Later he had his own practice, during business hours he could be found in an office in downtown Boston, and in the evenings in the Bispham Building at 1177 Washington Street in Lower Mills. Two of his most notable clients were the U.S. Representatives Joseph A. Conry, and Michael F. Phelan. A member of the Democratic Committee of Boston, Charles ran for state office at least four times, but was not elected. He also submitted petitions to the state, including a consumer protection measure seeking to require bottles to display their size. Charles was a regular speaker in the Boston area, addressing Catholic social groups on topics such as his observations from his travels in Ireland, and on the troubles in France between the church and the state. During this time, he lived with his family at 1052 Washington Street in Dorchester, where they moved in 1899.

On June 7, 1905, Charles married Clara Madeline Hart. They were married in Wilmington, Delaware, her hometown. The couple were married by Charles’s cousin, Reverend Edward Malley. They took a honeymoon to Montreal and Quebec City before settling in Dorchester. A couple of months after their wedding, in September, Charles’s mother, Margaret, died of capillary bronchitis. By 1908, they lived at 124 Melville Avenue. In July 1909, Charles and Clara had a daughter, Mary Constance Malley.  Born prematurely, she died of inanition, or exhaustion, at two months old at the Boothby Hospital in Boston.

By 1910, it appears Charles and Clara were no longer living together. That year, the census reported Charles living with his father and sisters at 91 Ashmont Street. They had moved to 1158 Adams Street by 1915. That year, Charles sued the Walton Lunch Company for $5,000 in damages, alleging he was humiliated when “employees seized him at the door, assaulted him and accused him of not having paid his check” when he was leaving their lunchroom on School Street.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Charles wanted to fight. Too old for the draft, he also seems to have been unable to enlist in the United States military. In August, he joined the 236th Battalion of the Canadian Army, which was recruiting in New England. Also known as the New Brunswick Kilties, or the MacLean Kilties of America, it was a Scottish Highlanders battalion complete with bagpipes and a uniform featuring kilts in the MacLean of Duart dress tartan. The Kilties actively sought New Englanders to join their ranks, even recruiting at a Red Sox game.

Charles travelled to Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he officially enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces as a private on September 14, 1917. In order to join the Canadian Army, he claimed to have been born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He also took two years off his age, said he was unmarried, and gave his name as Charles O’Malley. He enlisted for the duration of the war. Charles was assigned to Company B, Platoon 5. The Kilties trained at Camp Valcartier in Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, near Quebec City, and then at Camp McGill in Montreal. Charles seems to have been enthusiastic about the Kilties, writing a song for the battalion. 

On October 30, 1917, he sailed on His Majesty’s Troopship Canada, arriving in Liverpool on November 19. The Battalion was renamed the MacLean Highlanders and sent to Seaford Camp in Sussex. While in England, Charles did some sightseeing, visiting the London Law Court and the House of Parliament, where he heard Prime Minister Lloyd George speak. He also attended the funeral of the Irish politician John E. Redmond, whom Charles had entertained when Redmond visited Boston.

In March 1918, the 236th Battalion was broken up and the men used as reinforcements for other units. Charles was assigned to the 42nd Royal Canadian Highlanders, part of the 20th Reserve Battalion, and stationed at Camp Bramshott in Hampshire, England. On May 8, 1918, he was sent to France, where he was billeted in a farmhouse. That month, Charles’s father died in Dorchester.

In September 1918, Charles was transferred for the final time to Company C, 78th Canadian Infantry. Most of the men in the unit were from Winnipeg, Manitoba. For Charles, the “great joy is that they do not wear the kilts, of which I had become sick and tired and also, whisper, winter was coming on and I’m no Spartan Boy.” They went to the front in that month. In October, he saw action in the Battle of Cambrai. To a friend he wrote, “Well, Bill, your old pal can truly say now that he is a tried solider o-the-wars and has been through his baptism of blood and fire. … we were five days under hell-fire of artillery shell and machine gun fire, aeroplane bombs and bullets of snipers, i.e. sharpshooters. … We slept in shell-holes and trenches midst rain and mud, and little to eat, but we stuck on.”

Marching through a town where the villagers, recently liberated from German control, shouted “Vive les braves Canadiens,” he felt “a funny feeling of pain and pleasure never experienced before … We saw the meaning and necessity for our presence in arms … Bill, O Bill, after that I know that I have not lived in vain— that I have done my sum— been of some little use in the world and I am glad and content and at peace with myself.”

