Dorchester Illustration no. 2446 Pierce Square
This postcard from 1909 shows Pierce Square, the intersection of Washington Street, Dorchester Avenue and Adams Street. Adams Street comes in from the right, turns the corner and leads toward the viewer. Dorchester Avenue is the road straight ahead. The end of Washington Street is hidden behind the building on the left.
The brick building on the right is the Pierce Mill of the Walter Baker Chocolate company. On the left, the building with the dormers was the Thayer hotel which had commercial storefronts on the first level. It was replaced in 1911 by the Forbes Mill, a part of the Baker Chocolate operations. The building on the corner behind the hotel was the Wendemuth block of stores, replaced by the Baker Chocolate Administration building in 1918-1919.
Henry L. Pierce was the step-nephew of Walter Baker. He worked briefly as a clerk at the chocolate company in 1849 at the age of twenty-four. In 1850 he moved to Milwaukee to work at a newspaper but returned to Dorchester in 1850 at the request of Sidney Williams, who was then head of Baker Chocolate. Pierece was put in charge of the Boston counting rooms. Williams died two years later, and Pierce leased the Baker business from the trustees. In the next forty-two years, Pierce absorbed competing chocolate companies and constructed more and more buildings to serve the expanding business.
The Baker company and Henry Pierce became well known. Pierce served four terms as representative in the Massachusetts General Court and later served as an Alderman in Boston. He served as a US Representative for four years. He purchased the Baker company outright in 1884 and incorporated it as Walter Baker & Company, Ltd in 1895.