Dorchester

Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 1995
• Print ISBN: 9780738537993
• eBook ISBN: 9781439616154
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia nordamericana

Renowned local historian and author Anthony Mitchell Sammarco has brought together more than two hundred compelling images of the town of Dorchester, showing the events, places, and faces that defined Dorchester during the exciting period between its annexation to Boston in 1870 and the early 1920s. Dorchester was settled in 1630 by Puritans from England, and for over two hundred years it remained a small farming community. However, the arrival of the Old Colony Railroad brought first a flood of wealthy new residents from the city of Boston, and soon a second wave of newly-arrived immigrants who introduced a new diversity and vibrancy to the area. The photographs in this book show a community which has constantly embraced change and diversity without losing its sense of tradition and pride in its heritage. They bring to life the history of such neighborhoods as Meeting House Hill, Grove Hall, Codman Square, Pope's Hill, and Neponset, showing buildings long gone and many that are still familiar features of the local landscape, as well as busy streetscenes and images of Dorchester residents at work and play during fifty key years of the town's history.

Five

Upham’s Corner

Upham’s Corner was the junction of Boston (now Columbia Road), Dudley, and Stoughton Streets. The general store, kept by Amos Upham, was a Federal house that was converted to commercial purposes in 1802.

The Swan House was designed by Charles Bulfinch as a summerhouse for James and Hepzibah Clarke Swan. Built at the corner of Dudley and Howard Streets, it was an impressive house with a decidedly French feeling. Mrs. Swan received the Marquise de Lafayette here in 1824, when he made his triumphant tour in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution.

The Humphreys House had stood at the corner of Dudley and Humphreys Streets since 1634, with additions being made over the next two centuries. By 1918, the house was a virtual museum of Humphrey family memorabilia. The encroachment of commercialism, in the early twentieth century, forced the Humphreys to move to Brookline, but not before the interior of the Humphreys House was photographed. Ironically, portions of the house were re-used in a new house on Fayerweather Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Morton-Taylor House was designed by Charles Bulfinch for his cousin Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton and her husband, Perez Morton. A noted writer, Mrs. Morton wrote A Power of Sympathy here, which is considered America’s first novel. The house, a distinguished Georgian mansion, stood at the corner of Dudley and Burgess Streets.

The Carriage House and the greenhouses of the Morton-Taylor House ran along Dudley Street.

The “Steamboat House,” so named as it was thought to resemble one, was at the corner of Pleasant Street and Sawyer Avenue. Built in 1804, the house later had additions made for new rooms. By the 1880s, brick row houses had been built on Pleasant Street facing the house, and in 1916 the “Steamboat House” was demolished and three-deckers built on its site.

The Stoughton Tomb at the Old North Burying Ground was erected after the death of Governor William Stoughton in 1701. He bequeathed his estate to Harvard College, where Stoughton Hall was erected and perpetuates his name.

The Old North Burying Ground was laid out in 1634 as a “five rod square enclosure.” The Puritans who settled Dorchester are buried here, as well as Governors Stoughton and Tailor, General Humphrey Atherton of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and generations of families.

“Uncle” Daniel Davenport was the sexton of the First Parish Church and the gravedigger at the Old North Burying Ground. He dug fellow-townsmens’ graves for forty-nine years, and even prepared his own years before it was needed. He was succeeded by his son, William Davenport.

“Oakland” was the home of Robert Chamblet Hooper, a Boston merchant, who had Luther Briggs Jr. design his house on a hill just west of Upham’s Corner. The estate was large, and was later subdivided, with Lingard, Hooper, Chamblet, Half Moon, and Robin Hood Streets being laid out through the former...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• From Farming Town to City Annex
• One - Savin Hill and Glover’s Corner
• Two - Grove Hall
• Three - Edward Everett Square
• Four - Meeting House Hill
• Five - Upham’s Corner
• Six - Field’s Corner and Commercial Point
• Seven - Codman Square
• Eight - Pope’s Hill and Cedar Grove
• Nine - Lower Mills
• Ten - Peabody Square
• Eleven - Franklin Park and Franklin Field
• Acknowledgments