Charles was taken out of the lines on November 9, suffering from influenza. On November 17, 1918, he died at the British 26th General Hospital in Etaples, France. He was buried in the British Etaples Military Cemetery with Catholic ceremony and military honors. In Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline he is listed on the family tombstone, along with his mother and infant daughter. A memorial mass was celebrated for him on Thanksgiving day 1918 at Saint Gregory’s Church in Dorchester. He is commemorated in Harvard’s Memorial Hall, where his name is engraved alongside the other members of the Harvard community who died while in military service. According to an obituary which ran in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin he was “believed to be the oldest Harvard graduate who died at the front.” In Dorchester, a square is named for him at the junction of River and Washington Streets.

Sources

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

Boston Directory, various years; Ancestry.com

Latin School Register, Vol XXXVII, no 6, March 1919: 10-12; Archive.org

Harvard College Class of 1894, 25th Anniversary Report, 1894-1919, Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1919; Archive.org

Harvard College Class of 1894. Secretary’s Report No II. Cambridge, 1897; Archive.org

Advertisement, Blue Book of Dorchester 1902. Cambridge, MA: Edward A. Jones, 1902; Books.Google.com

“Wants Bottles Labelled,” Boston Post, 15 March 1902; 5; Newspapers.com

“All Saints’ Court M.C.O.F.,” Boston Globe, 13 April 1908; 16; Newspapers.com

“Malley-Hart,” Boston Globe, 14 June 1905; 14; Newspapers.com

Marriage Record, Delaware Vital Records. Microfilm. Delaware Public Archives, Dover; Ancestry.com

Deaths, Boston Globe, 28 Sept 1905; 11; Newspapers.com

Daughter’s Death Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

1870, 1910 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

“Forsyth Sued for $38,600,” Boston Globe, 9 July 1915; 7; Newspapers.com

“War News of Harvard Men,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 5 December 1918: 200; Archive.org

Attestation Record, Personal Records of the First World War, Canadian Expeditionary Force; Library and Archives Canada; www.bac-lac.gc.ca

Service Record, Personal Records of the First World War, Canadian Expeditionary Force; Library and Archives Canada; www.bac-lac.gc.ca

Putnam, Eben, ed. Report of the Commission on Massachusetts’ Part in the World War: The Gold Star Record of Massachusetts, Vol II. Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1929; Archive.org

MacLean, Ian. “The MacLean Kilties,” Clan MacLean Atlantic Canada. <http://www.clanmacleanatlantic.org/his-kilties.html>

Deaths, Boston Post, 2 June 1918; 18; Newspapers.com

“Hub Lawyer Dies Abroad,” Boston Post, 26 November 1918; 3; Newspapers.com

“Canadian Casualties,” Boston Globe, 26 November 1918; 8; Newspapers.com

“The Class of 1894,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin,12 June 1919: 747-748 ; Archive.org

Commonwealth War Graves Registers, First World War, modified 27 July 2016, Library and Archives Canada; www.bac-lac.gc.ca

“Charles Francis Maurice Malley;” FindaGrave.com

“World War I,” Harvard: The Memorial Church. < https//memorialchurch.harvard.edu/world-war-i>

Reports of Proceedings, Boston City Council, Boston: Municipal Printing Office, 1921; Books.Google.com

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Anthony Macaluso

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

Anthony Macaluso

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Anthony Macaluso was born on October 18, 1892, in Vicari, Palermo, Sicily, Italy, to Salvatore and Francesca (Costa) Macaluso. On his notecard for Anthony Macaluso, Dr. Perkins noted that Anthony attended high school in Palermo. Anthony immigrated to the United States in March 1910, sailing from Naples on the White Star Line’s RMS Celtic. After arriving in New York City, he immediately continued on to Boston. He paid his own passage and arrived with $20.

In Boston, Anthony joined his older brother Emmanuele, who had come to the United States in 1904 and became a citizen in 1909. Emmanuele had a drug store at 270 Hanover Street in the North End, where Anthony worked alongside Emmanuele and his wife, Marianna (Sapienza), known as Anna. In 1911, Anthony lived at 26 Salem Street in the North End. By 1913, Emmanuele and Anthony had purchased 93 Norfolk Street in Dorchester.

