April 23, 2017 The Old Overholt and Other Stories

Posted on April 8, 2017 by earltaylor

16380 Dan and Tom Casey 1927 on steps of 774 Columbia RoadThe Old Overholt and Other Stories

Sunday, April 23, 2017, 2 pm, at the William Clapp House, 195 Boston Street

Michaela Casey will talk about growing up in Dorchester, about  how her family influenced and inspired her book, and about the process of character development based on her father’s life in Dorchester. The photo on the other side of this postcard shows her grandfather Dan and her father Tom on the steps of 774 Columbia Road.  The author will talk about the steps involved in taking her work from final text to a published book through the self-publishing process.

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Dorchester Illustration 2294 Upham Store

Posted on April 5, 2017 by earltaylor

2294 corner Dorchester Old North cemetery showing Upham's Store and intersection

Today’s illustration is a photograph showing the view from the corner of the Old Dorchester North Burying Ground before the current brick wall on the border of the cemetery was installed. It shows the intersection of Columbia Road and Stoughton Street (coming from the left between the fence and the masonry building at the left). When Stoughton Street crosses Columbia Road, it becomes Dudley Street. The wood-frame building in the center right of the photo is the Upham Store at the corner of Columbia Road and Dudley Street.  The photograph probably dates from the 1880s, because the configuration of buildings seems to match the 1884 map.

Amos Upham opened a market at the southwest corner of the intersection of Columbia Road and Dudley Street in the early part of the 19th century.  His family operated the market in a wood-frame building until the 1890s, when the building was replaced with a one-story masonry building and later with the multi-story Columbia Square Building brick building that stands there today. From American Series of Popular Biographies. Massachusetts Edition. Boston: Graves & Steinbarger, 1891.  Included in the entry for Charles James Upham: Amos Upham came to Dorchester 1817, purchased a tract of land and established a grocery store at the place now known as Upham’s Corner.  His death took place January 25, 1872.

Contrast those words with the following from Leading Business Men of Back Bay, South End, Boston Highlands, Jamaica Plain and Dorchester. Boston: Mercantile Publishing Company, 1888

Messrs. J. H. Upham & Co., at Upham’s Corner. This firm, although one of the most progressive in the city and quick to adopt any modern improvement, is concerned in the management of one of the oldest grocery enterprises in town, for the business was founded over three quarters of a century ago by Mr. Joseph Capen, who was succeeded after many years of faithful service by Mr. Amos Upham, who in 1843 admitted his son Mr. J. H. Upham (the present senior partner) to the firm, this latter gentleman having been brought up in the business and by that means, acquiring that perfect knowledge of its every detail for which he is noted.

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Dorchester Illustration 2293 1138 Adams Street

Posted on March 26, 2017 by earltaylor

2293 Home of R M Davis, Adams Street

Dorchester Illustration no. 2293           1138 Adams Street

This realphoto postcard shows the home of R. M. Davis at 1138 Adams Street about 1910. Notice the window hoods, the divided panes in the windows, the brackets in the gables, the shutters and the porch railing. The window hoods and the brackets are still in place.

Randall M. Davis was a chocolate maker, who owned and occupied the house with his second wife Mary and his son James, who was a furniture repairer and caner. Randall was born in Canada, immigrated to the states in 1845 and served in the 1st Maine during the Civil War from late 1836 to June of 1865. In 1890 he was living at 60 Sanford Street in 1890.  In the postcard there is a sign on the front porch for James’s chair-caning business.

The house does not show up on the 1882 atlas but does in 1884. It was owned by James Pope and may have been built as an investment property since Pope owned a large tract of land and other lots in Lower Mills.  Randall bought 1138 Adams Street October 19, 1893, with no down payment and a mortgage of $2,200, and his name appears in the atlases as owner through 1933 when the last Bromley atlas was published.  The list of Boston residents shows James living alone in 1934 and 1935 with tenants.  In 1936 no-one named Davis is listed at this property.

The house is currently shown as a 2-family in the assessing records and may have been built that way. Each of the census records available show another household living in the building.  In 1910, for example, Abby L. Bates and her two daughter who were both teachers living in the house in addition to the Davis family.

