Dorchester Illustration 2277 St. William’s Church

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2277     St. William’s Church

St. William’s became a Parish set off from St. Peter’s in 1909, consisting of territory south of St. Margaret’s nearly to Glover’s Corner, and including the Savin Hill district. The Reverend James J. Baxter was the first pastor and was succeeded by James McCarthy. Baxter bought the Worthington estate at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Belfort Street. The old mansion was adapted as a rectory. St. William’s first building at 1048 Dorchester Avenue was in the Spanish Mission style designed by Edward Sheehan, a Dorchester resident. The Pastor in 1930 was David J. Murphy.

The building was burned in September 1980 and was replaced with a church of modern design.

From the 1990s through 2004 the Archdiocese of Boston endured the consequences of allegations and lawsuits involving misconduct by priests with the result that the Archdiocese paid out large monetary settlements. The Archdiocese studied its parishes and determined that low attendance and large expenses warranted the closing of some. St. William and St. Margaret were the only two parishes, out of 11 Catholic parishes in Dorchester, that felt a direct impact of the Archdiocese’ reconfiguration process of early 2004. In 2004, these two parishes will merged under the name of Blessed Mother Teresa parish, and the new parish is located at 800 Columbia Road in the building that was St. Margaret’s Church.  The parish is now named St. Teresa.

For more information, consult:

Emery, S.L. A Catholic Stronghold and Its Making. A History of St. Peter’s Parish, Dorchester, Massachusetts, and of Its First Rector the Rev. Peter Ronan, P.R. Boston, 1910.

Lord, Robert H., John E. Sexton and Edward T. Harrington. History of the Archdiocese of Boston. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944. 3 vols.

Shand Tucci, Douglass. The Gothic Churches of Dorchester. Issued by the Dorchester Savings Bank. Boston: Tribune Publishing Company, 1972.

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Dorchester Illustratio 2276 Trolley Car Yard at Park Street

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2276     Trolley Car Yard at Park Street

Paul Cifrino purchased the land on Park Street at Fields Corner adjacent to the T station to develop a retail shopping plaza in 1962. Before the shopping plaza, the site served as a trolley car yard and barns.

Today’s illustration shows trolley snow plow #2015 at Park Street plus a view of the yard from the 1930s or 40s. In the lower photo, Park Street is on the left, and the photographer seems to have been standing on top of a building on the east side of Dorchester Avenue looking west.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2275 James McIntosh Harness Maker

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2275     James McIntosh, Harness Maker

Illustration from 1868 Business Directory for James McIntosh, Harness Maker and Carriage Trimmer. Located at Glover’s Corner, this business carried all sorts of items related to horses and harnesses.  it took a lot more work to keep horse and harness in good repair than what we do today for our automobiles.  Most of us are satisfied if we take our cars through a car-wash once a week or so.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2274 King Cleansers, Geneva Avenue

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2274     King Cleansers, Geneva Avenue

Postcard at Boston Public Library showing King Cleansers, 435 Geneva Avenue, ca. 1930-1940. Number 435 is at the corner of Geneva Avenue and Dakota Street.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2273 Account of the Manufacture and Use of Cocoa

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2273   Account of the Manufacture and Use of Cocoa

The first known recipe pamphlet issued by Walter Baker & Co. was entitled An Account of the Manufacture and Use of Cocoa and Chocolate and was published in 1876. The next was Chocolate Receipts, which was published about 1880. In addition to publishing recipes, Baker extols the nutritional value of chocolate and cites many experts. Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, a German physician, is quoted: “I recommend good chocolate to nervous, excitable persons; also to the weak, debilitated and infirm; to children and women. I have obtained excellent results from it in many cases of chronic deseases of the digestive organs.”

The first teacher of the Boston Cooking School, Maria Parloa, wrote many of the recipes for Walter Baker & Co.’s 1899 pamphlet, Choice Recipes. She was a well-known cookbook author and teacher. The Appledore Cook Book, her first, was published in 1872. Though little is known of her early life, she attended the Maine Central Institute when she was 28 years old. The Appledore Cook Book, published the next year, tells us that she had worked as a cook in private families and had worked as a pastry chef in several New Hampshire hotels. She went into teaching in Mandarin, Florida, where she gave her first lecture on cooking to raise money for the purchase of an organ for the local Sunday School. Encouraged by her success, she opened a cooking school in 1877 on Tremont Street in Boston. In 1879 she agreed to teach at the Boston Cooking School, a project of the Women’s Education Association. Over the years she published Miss Parloa’s New Cook Book and Marketing Guide (1881) and Practical Cookery (1884) as well as writing many articles for the Ladies’ Home Journal, of which she was a part owner.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2272 Milton Station Car Barn

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2272   Milton Station Car Barn

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.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2271 Sally Baker’s House, Savin Hill

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2271   Sally Baker House, Savin Hill

Sally Baker lived on Savin Hill Avenue, the part of Savin Hill Avenue that circles the north side of the Hill, nearly opposite Savin Hill Court.

