No. 5322 Painting of the Sarah Baker House on the face of a brick from the house.
Edward A. Huebener, a former Board member of the Dorchester Historical Society, was a collector of materials relating to Dorchester history including a very large collection of graphic materials, including prints and photographs, now owned by the Society. His very own contribution to this group of materials was the idea of taking a brick from a house that had been demolished and asking a local illustrator to paint a picture of the house upon the brick. The painted bricks may be viewed at the Dorchester Historical Society.
The Sarah Baker House was located on Savin Hill.
No. 21918 Detail from 1858 Walling Map of Norfolk County indicating to properties owned by Miss Baker
No. 1948 Photograph in the collection of the Dorchester Historical Society noted as being taken May 14, 1901, #151.
No. 1947 Photograph in the collection of the Dorchester Historical Society. Noted as the Sarah Baker House or Captain Baker House who served under Washington 1770-1773 who called at the house.
Sarah Baker was a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church near Lower Mills from early years until her death in 1866. She lived next to that church for a long time, finally moving to her early home at Savin Hill. Miss Baker conducted a band-box business for forty years, and when she had gathered $5,000, she invested the money. She left this investment in her will so that at the end of twenty years, the money would be given to the Methodist Church to build a new house of worship no more than three-fourths of a mile from her Savin Hill home. The money became available in 1886, at which time no church existed within the required limit.
In 1899 the Trustees of the New England Conference asked the Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church on Howard Avenue, Roxbury, to disband and add the proceeds of the sale of its property to the Baker estate. The church was reorganized at Upham’s Corner, and its first meetings were held in Winthrop Hall opposite the site of the proposed church. The site chosen was found to be nineteen feet outside the required limit, and special permission was obtained from the Court to use the Baker bequest. The money had grown to $22,642, and it contributed substantially to the construction of the Baker Memorial Church, which opened in June, 1891.
There is a story that in her bequest Ms. Baker said that if the church ever fell into disuse beacause of a lack of congregation that the church could be used only as a stable for horses and could never be sold to the Catholic Church. Perhaps that is the reason the church was demolished even though it seems to have been available when St. Kevin’s was looking for a site in the 1940s. St. Kevin’s ended up in a telephone company building.
Sources:
Chaffee, John R. The History of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts. (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1917.)
Dorchester Old and New, 1630-1930. Dorchester: (Chapple Publishing Company for the Dorchester, Massachusetts, Tercentenary Committee, 1930.)
Our Golden Jubilee, 1891-1941. (Dorchester: Baker Memorial Methodist Church, 1941.)