Check out the Dorchester Historical Society’s online catalog at

http://dorchester.pastperfectonline.com/

The archive of these historical posts can be viewed on the blog at www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org

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Dorchester Illustration #2292 Mattapan Bridge

Posted on March 19, 2017 by earltaylor

2292 Mattapan Bridge

Dorchester Illustration no. 2292           Mattapan Bridge

Today’s illustration is a postcard that shows the bridge from Dorchester’s Mattapan Square across the Neponset to Milton. It is unusual to find a photographer’s name on a postcard.  Although Frederick Frizell was a studio photographer, we have found 5 postcards of outdoor scenes that have his copyright.

Frederick Andrew Frizell (1864-1937) was a photographer in the Lower Mills area of Dorchester in the early 20th century.

Frederick was born in Dorchester, October 5, 1864. Frederick married Amelia Eliza Adams 6 August, 1889, when he was 25 and she was 27.  They had two children: a son, Lee Adams Frizell, was October 12, 1890, and a daughter Dorothy Ruth Frizell was born December 16, 1893.

Frederick’s father Charles was a contractor, and Frederick worked as a carpenter and ladder maker for his father and brother. The census shows Frederick as a carpenter through 1899.  In 1900 both the census and the Boston Directory show him as a photographer at Lower Mills.  At first he kept his studio in the house where the family was living at 27 Sanford Street.  Later he established a studio at Pierce Square.  The family moved to King Street in 1900 and later to Butler Street in 1912.

Frederick probably opened his studio at Pierce Square prior to the family moving to King Street but at least as early as 1904, since his advertisement in the 1904-1905 Milton Directory places him there.

Frederick A. Frizell, Photographer, House Portraiture a Specialty, Portrait Studio, Pierce Sq., opp. W. Bakers Chocolate Mills. Telephone Connection.

In December 1906, Frederick exhibited a large number of photos of Milton scenes at the Milton Public Library. Some of these views may be the same as postcards that he published the year before: Moonlight on the Neponset, Mattapan Bridge, The Chocolates from the Big Chimney.

The entry in the 1916 Boston Directory for Frizell is under Portrait Photography.

Frederick’s favorite subjects for studio photographs was his daughter Dorothy, born 1893, and later her daughter Eleanor, born 1924.

Frederick passed away in 1937, and Amelia in 1949.

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Dorchester Illustration 2291 Catharine Clapp in Parlor

Posted on March 12, 2017 by earltaylor

2291 one half of stereoview card CatharineClapp in chair Lemuel Clap House

Dorchester Illustration no. 2291           Catharine Clapp in Lemuel Clap House

One-half of a stereoview card showing Catharine Clapp in the parlor of the Lemuel Clap House. In the late 18th to early 19th century, the family began using Clapp, but Catherine’s father Lemuel continued to spell his name with one “p”.  When Lemuel died in 1819, he left the house to his unmarried daughters Catharine and Rebecca.  Rebecca died in 1855.

The illustration shows Catharine in her later years sitting in the parlor. The Society has pieces of the wallpaper seen in the illustration – the wallpaper was there during the Revolution when the house was used as a barracks for Colonial troops during the Siege of Boston.

The entry for Catharine in the family genealogy:

Catharine, b. April 17, 1782; d. unm. Feb. 21, 1872, in her 90th year. She retained her mental faculties to the last, reading her bible and other good books daily, without glasses, which through her long life she never used; was a worthy woman, of the old puritan stamp; lived and died in the house in Willow Court, occupied by her father during his life.  The house, after her death, as elsewhere mentioned, passed into the hands of her nephews, Frederick and Lemuel.

Check out the Dorchester Historical Society’s online catalog at http://dorchester.pastperfectonline.com/

The archive of these historical posts can be viewed on the blog at www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org

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Dorchester Illustration 2290 Young Preacher

Posted on March 5, 2017 by earltaylor

2290 Lorna T. Townsend preacher

Dorchester Illustration no. 2290           Young Preacher

Photograph – caption on verso: On verso: May 6, 1924. Girl Preacher Travels Dens of Moonshiners. Miss Lorna G Townsend, a pretty Dorchester, Mass, girl preacher, who, with her license in her pocket wanders among the forbidden mountain paths n the vicinity of Harlan County, Kentucky, preaching the gospel to the moonshiners without fear or favor. Her position with moonshiners has enabled her to observe the utter falldown of the prohibition act as applied to moonshine.

Born in 1897 Lorna Gertrude Townsend was the daughter of Joseph W. and Georgina A. Townsend. Joseph owned his own contracting business; by 1920 they lived at 4 Upland Avenue. The 1922 list of residents shows her occupation as stenographer.

