No. 21516 Blue Hill Bank building, 1110 Washington Street, 2021
The Blue Hill Bank building at the corner of Washington Street and Richmond Street was built for the bank and, later, became a municipal building for the City of Boston, housing a branch library and a police station. It is now a private residence.
The Dorchester and Milton Bank was chartered by the State, March 17, 1832, with $100,000 captial and with Moses Whitney as prsident. It was located in the Tolman Building on Washington Street. June 1, 1850, the vaults were robbed of $31,921. The name was changed to Blue Hill Bank, March 28, 1851. Asaph Churchill became president in October, 1853, and the name became The Blue Hill Bank of Dorchester. A national charter was granted October 3, 1864. A second robbery occurred in September, 1867, when $10,000 was taken and Mr. Bispham gagged and bound.
A new brick building was erected for the bank in 1871 on the location of the former Darius Brewer estate, at the corner of Washington and Richmond Streets. E.J. Bispham became president and S.J. Willis cashier in 1876. The name was changed to The Blue Hill National Bank of Milton in 1882, when the bank’s operations were moved to the Associates Building, Milton.
In 1883, the building at the corner of Richmond Street was sold to the City of Boston. Station 11 of the Police Department was for a long while located here. The building is now [1917] used for the Lower Mills branch of the Boston Public Library.”
The police station was known as Number 19 or the Mattapan Station.
In the 1980s Lower Mills built a new branch library building, and this brick building went into private ownership. The City conveyed the building to a woman from Milton, Nancy Owens Hess, and she rehabbed it for her small business, China Educational Tours, so it’s initial re-use was office space with no residential component. Michael Sand purchased it from Nancy and used it as his home and space for his museum exhibit design business. Jim Scherer bought it from Michael and has used it as a photo studio. His photographs of food often appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine.
No. 2449 Police Station and Library , Dorchester, Lower Mills, postcard with postmark August 27, 1907.
Built 1871.
No. 2689
No. 915 Stock certificate