On April 22, 1911, Anthony married Carmela Maria Sapienza, Anna’s sister. Born in Monreale, Palermo, Carmela immigrated to the United States in September 1904. Anthony and Carmela were wed by Justice of the Peace Charles A. Feyhl of 449 Shawmut Avenue. They would have three children: Americo, known as Arthur, born in 1911, Lilianna born in 1912, and Janet born in 1927.

While working at the drugstore, Anthony attended the Boston University School of Medicine, entering in the autumn of 1912, and graduating with the class of 1918. While in college, he began the citizenship process, filing a petition of intention in 1913. Anthony became an American citizen in December 1916.

After his graduation from medical school, on July 21, 1918, Anthony was commissioned a lieutenant (junior grade) in the Navy Medical Corps, and on November 25, 1918, he was sent to the Naval Medical School in Washington, D.C. In February 1919, he was stationed on a receiving ship in New York City. By March 1919, he was serving on the troop ship USS Plattsburg, a schooner-rigged steamship that had seen service during the Spanish American War. On June 17, 1919, he was relieved while stationed on a receiving ship in the New York City Navy Yard and was given an honorable discharge on July 23, 1922.

After the war, Anthony continued to serve in the Naval Reserve at the Squantum Air Station in Quincy. According to his Newton Graphic obituary, while at Squantum, Anthony “pioneered in flight surgery and the change to one of the first naval air bases.” In 1939, a Boston Globe article reported that the squadron Anthony was attached to, VS-2R, “was awarded the Noel Davis trophy for being the most efficient unit in the country.”

Anthony opened a medical practice in the North End at 11 Parmenter Street. In 1935, he was appointed an assistant professor in ophthalmology at the Boston University School of Medicine. The Macalusos continued to live in their home at 93 Norfolk Street until 1934, when they moved to 28 Chesterfield Road in West Newton. Emmanuele and Anna lived with Anthony and his family until their deaths; it appears Emmanuele died around 1940 and Anna in 1951.

According to the Newton Graphic, “At the beginning of World War II, Dr. Macaluso underwent Sea-Bee training at the age of 50 and was commissioned a full commander, seeing four years of action in the South Pacific.” Navy directories from 1941 and 1942, list Anthony still stationed at the Squantum Naval Aviation Station. In a photograph taken at Squantum in 1941, Anthony examines Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who was about to begin flight training. According to a Veterans Benefits Administration database, Anthony entered service on December 12, 1940 and was released on November 3, 1945.

After the Second World War, Anthony had a general practice in Kenmore Square, first at 636 Beacon Street, then at 510 Commonwealth Avenue. He was also on the staff at Carney, Kenmore, and Boston University Hospitals. Anthony was active with the Newton’s Daley Post, VFW, in the 1950s, serving as post surgeon, vice commander, and post commander. In 1957, the Macalusos moved to 18 Grey Birch Terrace in the Newtonville section of Newton. Anthony retired in 1972.

Anthony died of influenza at his home on January 14, 1978. A funeral mass was celebrated for him at Our Lady Help of Christians on Washington Street in Newton and he was buried in Newton Cemetery. When Carmela died at 100 in 1987, she was buried beside him.

Sources

Naturalization Records. National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA; Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com

Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Ancestry.com

“Dr. Anthony Macaluso,” Boston Globe, 15 January 1978: 47; Newspapers.com

“Obituaries: Dr. Anthony Macaluso,” Newton Graphic, 26 January, 1978: 18; Archive.org

Family Tree, Ancestry.com

Boston University Year Book 1912-1913. Boston: The University Council, 1912; Archive.org

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Dearborn, Frederick M., ed. American Homeopathy in the World War. Chicago: The American Institute of Homeopathy, 1923: 431; Archive.org

Navy Directory: Officers of the United States Navy, March 1, 1919. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office: 1919; Ancestry.com

“USS Harvard (1888).” Wikipedia.org. Last edited 12 June 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Harvard_(1888)>

“Two Trophies for Squantum Air Station,” Boston Globe, 18 August 1939: 9; Newspapers.com

1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

Selected Passports, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Ancestry.com

“11 Appointed to B.U. Faculty Positions,” Boston Globe, 5 August 1935: 3; Newspapers.com

Deaths, Boston Globe, 8 May 1951: 48; Newspapers.com

Navy Directories, 1941, 1942; Ancestry.com

Bettmann, “Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Getting Physical Examination,” July 01, 1941, Getty Images, 2020; GettyImages.com

Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Ancestry.com

“Daley Post Plans Cancer Film for Public Monday,” Newton Graphic, 19 April 1965: 2; Archive.org

“Announcements,” New England Journal of Medicine, July 22, 1965: 273:228; NEJM.org

Standard Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Newton, Middlesex County, 14 January 1978, Middlesex Registry of Deeds Book 20174, Page 273, 1 November 1989; MassLandRecords.com

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Albert Louis Ibach

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

Albert Louis Ibach

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Albert Louis Ibach was born on June 27, 1895, at 58 Saint Alphonsus Street in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. His father, Charles Ibach, was a hatter. He  was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. Albert’s mother, Catherine Theresa (Fernekees), who went by Theresa, was born on Bird Street in Uphams Corner, and was of German and French descent. Charles and Theresa were married in 1892; it was Charles’s second marriage. They had three other children: Florence born in 1893, William in 1897, and Theresa in 1901. Charles also had three children from his previous marriage: Charles born in 1886 and Fredrick in 1887, as well as a daughter, Caroline, born in 1887, who died at under a year of meningitis.

In 1900, the family was living at 84 Dacia Street in Dorchester and Charles had been out of work for about a year. The Boston directory listed them living at 43 Danube Street in 1907. That November, Charles died of pulmonary tuberculosis, the same disease that claimed his first wife. By the time of Charles’s death, the Ibachs had moved again to 54A Mattapan Street. Albert graduated from 9th grade at the Leo XIII parochial school, located beside Saint Thomas Aquinas church in Jamaica Plain, in 1909. The next year, the Ibachs were living at 8 Fifield Street. Albert was working as a typewriter repairer, employed by a typewriter company. His sister Florence was a clerk in a department store.

In June 1917, Albert registered for the First World War draft. Living at 53 Hamilton Street, he was a salesman with the American Multigraph Sales Company, which sold multigraphs, an office correspondence printing machine. On the draft registration form, Albert stated that his mother was his dependent and claimed exemption from the draft on that ground. Albert enlisted in the Quartermaster Corps in December 1917. The day before he left Boston, his mother threw a farewell party for him, which was covered briefly in The Boston Globe. “20 intimate friends were present, and an entire soldier’s outfit was presented to him. … An entertainment consisting of vocal and instrumental selections was given. Miss Florence Iback [sic] and another brother, William, gave a piano-violin duet.”

Albert entered the army on December 12, 1917, at Fort Slocum, New York. He initially served in the Provisional Field Remount Company 3. On February 10, 1918, he was transferred to Training Company 1, at Camp Joseph E. Johnston in Jacksonville, Florida, the largest Quartermaster Corps training center. He was made a sergeant first class in April. On May 2, he sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey on the USS Great Northern with the Camp Johnston Detachment of Non-Commissioned Officers. He was transferred to Quartermaster Corps, Army Post Office 705, on May 25. Albert served overseas until June 13, 1919, when he sailed from Bordeaux, France, on the USS Radnor, arriving in Philadelphia on June 27. He was discharged on June 30, 1919.

Albert returned to his family home at 53 Hamilton Street and to his job as a multigraph salesman. By 1922, he and a partner, George Nelson, founded the Progressive Multigraphing and Printing Company, originally located at 21 Bromfield Street in Boston. Albert worked at the business for the rest of his life. By 1923, the Ibachs had moved to 30 Barry Street.

Albert married Mary E. Gorvette in Boston in 1923. They had two daughters: Maria and Jean. The couple settled on Longfellow Road, initially living at number 21. By 1933, they had purchased 38 Longfellow Road. During World War II, Albert and his brother William, along with their wives and children, raised money for the Greater Boston United War Fund Victory Campaign, participating in the Red Feather fund drive; Albert and Marie as donation solicitors and Mary as the Bowdoin district secretary. Albert was an active member of Saint Peter’s Church in Dorchester. He served as a head usher and as a president of the church’s Holy Name Society, as well as being a member of the church’s bowling club. He was also a charter member of the Francis G. Kane post of the American Legion. At the end of his life, Albert lived at 33 Longfellow Street.

Albert died on December 11, 1958, at Boston City Hospital. A Solemn High Mass of Requiem was held for him at Saint Peter’s Church. Mary continued as an employee at Progressive Multigraphing after Albert’s death. She died in 1987.

