Agricultural Pursuits
William Clapp and his sons were involved in the hybridization of apples and pears, and the lands north of the Clapp House were cultivated as a fruit orchard as early as 1810.
Around 1839 William and his sons embarked on a program to turn the farmstead into a modern agricultural business. While the main focus was on their orchards, part of the plan included expanding dairy production.
Before the Civil War, the most important dairy product was butter, not milk. New England cream was unmatched for its superior butterfat content, and the region’s butter and cheeses were highly prized. In 1806, when newlyweds William and Elizabeth set up housekeeping, they probably kept three or four milk cows to meet the needs of their household. The dairy herd was later expanded as a result of the planning process at the end of the 1830s. The construction of the addition at the rear of the house may have been a result of this planning process as well.
Butter and cheese were processed in the basement of the “new wing.” After the milking was done, hired dairymaids separated the butter from the raw cream using an efficient paddle churn. The butter was salted, put up in wooden tubs, and stored in an insulated tin-lined cooler until it was sent to market. Cheese was aged in the same cellar room.
The dairy remained a small local operation, but not so the orchard business. The Clapps were among a number of farmers in Dorchester and Roxbury experimenting with improved varieties of vegetables and fruits. From Frederick’s diary of 1847-51, we know that the family cultivated potatoes, beets, beans, rutabagas, and corn. These were well-established staple crops and not particularly innovative. The real interest of the brothers was in cultivating new varieties of fruit trees, especially pears. They also grew plums, strawberries, currants, and many other types of berries. They became very successful, even shipping plants to Europe.
Each of William Clapp’s sons contributed to the success of the fruit buisnness. Thaddeus, who had studied at Harvard College, was the scientist. He experimented with manyhybids, pbulsihed his findings in scientific farming journals and earned a reputation in horticultural circles. A ccording to family tradition, Lemuel had the honor of planting the first Clapp’s Favoriet pear seed. H essms to hav e been the manger of the business, settling wages, hiring workers and keeping accounts.
Frederick was the real farmer of the team. He could be found hang, plaing crops, improving root cellars and tending animals. He even cultivated a peach ordhard. However, New England farms declined after the civil War, and the business decined. By 1884, Frederick’s son Edward Blake Clapp, a florist, had strnasormed the farm into a local nursery complex focusing on green-house cultivated flowrs while his cousin William Channing Clapp maintained a small family dairy.
During the early 19th century, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society was supported by the local gentry of Dorchester and other Boston-area towns. William Clapp and his sons, Lemuel, Frederick and Thaddeus, all joined the new society and submitted their fruits for the annual award
The Clapp Favorite Pear was developed by the Clapp family in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in the 19th century as a hybrid of the Bartlett and the Flemish Beauty pears. During the early part of the 19th century, the family began extensive horticultural research. William and his sons Thaddeus, Frederick and Lemuel developed many types of fruit on this estate, which stretched on the west to the South Bay and on the east many acres toward Dorchester Avenue. Many of the streets that were developed as the estate was subdivided were named for pear varieties including Harvest, Bellflower and Dorset. The Clapp’s Favorite is still in production today
3627
Clapp’s Favorite Pear
Photo reproduction of hand-colored print
M. Deweys Series. Colored from Nature
American, ca. 1870
The Clapp’s Favorite was the most commercially successful of the pears develop here on the clapp farm. It is a hybrid of the Flemish Beauty and the local Bartlett per. Created by Thaddeus Clapp, in collaboration with his father and brothers, Clapp’s Favorite pear was available commercially by 1840. It even received acclaim in Europe. In fact, the pear was so admired theat, hyoping to name it after another important Dorchester horticulturist, Marshall P. Wilder, the Massachusetts Agricultural Club offered the family $1,000 (a princely sum in those days) for the rights to control cultivation. The family refused the offer.
“The Clapp’s Favorite pear, mentioned above, was greatly desired by the Massachusetts Agricultural Club, who wished to name it after the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, and to disseminate it for general cultivation. the offered Mr. Clapp one thousand dollars for the control of it, but the offer was declined.” (William Dana Orcutt. Good Old Dorchester. ((Cambridge, 1893), 449))
The creation of the “Clapp’s Favorite Pear” in 1840 was a local marvel that proved profitable for the Clapps. The Clapp’s Favorite Pear was the hybridization of the Flemish Beauty Pear and the Bartlett Pear. The fact that it was an early ripening pear made the fruit available in mid to late August, at a time when fruits were thought to have medicinal qualities and relatively short periods of shelf life. Several of the streets in the St Margaret’s / Boston Street area were named for pears grown on the Clapp estate, including Mount Vernon, Harvest, and Dorset Streets.
Each of William Clapp’s sons contributed to the success of the fruit business. Thaddeus, who had studied at Harvard College, was the scientist. He experimented with many hybrids, published his findings in scientific farming journals, and earned a reputation in horticultural circles. According to family tradition, Lemuel had the honor of planting the first Clapp’s Favorite Pear seed. He seems to have been the manager of the business, setting wages, hiring workers, and keeping accounts. Frederick was the real farmer of the team. He could be found haying, planting crops, improving root cellars, and tending animals. He even cultivated a peach orchard. However, New England farms declined after the Civil War, and the business declined. By 1884, Frederick’s son Edward Blake Clapp, a florist, had transformed the farm into a local nursery complex focusing on green-house cultivated flowers, while his cousin William Channing Clapp maintained a small dairy.