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Dorchester lllustration 2289 Burrill’s Tooth Powder

Posted on February 26, 2017 by earltaylor

2289 Burrill's Tooth Powder

Dorchester Illustration no. 2289           Burrill’s Tooth Powder

Postcard. Capton on front: Blue Hill Ave., near Franklin Field, Dorchester, Mass. With illustration of billboard for Burrill’s Tooth Powder.  Postmarked Dec. 10, 1910. On verso: advertising message written as if from a friend writing a postcard message.

I believe the viewer of this scene would have been standing at the center of Blue Hill Avenue, looking east at the billboard and Franklin Field off to the right. In1910 the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Talbot Avenue was not densely built up, although the residential streets behind were filled with housing.

Check out the Dorchester Historical Society’s online catalog at

http://dorchester.pastperfectonline.com/

 

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March 19, 2017 Program: The New Bostonians

Posted on February 21, 2017 by earltaylor

New Bostonians book cover for website

Program: Sunday, March 19, 2017 2 pm

The William Clapp House, 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125

Professor Marilynn S. Johnson from the Department of History at Boston College will speak about her work on urban social relations in late nineteenth-and twentieth-century America. She teaches courses on social movements, urban and working-class history, violence, and the American West. Her earlier work looked at internal migration during World War II, police brutality, and violence on the mining and cattle frontiers.  Her latest book, The New Bostonians, explores the history of new immigrants in greater Boston since the 1960s. She is now launching a digital history project and website on Boston area immigration.

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2288 Bookkeeping Class 1892

Posted on February 19, 2017 by earltaylor

2288 Class I Bookkeeping

Dorchester Illustration no. 2288           Bookkeeping Class

Bookkeeping class at the H. L. Pierce Grammar School, 1892.

The Pierce School was located where the Codman Square Branch of the Boston Public Library is located today at the corner of Washington Street and Welles Avenue.The School was named for Henry Lillie Pierce (1825-1896), owner of the Walter Baker & Company chocolate manufacturers at Lower Mills. He served as mayor of Boston in 1872 and 1877 and served as a member of the US House of Representatives.

Check out the Dorchester Historical Society’s online catalog at

http://dorchester.pastperfectonline.com/

The archive of these historical posts can be viewed on the blog at www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org

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Dorchester Illustration 2287 Soldiers Monument

Posted on February 5, 2017 by earltaylor

2287 Soldier's Monument

Dorchester Illustration no. 2287           Soldiers Monument

The following is from Monuments, Tablets and Other Memorials Erected in Massachusetts to Commemorate the Services of Her Sons n the War of the Rebellion, 1816-1865. Collected and Arranged by Alfred S. Roe. (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Company, 1910).

Dorchester (City of Boston). — Before this historic section became a part of Greater Boston, its monument for the Civil War was projected and built. It stands in the space in front of the church on Meeting House Hill, is constructed of red sandstone, 31 feet high, obelisk in shape, and is 8 feet square at the base.  It is a very attractive memorial and is highly creditable to the genius of B.F. Dwight, who was the designer.  The names of those who fell in the cause are graven on the surface of the stone.  It was dedicated Sept. 17, 1867 the very day the National Cemetery at Antietam was also dedicated.  The oration of the day was delivered by the Rev. Charles A. Humphreys, then of Springfield, himself a veteran of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry; an ode, written by William T. Adams (Oliver Optic), was sung by the children.  The cost of the monument, $5,301, was met through the diligence of the Pickwick Club, which started the subscription with a promise of $500 and then circulated the paper until the necessary funds were raised.  The First Methodist Church of Dorchester has an interesting tablet to the memory of members, 51 in number, who enlisted.  Of Tennessee marble, 6 by 5 feet in size, designed by Comrade E. W. Fowler of Milton, and surrounded by an emblematic fresco, the three columns of names are surmounted with the words, “Not for conquest but for country.”  The memorial was unveiled March 24, 1895, with significant exercises, which included addresses by the Department Commander, J.W. Thayer, Rev. Dr. Arthur Little, the Rev. G.A. Phinney, pastor of the church, Secretary of the Commonwealth William M. Olin and Comrade Alexander Hobbs. Benjamin Stone, Jr. Post 8 has long met within its own walls, having erected at 91 Park Street, a commodious edifice and dedicated it to the uses of the Grand Army.  Post room, banquet room, all that veterans need for comfort and utility, are fond here.  The total valuation is $7,500.

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