Sources

Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook); Ancestry.com

Boston directories, various years; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

“Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915, 1921-1924,” database, citing Boston, MA, State Archives, Boston; FamilySearch.org

“Leo XIII School,” Boston Globe, 21 June 1909: 2; Newpspapers.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

Lists of Incoming & Outgoing Passengers, 1917-1938, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, The National Archives at College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

“Dorchester District,” Boston Globe, 11 December 1917: 4; Newspapers.com

Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics. Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages [1916–1970]. Volumes 76–166, 192– 207. Facsimile edition. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society; Ancestry.com

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Red Feather War Fund Drive Hits $4,669,114 Mark,” Boston Globe, 13 October 1945: 3; Newspapers.com

“Albert L. Ibach,” Boston Globe, 12 December 1958: 27; Newspapers.com

“Deaths,” Boston Globe, 26 August 1987: 42; Newspapers.com

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Antonio Iazzetti and Alberto Iazzetti

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

Antonio Iazzetti and Alberto Iazzetti

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Antonio Iazzetti, known as Anthony Iazetti, was born on July 12, 1896, in Torremaggiore, Foggia, Apulia, Italy. His younger brother, Alberto, or Albert, was also born in Italy on May 1, 1900. Their parents were Giovanni (known as John) and Maria (DeLila) Iazzetti. John was a baker. According to the 1910 census, the couple were parents to 15 children, seven of whom were still living at that time.Anthony and Albert’s siblings included: Theresa (known as Susie) born 1893, Celestina (known as Anna) born in 1895, Italia (known as Emma) born c1898, Clara (known as Ida or Ada) born in 1908, and Arturo (known as Arthur) born in 1916.

 The Iazzettis immigrated to the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, travelling on the Lloyd Sabaudo line’s SS Re d’Italia. According to Anthony’s immigration records, he entered the United States in 1908, while Albert stated that he arrived in 1909. They both reported that they left from Naples, Italy, and arrived in New York in late November, Anthony specifying he arrived on Thanksgiving. Their sister Clara was born in Boston in August 1908. At that time, the Iazzettis were living at 19 Pitts Street, near Bowdoin Square in Boston’s West End. By 1916, they had moved to 981 Dorchester Avenue. That March, Albert went missing. After two days, in which his mother “searched the neighborhood in which she lives, called on relatives and friends where she thought the boy might have been, [and] watched the crowds going to and from the moving picture houses,” she decided to involve the police in the search. The Boston Globe reported that “the lad was more than ordinarily bright and stood high in his class, according to his mother.” There was no coverage of Albert’s return, though he appears to have come home eventually. By 1918, the Iazzettis had moved to 1745 Dorchester Avenue, which would be occupied by members of the family for at least the next 50 years.

On June 4, 1918, Anthony enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force. The next day he registered for the First World War draft. On his draft registration, he reported that he was already working for the military, employed by Captain Wheeler of Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts. He may have worked as a barber at Camp Devens; on July 12, 1918, Anthony filed a petition for citizenship, stating his profession as barber. Anthony was called to duty in the Navy on July 5, 1918. He served as a Ship’s Cook, 4th class. He was initially stationed at the Naval Training Camp in Hingham, Massachusetts. On July 25, he was transferred to the Navy Rifle Range in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Anthony became an American citizen on September 5, 1918. His final Naval assignment was at the Receiving Ship in Boston, where he was stationed from September 30 until November 11, 1918. He was placed on inactive duty on July 22, 1919, and given an honorable discharge at the expiration of his enrollment on June 2, 1922.

Albert declared his intention to become an American citizen on July 24, 1918, the same day he enrolled in the Navy at the Recruiting Station in Boston. On his citizenship papers he stated that his occupation was rivet heater. He was sent to the Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, Virginia, on August 28, 1918. There he initially served as a mess attendant, third class. After 69 days, he was made a seaman 2nd class. On November 5, he was transferred to the USS Tenadores where he remained until November 11, 1918. Albert was placed on inactive duty on October 13, 1919, and honorably discharged on July 23, 1922.