24984
Advertisement
Photo reproduction of printed handbill
Dorchester, mid 19th century
Clapp Family Papers, DHS Archives
24985
Cheese Press
Reproduction of a wood engraving, ca. 1860
Cheese was produced using a press. Milk curds were slowly pressed in cloth-lined wooden rounds for up to 18 days. When the excess moisture had been squeezed out, the wheels of hard cheese were aged, then sent to market.
5307
Grazing Cows
Photograph by Arthur C. Clapp
Taken on June 20, 1916
Clapp Family Papers, DHS Archives
Farmhand John Corley at the cowbarn. Milk was sold to local families into the 20th century. The caption notes the “Rear of Aunt Catherine’s house an be seen”—we now it today as the Lemuel Clap House.
7395
Cow Barn. Looking west from the carriage house, this view shows two men with rakes and a hay mound.
Photograph by Arthur C. Clapp
Taken in June 1913
Capp Family Papers, DHS Archives
Looking west from the carriage house, this view shows two men with rakes and a hay mound.
24987
Insurance Atlas Map
Published by G W. Bromley
Philadelphia, 1918
Our farm is the property at Boston Street and Willow Court owned by William Channing Clapp. By 1918, the orchards across the street had been transformed into a residential neighborhood of modest homes. Frederick’s son, Edward Blake Clapp, expanded the greenhouses on the property to the north.
24990
Diary
Photo reproduction of manuscript page
September 1891
Clapp Family Papers, DHS Archives
Frederick Clapp documented the daily work on the farm and in the tannery. Here, in early fall, cider making is a major activity. Three dsay are devoted to getting bark, which provided the tannin used in the leather-making process.
Note the 17th of the month, when Frederick, his father-in-law, and his boys go to Boston to see the President of thye United States. President Millard Fillmore came to town to celebrate the “Railroad Jubilee,” which commemorated the completion of a railroad between Boston and Canada. Fillmore stepped off the train at the Harrison Square station Dorchester and was escorted by Boston Lancers and procession of Dorchester children alon the road into Boston.
24983
Framed photograph showing the Ebenezer Clapp House on Willow Court. This house was built May 15, 1750, by Ebenezer Clapp (father of Colonel Ebenezer Clapp). During the early part of the Revolutionary struggle leading up to the fortification of Dorchester Heights, colonial soldiers were quartered in the house.
Nineteenth Century Social Changes
William Clapp was born in 1779 and Elizabeth in 1783. The Federal-era generation of which they were a part had been raised to aspire to economic prosperity and social mobility.
While skilled tradesmen such as William Clapp were proud to be part of the prosperous class of “mechanics,” they hoped for more for their sons. With hard work and the right connections, young men could expect to rise quickly in society in the Federal era. Upwardly-mobile families like the Clapps educated their sons to be part of a growing professional class and prepared their daughters to be the wives of such young men.
The Clapp House was spacious, but it quickly filled to overflowing. Elizabeth bore nine children between 1808 and 1821. Two died in infancy, but seven lived at least into their teens. It was common to lose children to childhood diseases or accidents, and Elizabeth must have felt extremely lucky to have the majority of her children remain healthy. Sadly, the three youngest – Rebecca, aged 21; James, aged 19; and Alexander, aged 17 – died within four days of each other when typhoid swept through Dorchester in 1838. It was a devastating blow to the family.
About this time, young Lemuel, who was engaged to be married, supervised the addition of a new kitchen and servant wing onto the rear of the house, partly in response to the family’s plans to expand their agricultural business. Lemuel and his bride Charlotte Tuttle moved into the mansion house in 1840. As his siblings married and moved out, Lemuel remained to raise his family and care for his aging parents. Frederick and his new wife Martha Blake built next door.
In the 1830s Dorchester was still a small town of about 2,000 families. William’s adult children socialized within a small circle of extended family and old Dorchester families. The children sometimes attended lectures and musical program and were occasionally taken into Boston for special events. Much of their social and political life revolved around the church. While the Clapps were nominally Congregationalists, as members of the First Parish they practiced the popular “new religion” (Unitarianism). Perhaps influenced by their liberal pastors, the Clapps supported a number of progressive causes. They were especially ardent abolitionists, aligning themselves with the “Garrisonians,” the most extreme branch of the anti-slavery activists in New England.
8394
Martha Ann Kingman Clapp and William Channing Clapp
William Channing Clapp married Martha Ann Kingman on June 19, 1867.
Frank Lemuel Clapp was born on June 2, 1871, to Martha and William Channing Clapp. He married Ruth Elizabeth (Bessie) Browne on November 25, 1903. Frank died in 1953.
The Dorchester Historical Society acquired the Clap/Clapp houses in the 1940s from Frank Lemuel Clapp, whose wife had died earlier. Frank was a loyal supporter of the Dorchester Historical Society and remained as caretaker until his death in 1953.
8388
Frank Lemuel Clapp and Ruth Elizabeth Browne Clapp
Photo taken October 1948 by Mrs. Jemima J. Robertson.
Back to: