Wood Mausoleum, Dorchester Old North Burying Ground
Dorchester Illustration 2681
The Wood mausoleum is the largest above-ground structure in the Dorchester Old North Burying Ground. It was erected in memory of Caroline Elizabeth Wood, 1822-1892, beloved and devoted wife of Charles Austin Wood, 1818-1898. The mausoleum and its sheltered doorway are shown in today’s illustration. A portrait of Charles Austin Wood and an illustration of the Wood Block at Port Norfolk are also included in the illustration.
Caroline was a descendant of George Minot who settled in Dorchester in the 1630s. Charles Austin Wood was born in Ashland, Mass. on May 5, 1818. In the 1840s and early 1850s, he began his career in real estate buying a number of large tracts of land in Port Norfolk. The 1850 map of Dorchester, commissioned by the Old Colony Railroad, shows that Port Norfolk was largely undeveloped at that time.
On April 1, 1830, or possibly 1840, he moved to Neponset, where he lived for forty years. For many years, he was a river pilot. In 1842, he established the first wood and coal yard in Neponset in connection with a grain business. Just before the Old Colony Railroad was built, Wood bought a considerable amount of real estate in the neighborhood, and after selling out his coal and grain business, he began building extensively. Before he left Dorchester, he had erected more than forty buildings including his home and the large brick block which bears his name. In 1855, Mr. Wood was one of the founders of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In the same year, he was one of the selectmen in Dorchester.
The Wood Block referred to the building later occupied by the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company and the attached buildings behind it. On Feb. 12, 1862, Wood sold the property to Otis Wright. It was described as “a lot of land situated in said Dorchester with a building thereon called Wood’s Block with a tenement adjoining the main block.” The block still stands at 5-11 Woodworth St., Dorchester.
Wood had the Hotel Vendome built in Boston, and in 1870, he moved into the hotel as its manager. He entered the insurance and brokerage business on State Street, with offices in New York. He did a flourishing business in real estate investment in the Back Bay.
Wood died on July 31, 1898.
