Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1740

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, young women displayed their talents in needlework by creating samplers, often depicting scenes from the Bible or mythology.  Hannah Dolbeare’s sampler shows Adam and Eve.

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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. 1739

Maria S. Judge is writing a book about Jake Hanna.

Jake Hanna was a swingin’ jazz drummer who played and recorded extensively from the early 1950s through 2009 and was as well known for his comic timing as he was for his ability to keep great time. Maria’s blog is at http://jakehannablog.blogspot.com  She says: This blog is dedicated to him and to the book I am currently writing about him. “Jake Hanna: The Rhythm and Wit of a Swinging Jazz Drummer,” which will be published in 2012

And the following comes from http://www.jakehanna.com/biography.html

Jake Hanna was born April 4, 1931 in Dorchester MA and began his musical career in the St. Brendan’s Drum and Bugle Corps when he was 8 years old. His drum teacher told his mother he had a natural talent and would go far, though it’s unlikely he could have imagined just how far. He studied the drummers who appeared with the great touring bands of the day when they played Boston’s vaudeville theatres and was well aware of the many talented players in Roxbury. He listened to all the records he could, especially those featuring Jo Jones and Gene Krupa, then the most celebrated drummers in jazz.

By the age of 13, he was developing a name for himself. Most bands had vacancies due to the wartime draft, and he kept busy with local groups and played throughout his years at Dorchester High School for Boys. During the late ’40s and early ’50s he played in bands led by Tommy Reed and Ted Weems. He played in the Air Force band during his entire tour of duty and in the evenings he and his fellow military musicians went into San Antonio clubs where he heard great music and learned a lot about how to play.

After his tour of duty he played his way back to Boston where he was the house drummer at Storyville for a number of years in the 1950s and 1960s when Buck Clayton, Bud Freeman, Pee Wee Russell and Vic Dickenson were in the band, with Jimmy Rushing on vocals. He joined Toshiko Akiyoshi’s trio in Boston in 1957 after studying at the Berklee School of Music, and played summer engagements with her for four years at the Hickory House in New York before transferring to Marian McPartland’s trio at the same venue. To McPartland he was “a pleasure to watch; there is no wasted motion, yet he does everything with a flourish”.

He played with Maynard Ferguson (1958) and Woody Herman’s Orchestra (1962-64) and did extensive work as a studio musician both in and out of jazz, including ten years as the drummer for the Merv Griffin Show big band (1964-75). He recorded numerous albums for Concord Jazz, and his 1975 Grammy-nominated recording of Live at Concord, which he co-led with trombonist Carl Fontana, was the label’s biggest seller up to that point. Hanna, known for his wit as well as his music, referred to it as “Hanna and Fontana with McKenna on piana,” saluting the late Dave McKenna who had a legendary decade-long run at the Copley Plaza piano bar. He later played in Bing Crosby’s personal quartet that toured with him around the world.

Hanna was influential in getting Rosemary Clooney, Scott Hamilton and Woody Herman to record for Concord. He chose the songs and the musicians for Clooney’s first Concord album, 1977’s Everything’s Coming up Rosie, which was instrumental in her comeback of the late 1970s. Hanna played at numerous jazz festivals and parties around the world, and toured and recorded with jazz singer Roberta Gambarini from 2007 to 2010.

Although highly skilled in all aspects of his work, Hanna was one of the most self-effacing drummers in jazz, happy to urge a band along with subtlety and discrete dynamics. Any band with which he played was guaranteed to swing and to have a good time because, apart from his superb musicianship, Hanna was also a witty and gifted raconteur.

He played on more than 250 recordings, from Toshiko Akiyoshi’s 1957Toshiko and Leon Sash at Newport to Roberta Gambarini’s So in Love, nominated for a 2010 Grammy as Best Jazz Vocal Album.

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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. 1738

In the past few days we have seen a couple of then-and-now sets of photos, and it was interesting to compare the exterior appearance of buildings in earlier times with the appearance of today.  Today we have another set.

We saw the Gushee house and barn last week—the house at the dairy on Fuller Street.  Today we show the house as it appeared about 1900 and along with a photo from 2012.  The loss of shutters really changes the appearance of a building.

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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. 1737

An advertisement for rhe newly-built Ridgehaven Inn appeared in the Blue Book of Dorchester for 1913.  The 1910 atlas shows the lot at 143 Tonawanda Street as vacant, so the house was built after the map was prepared but before the 1913 Blue Book was published.  Mrs. Minnie B. Beals, who owned the land prior to the construction of the building, was the proprietor of the Inn.

