Dorchester Illustration no. 2370 St. Mary’s Infant Asylum
The City of Boston’s tax assessing records show that the owner of the former St. Margaret’s Hospital property, now S. Mary’s Center for Women and Children, is St. Mary’s Infant Asylum.
St. Mary’s Infant Asylum grew out of an effort of St. Vincent de Paul Society to care for foundlings and destitute infants. At first, in 1867, they placed babies at the Home for Destitute Catholic Children, and the following year transferred the work to the old mansion of the Carney Hospital under the care of the Sisters of Charity, then in South Boston. At first this effort was known as St. Ann’s Infant Asylum. Needing larger quarters, in 1874 they purchased the old 13-acre Seaver estate on Bowdoin Street in Dorchester and in 1875 incorporated as St. Mary’s Infant Asylum and Lying-in Hospital.
Soon they found that the acquisition of an unnecessarily large estate with a mansion ill-adapted to their purposes, the Sisters decided to find a smaller and less expensive property. In 1882 Father Peter Ronan of St. Peter’s Church, Patrick A. Collins and John C. Crowley purchased the former Green estate at Cushing and Everett Avenues on Jones Hill on behalf of the Asylum; then the following year they transferred ownership to the St. Mary’s Infant Asylum and Lying-in Hospital. The renovation and addition of a new wing occurred soon thereafter, and today’s illustration shows the enlarged building with its new wing. A new building was added in 1901. In 1911 the St. Margaret’s Hospital was completed.
In 1866 Charles and Mary Green acquired the property on Jones Hill that would later become the Infant Asylum. Charles was a builder, and the couple were extensive property owners. The subject property included what is now Everett Avenue stretching from Stoughton Street up the hill to the location of the hospital. Charles and Mary sub-divided the property, selling some lots along Everett Avenue and keeping some to build houses for later sale. They built their own mansion at the top of the hill. The 1869 tax valuation shows their brick house in process of construction valued at $15,000 as lot 6 with 99,987 square feet of land. They were also taxed on other lots of land along Everett Avenue, some of which had houses on them. Some of these houses were also still in the process of construction. The houses at 15, 17, and 19 Everett Avenue, which were built by Green in the Second Empire style with mansard roofs, still exist.
Green developed heart disease and died in 1881. Charles and Mary had lost the estate house and grounds to foreclosure in 1877, so it may have been Charles’ ill health that led to the foreclosure and the opportunity for the Infant Asylum to acquire the property from the lender who had foreclosed.