After the war, Albert returned to Dorchester. In 1923, he was living at 16 Virginia Street and

working as a laborer. The next year, on February 13, he married Lillian J. Doyle in New York City. He appeared in the Boston directory in 1926 and 1927, at the family home at 1745 Dorchester Avenue. Albert and Lillian were listed in the Boston directory in the mid-1930s living at 957 Massachusetts Avenue in Roxbury; Albert was listed as an ironworker. From 1938 through 1942, Albert appeared in the directory back at 1745 Dorchester Avenue. On his World War II draft registration, filled out in February 1942, Albert reported that he lived at 215 Manhattan Avenue, Apartment 58, in the Bronx, New York City, and worked for the New York Rapid Transit Company, 159th– 8th Avenue IRT System.

On March 23, 1942, Albert enlisted in Company C, 8th Regiment, New York Guard, remaining with the unit until May 25, 1943. On November 9, 1943,he enlisted in the Navy in Boston. He was called to duty on June 19, 1944. After some time at the receiving station in Mobile, Alabama, he was transferred to the newly commissioned USS Zaniah (AG-70), a “special stores-barracks-distilling ship,” with “a distilling plant capable of producing 80,000 gallons of fresh water.” The ship had been converted to a Navy vessel at the Alabama Drydock and Shipping Company in Mobile, and, after travelling to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in October 1944, continued to be worked on through the end of the year. Albert was received aboard the Zaniah on September 10 as a seaman second class; by September 30, he had been promoted to seaman first class. On December 14, 1944, around the time work on the Zaniah was completed, Albert was transferred to the USS ARDC-3, an Auxiliary Repair Dock, Concrete. He was received on board on January 6, 1945, and remained assigned to the ARDC-3 into 1946. He was released from duty on July 25, 1946.

Albert was possibly the Albert Iazzetti who married Vera Kaisted in Manhattan on May 12, 1959. He was also possibly the Albert Iazzetti who married Olyve Ester Schooley on July 2, 1974, in Martin County, Florida. Albert died on May 16, 1979, in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, Florida, and was buried in Lake Worth’s Pinecrest Cemetery. His headstone noted that he had served in the Navy during both World Wars.

Anthony moved to New York state after the First World War. It is probable that he was the Anthony Iazetti who married Alice Brusie in Chatham, New York, on December 22, 1919. In February 1922, a classified listing in the Chatham paper announced that “Antonio Iazetti, formerly of Albany, has taken over the barber shop in the Stanwix hotel, Chatham, and solicits patronage.” Two years later, Anthony advertised his Sanitary Barber Shop, located opposite the Boston and Albany station in Chatham, declaring that “Satisfaction and Sanitation are my methods in the Barber Business, therefore I have procured two of the best Barbers available from New York City to satisfy my patrons. We specialize in Ladies’ Bobs, Shingle, Massage, and Shampoo.” In the mid-1920s, he lived at 11 Hudson Avenue in Chatham. He may have been the Anthony Iazzetti who was listed in the Albany, New York, directory in 1928.

In 1930, Anthony was living at 23 Central Square in Chatham, lodging with the Solomon family. The head of the family, Abraham Morris Solomon, was a retail merchant. Also living in the home were Abraham’s wife, Minnie, and their two daughters, Janet and Ruth. By 1940, Minnie was divorced and living in Washington, D.C. with her mother and daughters, working as a clerk at a grocery. On October 6, 1941, Anthony married Minnie E. (Patlen) Solomon in Washington, D.C., in a civil ceremony conducted by Judge Robert E. Mattingly. They lived at 3232 Minnesota Avenue SE, in Washington, D.C. Anthony worked as a barber in the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. Later they lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Minnie died in 1987. At the end of his life, Anthony lived in Wheaton, Maryland. Anthony died on February 26, 1992. He was buried in National Memorial Park in Falls Church, Virginia.

Sources

United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Evening Death Notices,” Boston Globe, 8 August 1964: 2; Newspapers.com

Naturalization Records. National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA; Ancestry.com

1910, 1930, 1940 US Federal Census; Ancestry.com

“Young Iazzetta Missing,” Boston Globe, 30 March 1916: 2; Newspapers.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

Boston directories, various years; Ancestry.com

Index to New York City Marriages, 1866-1937. Indices prepared by the Italian Genealogical Group and the German Genealogy Group, and used with permission of the New York City Department of Records/Municipal Archives; Ancestry.com

New York Guard Service Cards and Enlistment Records, 1906–1918, 1940–1948. New York (State). Division of Military and Naval Affairs. New York State Archives, Albany, N.Y.; Ancestry.com

Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Ancestry.com

Muster Rolls of U.S. Navy Ships, Stations, and Other Naval Activities, 01/01/1939-01/01/1949, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

“USS Zaniah (AK-120),” Wikipedia.org, page last edited on 31 December 2019; < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Zaniah_(AK-120)>

Index to Marriages, New York City Clerk’s Office, New York, N.Y.; Ancestry.com

Florida Department of Health. Florida Marriage Index, 1927-2001. Florida Department of Health, Jacksonville, FL; Ancestry.com

State of Florida. Florida Death Index, 1877-1998. Florida: Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, 1998; Ancestry.com

“Palm Beach Deaths,” Miami Herald, 19 May 1979: 136; Newspapers.com

Albert Iazzetti, FindAGrave.com

New York State Marriage Index, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY; Ancestry.com

Classified Advertisement, Chatham Courier, 2 February 1922; Hudson River Valley Heritage, news.hrvh.org

Advertisement, Chatham Courier, 8 May 1924: 13; Hudson River Valley Heritage, news.hrvh.org

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” database, citing Military Service, NARA microfilm publication (St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985), various roll numbers; FamilySearch.org

“Marriage License Applications,” Evening Star (Washington DC), 2 October 1941: D-8; ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov

Marriage Records. District of Columbia Marriages. Clerk of the Superior Court, Records Office, Washington D.C.; Ancestry.com

Death Notices, Washington Post, 28 February 1992: D4; Proquest.com

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William Patrick Hartin

Posted on February 2, 2021 by earltaylor

William Patrick Hartin

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

William Patrick Hartin was born on November 17, 1895. He was born at home, 178 Third Street in South Boston. His parents, James Thomas and Sarah (McGonagle) Hartin, were both born in Donegal, Ireland. Sarah arrived in 1888; according to family sources, her passage was sponsored by two aunts. Prior to her marriage, Sarah worked as a domestic. James, a laborer, was naturalized in 1893. James and Sarah were married in Boston in July 1892. They had 11 other children: John born in 1893, James in 1894, Joseph in 1897, Cecilia in 1899, Francis in 1900, Patrick in 1901, Anna in 1903, Thomas in 1905, Bernard in 1906, Arthur in 1908, and Mary in 1910. Bernard died of acute infectious diarrhea in 1907, at the Boston Floating Hospital.

By 1898, the Hartins were living at 35 B Street in South Boston. They moved a short distance to 182 West 3rd Street by 1900. That year, Sarah’s brother, Patrick, lived with them. In 1904, they were living in Dorchester at 1390 Dorchester Avenue. They relocated in 1908, moving around the corner to 10 Greenwich Street, rear, where they remained until 1912, when they moved up the street to 22 Greenwich.

William attended school through the first year of high school, according to the 1940 census. By 1910, he was working as an order boy at a grocery. In June 1917, he was a sheet iron worker at the Sturtevant Mill Company, located at the corner of Park and Clayton Streets (today the building is the headquarters of Feeney Brothers Utility Services). The Sturtevant Mill Company was known for their crushing and grinding machinery. Socially, William was active in the Franklin Social and Athletic Club of Fields Corner.

On October 17, 1917, William enlisted in the Army. He served in the Company D, 39th Infantry, 4th Division. The 39th Infantry was formed at Camp Syracuse, New York, where William joined the regiment. Ten days after he enlisted, the 39th Infantry left for Camp Greene, near Charlotte, North Carolina, where they trained. On March 13, 1918, William was made a corporal.

In late April 1918, the 39th Infantry began moving towards France, first traveling to Camp Mills on Long Island, New York. From there they made their way to Jersey City, New Jersey, where, on May 10, 1918, William sailed with the 39th Infantry’s First and Second Battalions on the SS Dante Alighieri. The ship reached Brest, France, on May 23. In June, the 39th Infantry trained with the British at Doudeauville in Normandy, before moving to Acy-en-Multien in Oise. There, they were attached to the Fourth French Infantry Division. William was promoted to sergeant on July 10, 1918.

From mid-July through early August, the 39th Infantry participated in the Aisne-Marne offensive, attacking in conjunction with the French army. On August 1, “while taking up new positions in the Forêt de Fère,” William’s battalion was targeted by an airplane which dropped “a string of bombs so rapidly that the separate explosions could not be distinguished. … Every company in the battalion was hit.” On the night of August 6, Company D was part of an attempt to advance across the Vesle River. After this action, the 39th Infantry was relieved, and moved to the Vesle Defensive Sector.