Sarah Baker was a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church near Lower Mills from early years until her death in 1866. She lived next to that church for a long time, finally moving to her early home at Savin Hill.  Miss Baker conducted a band-box business for forty years, and when she had gathered $5,000, she invested the money.  She left this investment in her will so that at the end of twenty years, the money would be given to the Methodist Church to build a new house of worship within three-fourths of a mile from her Savin Hill home.  The money became available in 1886, at which time no church existed within the required limit.

In March, 1876, Rev. W. G. Leonard was employed by the Boston Sunday School and City Missionary Society to organize a Sunday School in the part of the city called Mount Pleasant.  For that purpose he leased the old Governor Eustis House on Shirley Street.  In August 1876 a lot on Howard Avenue was leased and a Chapel building was begun.  On October 30th Rev. David Sherman, Presiding Elder of the Boston District, organized a Methodist Episcopal Church.  The chapel was finished and dedicated in November.

In 1899 the Trustees of the New England Conference asked the Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church on Howard Avenue, Roxbury, to disband and add the proceeds of the sale of its property to the Baker estate.  The church was reorganized at Upham’s Corner, and its first meetings were held in Winthrop Hall opposite the site of the proposed church.  The Baker Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church was located at the corner of Columbia Road and Cushing Avenue.  The site chosen was found to be nineteen feet outside the required limit, and special permission was obtained from the Court to use the Baker bequest.  The money had grown to $22,642, and it contributed substantially to the construction of the Baker Memorial Church, which opened in June, 1891.    The site is now a vacant lot at the corner of Columbia Road and Cushing Avenue next to the bank building.

 

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Dorchester Illustration 2270 Unitarian Church in Lower Mills

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2270   Unitarian Church in Lower Mills

Dorchester’s third church society was formed as a result of disagreement at Second Church in Codman Square.

In the Boston area in the early 1800s ministers would routinely trade parishes to give congregations the opportunity to hear other preachers.  John Codman, the first minister of Second Church, was chosen by the congregation and ordained in late 1808.  Codman was a staunch Congregationalist and was an opponent of the transition of other Congregational churches to Unitarianism in this period.  He would not agree to preaching by Unitarian-leaning ministers to his congregation. The more liberal of his congregation objected, and there was a period of very high tension when two factions met at the Church on the same day, hearing speakers of different opinions.

To defuse the situation, Codman bought out the pews of the liberals, who formed a new congregation and held their first meeting on May 6, 1813, in the Dorchester Reading Room, the back room of a barber shop which had been furnished as a reading room for the people at Lower Mills. At a second meeting in August, the members called themselves “The Proprietors of the New South Meeting-House.” The Second Church was known as the South Meeting-House, and the Third was now called “The New South.”

Their new building was completed in October, 1813, on the west side of Washington Street at Richmond Street and came to be known as Richmond Hall (now 1111-1113 Washington Street) in honor of the first pastor. Ministers from Boston preached until the installation of the Rev. Dr. Edward Richmond on June 25, 1817. The church building pictured in today’s illustration was built to an Asher Benjamin design in 1839-1840 on Richmond Street at Dorchester Avenue, located where the CVS store is. The church building faced Richmond Street.

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

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Dorchester Illustration 2269 Dorchester Pottery Footwarmer

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2269   Dorchester Pottery Footwarmer

Founded in 1895 by George Henderson, Dorchester Pottery Works successfully produced commercial and industrial stoneware for many years. Henderson came from New Haven, Connecticut, where he had been a partner in the S.L. Pewtress Pottery since 1884 in the production of Henderson and O’Halloran wares.

Dorchester Pottery’s wares evolved over the years from primarily agricultural products to decorated tablewares. Mash feeders and chicken fountains were cast from molds for the farmer. Acid pots and dipping baskets were in demand by jewelry manufacturers, and Henderson’s popular foot warmer was known as a “porcelain pig.” Henderson took a patent for the screw-top stopper for the porcelain hot water bottle.  In 1940, Dorchester Pottery’s line of distinctive gray and blue tableware was introduced. It was shaped on the potter’s wheel. It is called slipware with a so-called Bristol glaze.

In 1914, Mr. Henderson built an enormous beehive kiln 28-feet in diameter of his own design made of unmortared bricks. When it was carefully stacked with two or three freight car loads of unfired pottery , the opening was sealed and the kiln was slowly heated with 15 tons of coal and four cords of wood to a temperature of 2500- 3000 degrees Farenheit. After days of cooling, the door would be opened, brick by brick, and the fired pieces removed. The entire process took about one week to complete.

The last firing occurred in the 1970s.

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Program: Period-Appropriate Exterior Paint Colors for Your Old House

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Period-Appropriate Exterior Paint Colors for Your Old House

Sunday October 2, 2016, 2 pm, at the William Clapp House, 195 Boston Street

Learn how historic paint color relates to the character of your historic house.  Regardless of the age of your home, the character and appearance of the house can be enhanced through traditional paint placement and the use of colors that relate to its architectural style.

Sally Zimmerman, Senior Preservation Services Manager on the Preservation Services Team at Historic New England (formerly SPNEA), will present an illustrated lecture to help you understand the relationship between traditional paint color and practices and how they affect the appearance of neighborhood homes.

Dorchester Historical Society

195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125

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