Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2009

C. B. Lovewell Company.

Scan of illustration in Blue Book of Roxbury and Dorchester 1915.  The shop was located on the west side of Washington Street north of Codman Square between Southern Avenue and Aspinwall Road.

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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. 2008

Candlestick on tray made by Roswell Gleason pewter manufacturing company on Washington Street about 1840.

The following is from American Series of Popular Biographies.MassachusettsEdition.  This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of theCommonwealthofMassachusetts. Boston: Graves & Steinbarger, 1891.

ROSWELL GLEASON, who introduced the art of silver-plating inAmerica, was born inPutney,Vt.,April 6, 1799, son of Reuben and Sally (Fuller) Gleason.  Settling inDorchester,Mass., in 1818, he associated himself with a Mr. Wilcox in the tinware trade; and on the death of his partner in 1830 he became sole proprietor of the business.  His attention was subsequently diverted to the manufacture of Britannia ware and brass lamp fixtures, which soon became one of the chief industries of Dorchester; and at one time he employed a force of one hundred and twenty-five men.  In 1849 he still further increased his business by introducing to the American people the art of silver-plating, thereby placing upon the market a new article of commerce known as plated ware, which immediately sprang into favor among those of moderate means; and he was therefore the pioneer in a business that now constitutes an important branch of the silverware trade.  His two sons, on attaining their majority, were each admitted to partnership; and the business was continued until 1871, when, both sons having died, he closed up his affairs and retired. For many years he was one of the most prominent as well as popular residents of Dorchester, serving as Captain of the Dorchester Rifle Company.  Politically, he was a Democrat.  His death occurred, January 27, 1887.

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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. 2007

Postcard. Caption on front: All aboard and away we go for Dorchester, a real live town. Postmarked Dorchester, Oct. 3, 1913.

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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. 2006

Williams Motor Co., used car company whose business card says they are  located at 815 Gallivan Boulevard at Neponset Circle about where the parking lot for Staples is today.  The photo above seems to be on the north of the Boulevard at no 780.

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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. 2005

Photograph of 10 Radford Lane looking up at the backs of houses on Carruth Street.

The house at the very left is 33 Carruth Street at the corner of Carruth and Radford Lane.  The house in the center is 10 Radford Lane, designed by Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., built about 1890 (it appears on the 1894 map).  The house on the right was later moved to 80 Van Winkle Street.  It was the first house to be built on Carruth Street in 1872-1873 at the corner of Carruth and Van Winkle.  In 1897 it was moved to Van Winkle Street and turned 90 degrees.  The cupola was removed in 1941.  In its place on the corner at 41 Carruth Street, the Ashmont Cooperative Society built a new house (building permit dated 1900).

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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. 2004

Photograph of the yard of the Nathan Carruth House, formerly at the top of the hill between Beaumont and Elmer Streets.

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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. 2003

Scan of advertisement for Winthrop Hall in Dorchester Woman’s Club Cook-Book 1897.

Winthrop Hall was located at 570-572 Columbia Road where the Citizens Bank building is located today.  In the scan the stone on the front of the building indicates that the building was constructed in 1895.

The website cinematreasures.org says there was a theater in the building: Winthrop Hall was located in Uphams Corner, a section of the Dorchester area of Boston (south of downtown). It was a meeting hall which was converted to a theater in the 1890’s and later became a movie house. It was located in a distinctive brick building about 5 stories high, with a gable roof and a corner tower. The theater may have been upstairs on the second floor. It is unclear if this operation survived into the sound era.

and a comment on that site: the Winthrop Hall Theater was operating with vaudeville and movies, in a building 5-plus stories high. Then in 1918, the Strand opened across the street. The “Winnie” remained open. Then, by 1930, the building was partially torn down and a 2-story bank went into the space. Then in 1941, a different theater, the Uphams Theater, opened in a long one-story block.

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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. 2002

Residence of City Alderman Charles V. Whitten at 321 Centre Street.  Scan of clipping from Boston of To-day, published in the 1890s.  The building was later used as a sanatorium by a Dr. Douglas.  Replaced by the St. Joseph Home.

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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. 2001

Scan of photograph published in the 1890s of 2157 Dorchester Avenue (now across from the driveway entrance to Carney Hospital, although the Hospital was not there at this time).  Built between 1889 and 1894, this was the residence and plant of F.H. McDonald, building contractor, whose business was established in 1895.

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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. 2000

In this third series of the Dorchester Illustration of the Day we have reached the number 2000.  Thank you all for continuing to ready the daily messages.

The photo displayed today shows no. 10 Carruth Street, probably at the time it was built in 1888.

Photograph given to the Dorchester Historical Society in 1923 by architect Edwin J. Lewis Jr.  Photograph taken by Wm F. Clark, 338 Washington St., Boston.  House of Thomas F. Goodale.

The following is from:

Source:Codman   SquareHouse Tour Booklet 2003

Year Built: 1888

Architect: Edwin J. Lewis, Jr.

Style: Shingle Style

This Shingle-style house, with its gambrel roof and wraparound porch, is the picture of informal domesticity.  (Yet notice the virtuoso display of roof planes.)  The porch was enclosed to make additional rooms when the house was converted to two apartments; on view today is an exemplary restoration carried out by the present owners, who carefully replicated Edwin J. Lewis’s signature porch railing with its closely spaced square balusters.

A full Classical entablature of quarter-sawn oak runs around the entry hall.  The monumental fireplace is flanked by Doric columns; another Doric column stands at the foot of the stairs.  In contrast, the staircase balusters are very delicate, with bamboo-like rings.  The corner fireplace in the living room is surrounded by tiles glazed a subtle olive/brown color.  A charming alcove has a built-in seat.  A second corner fireplace in the dining room helps give this room its distinctive octagonal shape.  Note the intricately molded profile of the mantel shelf; freestanding Doric colonnettes, infant-size offspring of the columns in the hall, flank the overmantel panel.

The original china pantry is largely intact, although a first-floor bath long ago replaced the second pantry.  The bathroom features a generous open shower—perfect for giving the owners’ dog a bath.  A refined simplicity reigns in the kitchen; a new soapstone counter is the bold stroke here.  Paradoxically, this kitchen, where the only overtly nostalgic note is a small braided rug, succeeds in capturing the essence of the 1880s original.  One secret of this success: the wonderful yellow ochre wall color; another, the unadorned pendant light fixtures.

Thanks to the grand scale of the stairway, the second floor hallway is unusually spacious in feeling.  The stair continues to the third floor in an unusual “floating” form; structurally, this scheme was a bit too daring: the stair has sagged a bit.  As part of the previous changes, an opening was created between two bedrooms, which now form a master suite, complete with an alcove and fireplace.  The wall colors reappear in the stunning quilt on the bed.  The second-floor rooms, like those below, are characterized by an airy simplicity that seems to suit both the owners and the house.  This outstanding example of the shingle Style is indeed fortunate to be in such sympathetic hands.

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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