The lower photo is the appearance as of March 7^th, 2012.

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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. 1736

Photograph published in Services of Dedicaton & Commemoration, Pilgrim Church … October … 1903. This building was later called the Romsey Congregational Church.  The lower photograph is from 2003, showing the building as used by the VFW post—James J. Rice Post 28 VFW.

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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. 1735

It looks as if the Dorchester Day Parade was marching from northern Dorchester to Lower Mills in 1967.  St. Ann’s of Neponset leads the parade through Fields Corner, celebrating the 337 anniversary of the settlement of Dorchester.

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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. 1734

The following article was discovered by Andrew Saxe.
House of Ex-Mayor Fitzgerald Passing from Boston Scene

Boston Globe, April 26, 1939

“Can’t keep it empty,” Says John F. of Place Where Kennedy Courted Rose, and Notables Were Guests

The house at 39 Welles Av., Dorchester, from which a future ambassador to the Court of St. James took his bride, and in which Admiral Togo, Vice President Charles Warren Fairbanks of the United States and Sir Thomas Lipton, owner of the famous racing yachts named Shamrock, were entertained, is passing from the Boston scene.

For a quarter century it was the home of Boston’s ex-Mayor, John F. Fitzgerald, now chairman of the Boston Port Authority.  There his boys and girls grew up and went to school.  There Rose Fitzgerald had her coming-out party, a brilliant occasion; and there Rose lived when she married young Joseph F. Kennedy, the boy from East Boston who never stopped moving, from East Boston to Brookline to Bronxville, to Washington, to Florida; till his last move landed him in the American embassy at Prince’s Gate, London.

“But you can’t keep a house that is empty,” said John F.  “the children are all married, with homes of their own, and Mrs. Fitzgerald and I find it simpler and more central to stay at the Hotel Bellevue in Boston. 

House Damaged, Barn Burned

“For the past five years we have kept the house furnished and gone out there now and then as convenient to stay, but a house cannot be kept that way.  One time the barn burned down; other times damage was done to the windows and things in the house.

“The old place had served our need, given us many happy hours.  Now its time was done.  I retain the land, of course.  Later, perhaps, there will be plans for its use.  Can’t say yet.

“Like everything in Boston, the conditions are changing all the time.  A hundred years ago the section where that house stood was a country resort. Daniel Webster use to spend his Summer vacations out there!

Sir Thomas’ Advice

“I mind me now something Sir Thomas Lipton said to me, sitting on the veranda of the Wells Av. house.  My boys, Tom and Jack, were coming up the driveway.

“ ‘What’ll ye be doin’ with those bhoyes?’” John F. reproduced the old tea magnate’s brogue.

“ ‘School, maybe college,’ I told him,” Mr. Fitzgerald continued.

“ ‘No, no! Make mer-r-chants of them!’ he snapped.

“And Sir Thomas was right. Boston’s greatness was built up by the great merchants before the Civil War, whose ships sailed the seven seas, bringing home cargoes that heaped the wharves and raw products that kept the mills humming.  But when those great fortunes passed into trust estates, the generations that followed were handicapped in free enterprise.  Look at Atlantic Av. today!  Go out and see the market price on downtown Boston real estate.  Sir Thomas was right.  What we need today is merchants!”

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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. 1733

Thinking of spring.

Postcard. Caption on front: Rose Arbor, Rose Garden, Franklin Park, Dorchester, Massachusetts  1082.  Postally unused.  On verso: American Art Post Card Co., Boston, Mass. ca. 1920s

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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

The Architecture of the Railroad Suburb by Andrew Saxe

The arrival of the Old Colony line in 1845 transformed Dorchester from a town of farms and estates into a trove of intriguing Victorian residential architecture.  Boston’s best architects all executed commissions in Dorchester even as they built the Back Bay. Freed from the strictures of townhouse design, these architects created exuberant displays of their craft.  Sadly, nearly all of the grand mansions of Dorchester’s past have fallen, but happily, scores of these Victorian homes have survived and many have enjoyed loving restorations.

Mr. Saxe’s lecture gives historical context to the development of Dorchester, using the Society’s photos of “lost Dorchester” for guidance, but the bulk of lecture is dedicated to the history of extant houses featuring Mr. Saxe’s own, very recent photographs. This talk was given to great reception at the Somerset Club last year. Mr. Saxe has since deepened and expanded it.

The lecture should provide research and insight into the homes we pass every day and deepen our appreciation for this unique American town.