Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2126

1894 advertisement for Mellins Food with illustration of Marian Louise Bowker, Neponset, Mass.

By the 1890s the most popular by far of the powders to be added to milk was Mellins Food, developed in England and manufactured in Boston, whose advertisements claimed that it was “the genuine Liebigs Food,” The best known of the dried-milk products was another European import, Nestles Milk Food, which was manufactured and distributed under license by a New York City firm. Advertisements for various proprietary infant foods because well-nigh ubiquitious by the 1890s….Nestles (“Best for Babies”) said it was better for babies than milk, for “impure milk in hot weather is one of the chief causes of sickness among babies.”…A favorite promotional technique was to offer free samples by mail to the readers of middle-class magazines. Perhaps the most effective with middle-class mothers…were the free handbooks on infant care feeding distributed by the companies. Mellins with its own press, was especially active in this field. The handbooks explained the chemistry of milk and feeding in clear but relatively sophisticated language, adding an aura of science to the food they were promoting.

see:  http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbaby.html

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2125

In the 1860s you could buy 4 tons of coal for $36.

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If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2124

In 1919, the park at Savin Hill beach was renamed for Dorchester native Joseph W. McConnell, a US Army captain who had been killed in action in France in 1918 and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.

Today the rock has lost its plaque, perhaps stolen during for its metal value.

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The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com

If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2123

Advertisement from Putnam Nail Company, the premiere maker of horseshoe nails located on Port Norfolk.

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Phips Expedition

New France dreamed of taking New York and formed a plan 1688-89 to do just that.  New York and the English colonies had dreams of taking Quebec – the economic and political capital of New France.

Both sides realized that they could gain greater control of the fur trade and of fishing grounds as well as extend their territory. Both sides worked through the native Americans, and New York struck first by urging the Iroquois to create havoc on their behalf.  The result was the Lachine massacre.

Then in 1690 in a reprisal, the French made a three-pronged attack from Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec against Schenectady, Salmon Falls and Casco.   Cotton Mather was one of many voices clamoring for Canada to be reduced.  In April 1690, Major General William Phips led a force against Port-Royal, resulting in complete success.  This only whetted the appetite for further action.  In August of that year, 30 vessels with 2300 men left from Nantasket with the destination of Quebec.

A majority of the Dorchester men on the expedition sailed on the ship Elizabeth and Mary, a ship of 45 tuns, about 50 to 55 feet in length. A militia company at that time was a company in a single town, made up of all the able men from 16 to 60 years of age.   74 men from Dorchester made up the Dorchester militia out of a total population of only a few hundred.  46 of these men never returned.  The Elizabeth and Mary was lost in the retreat.

When the Phips expedition arrived at Quebec, Phips demanded surrender within an hour.  Frontenac said that the only answer he would give would be from the muzzles of his cannons.  Winthrop was supposed to lead an Army from New England to meet up with the naval forces, but the Army never set out.  Phips was left up the creek, or in this case up the Saint Lawrence.  So he turned around and went home.  Four ships were lost but the Elizabeth and Mary was the only one that no one knew what had happened to.

This was pretty much the end of the story until Dec. 24, 1994, when a diver in the St. Lawrence at Baie-Trinite found the remains of a ship.  Canada mounted what was probably the largest underwater archeological project ever in the western hemisphere. At the time, they did not know the origin of the ship, but they could see that it was an important find.  It was the oldest shipwreck ever found in Quebec and it resulted in 4500 artifacts.  By analyzing the historical record and the items they found, they discovered that the wreck had to be the Elizabeth and Mary.

A porringer handle showed the initials M  I  S     Increase and Sarah Moseley

A musket had the initials CT    Cornelius Tileston.

These initials matched names of men known to have been lost on the ship.  ____ The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2121

Mural at Florian Hall.

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If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2120

Looking east at the intersection of Norfolk and Nelson Streets, ca. 1930.

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If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2119

Ulysses S. Grant by William F. Cogswell from United States Senate website

The following is from: Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 1885

Ancestry-birth-boyhood

My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.

Mathew [Matthew] Grant the founder of the branch in America of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts in May, 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many years of the time, town clerk. He was a married man when he arrived at Dorchester, but his children were all born in this country. His eldest son, Samuel, took lands on the east side of the Connecticut River, opposite Windsor, which have been held and occupied by descendants of his to this day.

I am of the eighth generation from  Mathew Grant, and seventh from Samuel. Mathew Grant’s first wife died a few years after their settlement in Windsor, and he soon after married the widow Rockwell, who, with her first husband, had been fellow-passengers with him and his first wife, on the ship Mary and John, from Dorchester, England, in 1630. Mrs. Rockwell had several children by her first marriage, and others by her second. By intermarriage, two or three generations later, I am descended from both the wives of Mathew Grant.

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2118

Postcard. Caption on front: Upham’s Corner.  Postmarked Sep. 4.  On verso: No. 370. Pub. by Boston Post-Card Co., 12 Pearl St.

Note Winthrop Hall on the left and the Baker Memorial Methodist Church on the right (now a parking lot at the corner of Columbia Road and Cushing).

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2117

View of Boston from Mount Bowdoin, Dorchester.

Scan of wood engraving Boston, From Mount Bowdoin published in Picturesque America by William Cullen Bryant. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1872-74.

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If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org