On September 9, now part of the American First Army, they moved to the Toulon defensive sector in Lorraine, serving as part of the reserve corps in the St. Mihiel offensive. While, “not actively engaged in the front lines,” in mid-September they were “ordered forward to close a gap in the lines.” The gap was closed before they arrived, and instead they “went into bivouac in the woods … closely supporting the front lines,” where they were “under constant shell fire.”  From September 14 through the 19, the 39th Infantry trained in Haudainville, then moved to Esnes, in preparation for participation in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

On September 26, the first day of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the First Battalion “took up positions in the front line trenches.” They advanced at 5:30 a.m., behind a rolling barrage. That day, in the vicinity of Montfaucon Hill and the villages of Cuisy and Septsarges, William was severely wounded. He survived, but the military ultimately judged that “in view of occupation he was, on date of discharge, reported 75 percent disabled,” reflecting his injury’s impact on his earning capacity. During the three-day period in which William was wounded, “the Regiment had advanced eleven kilometers on a front ranging from one to two kilometers, the first five being one mass of barbed wire. … More than one hundred men and officers had been killed and over five hundred wounded.”

William’s brothers James, Jr., and Joseph also served France during World War I. In August 1918, the Boston Globe reported William wrote home that while marching he had passed his older brother James’s regiment, the 101st Infantry, “coming from the trenches but the men were traveling so fast he failed to meet his brother.” His younger brother Joseph, who served in the 60th Infantry, was killed in action during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

On December 20, 1918, William sailed for the United States from Saint Nazaire, France, on the USS Princess Matoika. The ship carried “sick and wounded.” William was among a group classified as “medical and surgical requiring no attention.” They arrived in Newport News, Virginia, on January 1, 1919. William was discharged at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, on May 17, 1919.

After his discharge, William lived with his family in the home his father had just purchased at 28 Ditson Street. William was listed as a student in the 1920 Boston directory; on the 1920 census no occupation is reported for him. His marriage record from June 1920 stated he was a bookkeeper.

On June 21, 1920, William married Esther M. Fleming of 18 Freeman Street, Dorchester. They were married by Reverend John H. Harrigan of Saint Ambrose Church in Fields Corner. William and Esther had two daughters: Mary born in 1920 and Clair in 1922.

The couple initially lived on Granger Street, first at number 68, then at 58. By 1925, they had moved to a few blocks to 25 Dickens Street. The next year they were living nearby at 64 Leonard Street, which they owned. It was William’s home for the rest of his life. Living with them in 1930 was Esther’s father, William Fleming, an unemployed watchman. William’s brother Francis lived next door at number 66.

In the early 1920s, William continued to be listed in the directory as a student. In 1924, he was employed as a post office sub clerk. He worked for the post office for the rest of his career. In 1940, he earned $2,100 a year. He reported in 1942 that he worked out of the Post Office at 99 Chauncey Street.

William died in Dorchester on July 3, 1945. A funeral was held at his residence and a Solemn High Mass was celebrated for him at Saint Ambrose Church. William was a member of Saint Peter’s Court Number 18, MCOF; Redberry Council No 177, Knights of Columbus; and the William L. Harris Post 196 of the American Legion.

Sources

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com

Boston Directories, Various years; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 US Federal Census; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Dorchester District,” Boston Globe, 17 April 1917; 9; Newspapers.com

“Boys Eager to Get Into Army,” Boston Globe, 17 October 1917: 8; Newspapers.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

The History of the 39th U.S. Infantry During the World War, NY: Press of Joseph D. McGuire, 1919; Archive.org

Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, The National Archives at College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

Aaronson, Franklin M. “Pensions and Compensation to Veterans and Their Dependents.” Social Security Bulletin, November 1942. <https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v5n11/v5n11p10.pdf>

“Dorchester District,” Boston Globe, 16 August 1918; Newspapers.com

“Military Honors at Dorchester Funeral,” Boston Globe, 20 September 1921: 2; Newspapers.com

“Real Estate Transactions,” Boston Globe, 2 May 1919: 10; Newspapers.com

Marriage, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States, certificate number 3358, page 259, State Archives, Boston; FamilySearch.org

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Deaths, Boston Globe, 3 July 1945: 10; Newspapers.com

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