Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2104

Postcard. Caption on front: Walter Baker Chocolate Mills, Power House. copyright 1905, Frederick A. Frizell. Postally unused.

For most of the early years, the Baker chocolate mills relied entirely on water power. In 1868, Henry Pierce installed the company’s first steam engine and over time each mill created and used its own steam power. It was not until 1906 that Baker’s finally built a stand-alone, 3,000 horse power, central power house to permanently serve all the mills. It contained three boilers and two generators that brought electricity to each building, allowing electric lights and motors to be installed throughout the complex. The use of coal to generate power was replaced in 1921 when the central power house switched to cleaner-burning fuel oil.

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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. 2103

Linda Little wrote to me about her ancestor Edwin Lansil (1839-1904) who lived with his family including brothers Walter and Wilbur, well-known painters, for about 20 years in Dorchester at 101 Maxwell Street, and she provided the vintage photo of that property.

Today we have before and after pictures of 101 Maxwell Street where the family lived in the late 19th century.  There is quite a contrast between the photos, one showing the original ornamentation and the other showing the house stripped of it decorative details and covered in stucco.

Check out:

http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/a-trip-to-venice-by-walter-franklin-lansil/

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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. 2102

Today we have a postcard of the old library in Codman Square.

Codman Square was featured on WBUR yesterday.  The first in a series about the squares of Boston as the background for the mayoral race, this piece mentions Bill Walczak and his achievements with the Codman Square Health Center. Check out

http://www.wbur.org/2013/09/04/codman-square-transformation

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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. 2101

Postcard. Caption on front: Blaney Memorial Baptist Church & Parsonage, Dorchester Lower Mills, Mass. Postmarked Dorchester Center, Boston, July 25 ?. On verso: No. H 12793 The Robbins Co., Boston, Mass. and Germany.

About 1910.  The Church was located at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Richmond Street, where the parking lot of the Meeting House Cooperative Bank is located today.

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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. 2100

Today in response to a request we have a photo of First Church after the re-installation of the lantern room at the top of the steeple.

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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. 2098

A fountain was dedicated in October 1885, in memory of Theodore Lyman, Jr., Mayor of Boston in 1834-35.

The Lyman Fountain, which now exists only in memory, was installed as a monument to the memory of Lyman as he was the first to propose the introduction of water into the city of Boston. The fountain was described:

… The fountain is a highly ornamental structure of original design and fine proportions, and is believed to be the highest and handsomest fountain in the New England States. Its entire altitude is twenty-six feet. The basin is of Monson granite and thirty-three feet in diameter. The first pan is twelve feet and six inches in diameter; the second pan six feet and eight inches. The surmounting group of figures represents Venus, Cupid, and swan, while the figures about the pedestal stand for the four seasons. The supply of water is from three pipes attached to a three-inch main, a sixty-pound pressure providing ample force. One of these pipes discharges through the swan’s mouth and through four dragons on the first pedestal and four griffins, between the first and second pans. Another furnishes a supply for one hundred and forty-four jets in the rim of the first pan, and eighty in the second, while the third pipe feeds the four cascades at the base of the pedestal. The water from the jets does not overflow the pan, but discharges through four gargoyle heads.

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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. 2097

The most distinctive product from the Dorchester Potter was the porcelain pig used as a footwarmer or bedwarmer.

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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. 2097

Postcard. Caption on front: Neponset Ave., Neponset, Mass. Postmarked 1916. On verso: 12104. Publ. by W.N. Baker. Made in Germany. Sent from Atlantic, Mass.

I think the photographer would have been standing in the middle of what is now Neponset Circle.

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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. 2096

Postcard. Caption on front: St. Marks Church and Rectory, Dorchester. Circa 1910.

The wooden St. Marks Catholic Church building lasted from about 1899 till 1914, when the parish commissioned Charles Brigham to design the red brick church in perpendicular gothic style that replaced it.

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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