No. 5316 Mattapan Bank, painting on brick
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 Mattapan Bank, located at Harrison Square was incorporated in 1849. Its first president was Edward King, the Boston businessman who purchased the estate named Rosemont from Captain Macondray (see brick 22). It appears that the brick painting and a vignette on the 1850 Whiting map are the only pictorial representations of the bank building in existence.
No. 9940 Mattapan Bank from 1850 Whiting map of Dorchester
No. 5296 Detail from 1858 Walling map of Norfolk County. The Mattapan Bank and a Savings Bank both seem to be in the same building on Exchange Street, which today is an industrial park. Orcutt mentions both banks on p. 650 of Good Old Dorchester.
The Mattapan Bank, located at Harrison Square (just east of Field’s Corner), was incorporated in 1849. Its first president was Edward King, the Boston businessman who purchased the estate named Rosemont from Captain Frederick William Macondray. King made his fortune in the paint and drug business. He was president of the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad, and he bought much of the land at Harrison Square and subdivided it for development. In 1856 Charles Carruth became President of the Mattapan Bank. He was a younger brother of Nathan Carruth, and the Carruths were also in the paint and drug business. Nathan later became known as a railroad pioneer, due to his presidency of the Old Colony Railroad. He devoted energy and capital to the introduction of railway lines in Massachusetts and in other New England states.
Frederick Beck was the cashier of the Mattapan Bank. He wrote: “None of the directors knew anything at all about a bank. It was necessary then to have one-half the capital in gold, $50,000.00, and that I borrowed myself of Foster, of the Grocers’ Bank. This I carted out to the bank in Dorchester; it was counted there by the Commissioners, kept overnight, and returned to the Grocers’ Bank the next day. I carried on that whole bank for about two years …”
Source of quote from Beck:
Conover, Charlotte Reeve. A History of the Beck Family Together with a Genealogical Record of the Alleyes and the Chases from Whom They Are Descended. (Dayton: Privately Printed, 1907), 75.
Source of Carruth’s presidency: The Bankers Magazine and Statistical Register, Volume 10. (New York: J. Smith Homans, 1856), 650.