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    Dorchester: Volume II
    Dorchester: Volume II
    Dorchester: Volume II
    Ebook227 pages1 hour

    Dorchester: Volume II

    By Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

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    In Dorchester Volume II, local author Anthony Mitchell Sammarco continues his detailed look at this diverse town that he began in Volume I, which the Boston Globe hailed as a best-seller. Founded in 1630 by Puritans, Dorchester has experienced spectacular growth over the last few centuries; the Old Colony Railroad and later the Red Line provided
    impetus for the quick development of this streetcar suburb. From a town of twelve thousand residents in 1870, when it was annexed to the city of Boston, to one hundred thousand at the turn of the century, Dorchester became home to a quarter of a million people by 1930. The development of the town in the period from 1870 to 1920 saw architects, builders, and residents all working to create a pleasant place to live and work. Dorchester s evolution from a farming community to a vibrant, buzzing town can be seen in the unique form of American architecture developed in Dorchester the three decker, built between the 1890s and World War II, and popular among people of all classes and economic means. The influx of immigrants from countries around the world has given Dorchester a diverse and colorful character, which is the source of pride for many of its residents.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateFeb 16, 2000
    ISBN9781439610428
    Dorchester: Volume II
    Author

    Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

    Anthony Mitchell Sammarco is a noted historian and author of over sixty books on Boston, its neighborhoods and surrounding cities and towns. He lectures widely on the history and development of his native city.

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      Book preview

      Dorchester - Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

      century.

      INTRODUCTION

      This second volume on Dorchester, Massachusetts, was written in regard to the overwhelming response to the first book, which appeared in 1995. It is gratifying to realize that there is a sustaining interest in the history and development of Dorchester, and in this new book I have striven to include aspects of local history that have not previously been covered in depth. I hope that you will enjoy this history and its poignant and often rare photographs and that you will assist me in continuing this series by sharing your photographs and memories with me.

      Founded in 1630, Dorchester remained a rural country town for the next two centuries. However, by the July 4, 1855 celebration commemorating the anniversary of the American Revolution, Edward Everett (1794–1865), the great statesman, orator, and native-born son, delivered a speech to the assembled town residents that made pointed references to the anticipated changes that would sweep Dorchester in the next five decades. Everett said that there are few places, within my knowledge, which within 50 years have undergone greater changes than Dorchester. The population in 1800 was 2,347; in 1850 it was a little short of 8,000. What was then called the Neck [South Boston], the most secluded portion of the old town, although the part which led to its being the first pitched upon as a place of settlement, was in 1804 annexed to Boston; and being united with the city by two bridges, has long since exchanged the retirement of a village for the life and movement of the metropolis. The pickax is making sad ravages upon one of the venerable heights of Dorchester; the entrenchments of the other, no longer masking the deadly enginery of war, are filled with the refreshing waters of Cochituate lake. New roads have been opened in every part of our ancient town, and two railways traverse it from north to south. The ancient houses built before the revolution have not all disappeared, but they are almost lost in the multitude of modern dwellings. The changes occurring in Dorchester in the years previous to 1855 were eclipsed in the next five decades—as this book illustrates.

      For Everett to make pointed reference as to how much Dorchester had changed in 225 years since it was settled by the Puritans was testimony to the great advancements already taking place. With the continued ease of transportation, the Old Colony Railroad and the Midlands Branch of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad traversed Dorchester with depots opening for commuters who worked in Boston, but lived in the country town of Dorchester. In 1856, the Metropolitan Street Railway commenced a horse-drawn streetcar that operated along Dorchester Avenue, connecting the Lower Mills with town; by the beginning of the 20th century, the streetcars that serviced Dorchester created a web of lines that further allowed residential development for the newcomers. In 1870, the population of Dorchester was just over 12,000, and the annexation was the impetus for growth. The proponents of annexation, led by Marshall Wilder, Samuel Downer Jr., Edmund Tileston, William Pope, Franklin King, and William Coffin, saw the annexation of Dorchester to Boston as an important and inevitable step, as annexation will give us a larger and more efficient police . . . better arrangement of highways, projected on a scale comporting with the present and prospective wants of a great city. It will open to us all the valuable educational institutions of the city. It will benefit those who pay large taxes, in their more consistent assessment and equal equalization.... It will furnish an active stimulant to labor of all kinds and lead to the establishment of mills, foundries, and industries of various sorts. We have an abundance of cheap land, which will be sought after by the householders of moderate means. And by annexation we shall avoid a great evil—the possibility of a city organization of our own, to be delivered from which every good citizen should constantly pray.

      On June 22, 1869, the annexation vote carried, but only by a slight margin. This special vote in Dorchester had residents casting 928 in favor of annexation and 726 opposed; with a slight majority of 202, the town of Dorchester ceased to exist and on January 4, 1870, became a ward of the city of Boston. Predictably, the annexation of Dorchester caused the rapid commencement of change, so much so that the values of real estate increased rapidly from 1870 to 1875, which was due to the real estate ‘boom’ which followed the annexation, inflating the prices of land. During the decade from 1870 to 1880, this new ward of Boston saw tremendous change, with new streets opened here and there; estates were divided to give increased opportunities for building; and houses sprang up, as if by magic, to meet the demands of the rapidly increasing number of inhabitants. Dorchester, which had been gradually filling up with strangers who were attracted by the numerous advantages offered by the town, during these years added more names to its already long list of residents who could claim it only as the home of their adoption. In fact, so many new residents of multiethnic extraction came to reside in Dorchester that by the early 1900s, the town might literally have been considered a league of nations. These new residents added an infusion of new blood; by the introduction of a new, healthy, and vigorous population of the native race.

      Today, more than a century after our ancestors voted to annex Dorchester to the city of Boston, our town is a multicolored, multiethnic, multicultural place called home by people of all walks of life. The town’s fascinating history has been widened and enriched by its new residents, who contribute to the rich fabric that weaves together the community that we know and proudly call home—Dorchester.

      The seal of Dorchester was adopted by the town in 1865 as a device that would symbolize the acts which rendered the early settlers of this town a peculiar people, and objects of gratitude and veneration by their descendants for all time to come. A committee consisting of Edmund J. Baker, Edmund Pitt Tileston, and Nathaniel W. Tileston proposed a rising sun with the Blue Hills, the first school, and the thatch-roofed meetinghouse in the foreground.

      One

      BEFORE THE ANNEXATION

      Since 1670, the First Parish Church on Meeting House Hill has been considered the center of Dorchester, with the common in the foreground. Founded in 1630, in Plymouth, England, this church is the oldest religious society in Boston and has a rich and everlasting historical tradition. The church seen here was built in 1816 and was destroyed by a fire in 1896; the present First Parish church was designed by Everett, Cabot, and Mead; it was built in the Colonial Revival style in 1897. On the right is Lyceum Hall, built in 1839; on the left

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