No. 5205 Toll House on Brush Hill Turnpike, 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 toll House was located on Blue Hill Avenue and Madison Street, now Morton Street.
No. 22073 Detail from 1850 Whiting map of Dorchester showing the Toll House.
Dorchester Old and New says that the Brush Hill Turnpike is now Blue Hill Avenue.
Frederic J. Wood in The Turnpikes of New England corroborates this and offers the following. The Brush Hill Turnpike Corporation built its road between Davenports Corner, near the west end of Blue Hill Avenue in Milton and near the four mile stone in Roxbury near the dwelling house of Ebenezer Seaver:
Beginning at said Davenports Corner, by the most favorable route, to the Upper Bridge, so-called near Boies’ Mills, fro thence, by the most favorable route, at or near the said four-mile stone.
No. 2293 Photograph in the collection of the Dorchester Historical Society
Wood cites Teele’s History of Milton in describing a town meeting at which it was voted that we do highly disapprove of a turnpike being made from the road at the west end of the Blew Hills to the upper bridge, as petitioned by Samuel Leonard and others. Despite this disapproval the road was completed by 1809. An act was passed in 1810 prohibiting this turnpike from collecting toll from anyone on military duty, on religious duty, coming to or from any grist mill, or on the common or ordinary business of family concerns, or from anyone who had not been out of town with a loaded team or carriage.
Wood says: It is hard at the present time to see what prospects of financial success this road ever had. It was not projected as a through route to any large place. Beyond Mattapan, which was but nothing then, the route led through and ended in unbroken woods. Another turnpike, the Stoughton, was authorized a year later, which commenced two miles south of the southerly end of the Brush Hill Turnpike, thus opening a through route from Boston to Taunton except for the two mile stretch between pikes.
Sources:
Dorchester Old and New, 1630-1930. (Dorchester: Dorchester Tercentenary Commitee, 1930)
Wood, Frederic J. The Turnpikes of New England. (Pepperell, MA: Branch Line Press, 1997. Originally published in 1919.)