Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1930

Today we have a photo of an ornament on the Pierce Mill at the Baker Chocolate factory.

The following is from: http://www.bostonhistory.org/sub/bakerschocolate/SWEET_HISTORY_2005.pdf

Built: 1872 – Original

Designed by: Bradlee and Winslow

Named for: Henry Lillie Pierce, fifth owner of Baker’s

Style: Second Empire

Construction: Three-story, brick, mansard roof

Henry Pierce built the Pierce Mill (also called the Main Building or Mill No. 4) to expand all areas of production. This massive building, with its 20-inch-thick brick walls, originally included a basement to cool and pack chocolate, a floor for cocoa mixing and preparation, a packaging and storage area, a shipping office, and the large tower that housed Henry Pierce’s office. Directly behind the Pierce Mill stood the Steam Mill (sometimes called the Boiler House). The five-story, brick Steam mill, completed in 1868, housed the first steam engine used at Baker’s. Up until this new invention, mills relied on the power harnessed from water wheels.

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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. 1929

We have received word that a permit application has been filed to demolish the house at 13 River Street.  The application will be the subject of a demolition delay hearing (no date set) at the Boston Landmarks Commission after the applicants hold a public meeting in the neighborhood to discuss the demolition.

The following is from the Area form for Lower Mills West prepared for the Commission in 1994.  The Tileston House at 13 River Street was built ca. 1770 and ranks among the oldest houses in the Lower Mills West area. Although altered by vinyl siding, this house’s distinctive 5-bay, 2-pile, gambrel roof form provides clues to its early origins. During the 19th century, this building was owned and occupied by Charles Tileston whose stove, heating, and plumbing store was next door on the very busy corner of River and Washington 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. 1928

Question regarding:  “Home Hamburgers” at the foot of the Neposet Bridge (Now a Sozio appliance store).  To your knowledge did Home Hamburgers have any other locations?  Do you know who owned Home Hamburgers?

Today’s illustration is a photo of another venerable institution — the sign for Simco’s on Blue Hill Avenue.

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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. 1927

Waiting room at the corner of Norfolk and Nelson Streets. ca 1900.  Owned at that time by the West End Street 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. 1926

Scan of photograph owned by the Dorchester Historical Society of a store at the corner of Fuller Street and Dorchester Avenue.  Pencil date 1878. Building has sign: Silva Building.  Written on back: 1878 Store corner of Fuller Street and Dorcester Avenue, Ashmont, the only store between Milton Lower Mills and Fields Corner.  John A.Hall, 9 Butler , Dorchester, Mass. The building was located at the south side of the intersection.

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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. 1925

Founded in 1895 by George Henderson, Dorchester Pottery Works successfully produced commercial and industrial stoneware for many years. Dorchester Pottery’s wares evolved over the years from primarily agricultural products to decorated tablewares.
When Henderson died in 1928, his son, Charles, and daughter-in-law, Ethel Hill Henderson, took over the business. Ethel had been a clothing and design teacher at Dorchester High School, and it was she who in 1940 introduced the Pottery’s line of distinctive gray and blue tableware.

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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. 1924

Scan of illustration from King’s Hand-Book of Boston. Boston: Moses King Corporation, 1889. 9th ed. King’s Hand-Book says that the Consumptives Home Grove Hall was incorporated in 1870, six years after it was founded by Dr. Charles Cullis, who is still the manager.

“Grove Hall has gained a fame all through this country and others as occupying a unique and unrivalled position in the treatment and cure of a disease hitherto regarded as incurable. The originator and manager is Dr. Charles Cullis, and under his able direction this institution, incorporated in 1870, has grown steadily until it has attained its present preeminence. It has relied entirely on voluntary contributions, and from this source around $600,000 have now been received, and nearly 2,000 patients have received treatment. The main building, known as the Consumptives Home, is a large and elegant mansion, capable of accommodating eighty patients. There are other buildings, including two homes for children, one for those suffering from diseases of the spine, and a free chapel. When we remember that this great work was begun entirely without funds, and that no solicitation for aid has ever been made, but what has come has been voluntary, no wonder that Dr. Cullis calls it a work of faith, and believes in answer to prayer. The system which has been maintained since the beginning has been that of the famous Orphan Asylum of Muller, and it admits all poor persons sick with consumption, without home or friends, whether white or black, old or young, foreign or native. The success and fame of this noble work is no less an honor to Dorchester, than it is an unmeasured blessing to thousands suffering from this scourge of New England which has been combatted so unsuccessfully in the past. That it will continue to grow in prosperity is no less the desire than the assurance of all who have known it.”

in Historical Sketch of Dorchester. From: Leading Business Men of Back Bay, South End, Boston Highlands, Jamaica Plain and Dorchester.  Published 1888 Mercantile Publishing Company, Boston.

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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. 1923

Bronze plaque in Watertown.  Another plaque describes the scene depicted:

Here landed Roger Clap and the Dorchester men, June, 1630.

We went up Charles River, until the river grew narrow and shallow, and there we landed our goods with much labor and toil, the bank being steep.  And night coming on, we were informed that there were hard by us three hundred Indians.  One Englishman that could speak the Indian language, (an old Planter) went to them and advised them not to come near us in the night, and they harkened to his counsel and came not.  In the morning some of the Indians came and stood at a distance off, looking at us but came not near us.  But when they had been a while in view, some of them came and held out a great bass towards us so we sent a man with a biscuit and changed the cake for the bass.  We had not been there many days, though by our diligence we had got up a kind of shelter to save our goods in, but we had order to come away from that place which was about Watertown unto a place called Mattapan, now Dorchester, because there was a neck of land fit to keep our cattle on.

From Roger Clap’s narrative.  Erected by the Historical Society of Watertown, 1947.

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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. 1922

Folded card with slots to hold dimes. Turn your chicken feed into a golden nest egg. Dorchester Savings Bank. copyright 1955.

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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