Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1785

In the era of trolley cars, the building occupied by Yale Electric today was once the power house for the Boston Elevated Railway Company.

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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. 1784

Today we have a photo of Richard Clapp’s house, which was located on Columbia Road approximately where the Russell School is today across from the Blake House.

The following is from The Clapp Memorial. Record of the Clapp Family in America … Ebenezer Clapp, compiler.  Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1876

Richard, son of Lemuel and Rebecca (Dexter) Clapp, and brother of the preceding (William), was born in Dorchester, July 24, 1780, and died Dec. 16, 1861, aged 81 years.  He was a tanner by trade, and his yard was only a few rods south of his brother William’s [on Boston Street].  At one time in early life he was engaged pretty extensively in brick-making, the business being carried on upon lands of his own in South Boston.  Bricks there made were used in 1812, in the construction of the house he afterwards occupied, now standing on Pond Street [now mostly merged into Columbia Road], near the Five Corners [Edward Everett Square].  A few feet east from this house is the site of the one in which Rev. Richard Mather lived, and in which his son President Increase Mather was born. 

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Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1783

Postard circa 1910 of Savin Hill Depot.  The illustration of the blimp in the sky seems to be printed on the card but printed in a different way than the rest of the card is printed.  At first I thought it was a drawing in ink, but it seems too fine for that.  So why was there a blimp over Savin Hill?

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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. 1782

Today’s illustration is a copy of an advertisement for a Henderson Footwarmer from 1912.  The Dorchester Pottery company was founded in 1895 by George Henderson to produce commercial and industrial stoneware.  Its first big hit was the stoneware hot water bottle known as the Henderson Footwarmer.  It was used to keep feet warm in a cold automobile and also to warm hospital beds.  It later became known as the porcelain pig.  In the early years the opening in the bottle was closed with a cork stopper, but within a few years Henderson patented a metal fitting with a screw cap.

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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. 1781

Photograph of man doing handstand on MDC sign on Malibu Beach ca. 1950

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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. 1780

Last evening the Boston Landmarks Commission approved the nomination of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to the National Register of Historic Places based on the contribution of the church complex to the local architectural history of Boston. 

The nomination was presented to the Commission by Timothy Orwig, a consultant, who has successfully nominated more than two dozen sites to the National Register of Historic Places.  The St. Mark’s complex comprises 3 shingle buildings: the chapel, a parish house and a rectory.  In today’s postcard, postmarked in 1908, we see the chapel building.   The architectural design was by Edmund Quincy Sylvester, and the cornerstone was laid in 1904.  St. Mark’s was begun as a mission of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.  Note the steeply pitched roof and the projecting entry porch with elements of half-timbering.

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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. 1779

Yesterday, we saw a painting of Savin Hill, and today we have an electro-type version of that painting from Antique Views of Ye Towne of Boston by James Henry Stark.  First published in 1882.  This page may have been from a turn-of-the century edition.  The engraving is from a painting made in 1830.

The Stark family emigrated from England to Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century, eventually settling in Dorchester, Massachusetts. James Henry Stark attended Boston schools including the Boston Latin School, but he left school in 1864 to learn the trade of stereotyping and electrotyping, which he pursued until 1900, when he opened a real estate office. He was president of the Photo Electrotype Co., and he was the publisher of the book Antique Views of Ye Towne of Boston.  An avid yachtsman, he founded several local yacht clubs and helped organize the Savin Hill Yacht Club. He helped organize and later served as vice president of the Dorchester Historical Society and authored several guide books and historical works, including The Loyalists of Massachusetts.

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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. 1778

The painting of Savin Hill is by Michael Olcott Barry.    Savin Hill 1830 represents one of the finest accomplishments of 19^th century landscape artistry in Dorchester.  In this painting we see Savin Hill from Pope’s Hill.  Barry was married to Martha Howe Worthington whose father owned nearly all the land shown in the painting.   Today the area known as Savin Hill is home to thousands of residents.

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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. 1777

Today we have a painting of Savin Hill from approximately the same view point as yesterday’s illustration of the railroad bridge.  It is called Dorchester 1856.  “This is one of Edward Mitchell Bannister’s few surviving paintings from the 1850s. In this view of Dorchester, Massachusetts, the artist included the stately homes dotting the coast. This was likely a marketing tactic, for he hoped to appeal to the wealthy merchants living in those “cottages.” Bannister spent summers sailing around Massachusetts and Rhode Island on daily outings that allowed him to sketch and paint familiar views for his wealthy patrons in Boston and Providence.”(Hartigan, Sharing Traditions, 1985). 

Edward Mitchell Bannister was a painter who was active in the Boston area.  He was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1828, and he died in Providence, Rhode Island in 1901.

It is curious to contrast this painting with the 1855 engraving we saw yesterday showing the railroad bridge.  The railroad line to Plymouth had opened in 1845.  So in 1856 Bannister must have consciously left the railroad out of his composition. 

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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. 1776

In 1855 this engraving was printed in Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, showing an Old Colony Railroad train on the bridge in front of Savin Hill.  The bridge crossed over the water and marsh at Glover’s Corner.  The viewer would have been standing on the hill behind the First Parish Church.

On March 16, 1844 the Old Colony Railroad Corporation was formed to provide a rail connection between Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts. Construction of the line began in South Boston in June 1844 and the 36.8 mile line opened to Plymouth on November 10, 1845. The extension from South Boston to the newly-completed Kneeland Street in Boston opened on June 19, 1847.

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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