No. 15472 Almond S. Gushee. From Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving club Yearbook. (1905)
The following was published in the The Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club Year Book 1905. Ed. and compiled by Ernest H. Morgan., p. 84
President Almond S. Gushee is a charter member and has been one of the hardest-working and most useful men in the club. He was secretary of the racing and speedway committee for two years and the chairman for three years, and has given very largely of his time in the performance of detail work to further the interest of the club. A proof of his popularity was shown at the first annual banquet of the club, when he was given a handsome and costly chair by the members. Mr. Gushee was born in 1856, in Appleton, Me., and passed his early years on a farm. He had received the ordinary country school education, but, aspiring to something better, came to Boston in 1875 almost penniless, and worked for a year. He then returned to Maine, and taking the money he had earned to pay current expenses, and working for his board, he graduated from the state normal school at Castine, and later taught for two years. He returned to Boston in 1879, and in 1880 began the milk business on the spot where he now lives, at the corner of Washington and Fuller Streets, Dorchester. His early years in business were days of the hardest work, but hard work and honesty brought their reward, and later years have brought more leisure. He likes and drives good horses, and is the owner of Captain Hall, a black pacer with a mark of 2.20 1-4. Captain Hall was the wonder of the day at Marshfield last year, and won the highest encomiums. Few horses owned in the club have more speed. The most famous horse that Mr. Gushee has owned was Trinket (2.14 which held the world’s record for four-year-olds for eight years., being finally dethroned by Jay Eye See, named and then owened by J. I. Case, and which at one time trotted the world-famous Maud S for the world’s championship, losing by a half second. More extended mention of Trinket will be found elsewhere in this volume.
From Earl Taylor – note that the Gushee farm in Dorchester was a large part of the Lemuel Robinson Tavern property, where in 1769 the Sons of Liberty met.]
From: Marilyn Levandoski
Almond Shaw Gushee was my great grandfather (Jonathan was his father). I know he lost an eye from his horse’s whip.
From: Daniel Jenkins
The early immigrants were David and Henri Gachet. Step brothers is incorrect term , should be half – siblings. The two Gashet brothers arrived at Taunton, in the mid-1600s.
A grandson married Hannah Staples, great-granddaughter of Myles Standish in 1741 and raised a large family. The family removed to Appleton [McLain’s Mills], Knox , Maine, and established a large presence there at Gushee’s Corner. Many were Quakers and later converted to Baptist .
Almond Shaw Gushee was born Appleton 1856 son of Jonathoan Shaw Gushee. He married Ida [Smith] at Union, Maine, 1880 and they removed to Dorchester, where he established the Gushee Dairy.
They had 3 sons, Almond Elwood, Chester Ward, and William.
By his second wife Therese Louise Peters he had Charles H., who attended Harvard as did son William. Charles H. became a financial advisor and publisher. William became a grocer.
The cows were originally pastured at Fuller St.; In 1911 Almond E. Gusheed purchased 11 acres of land at 79 and 93 Hillside St., Milton, formerly part of the Samuel Russell Estate. Almond Shaw Gushee died in 1922.
At this point looks like after several subdivisions and re-numberings, Chester is left with house at 104 Fuller St., the bottling plant, and an area of vegetable garden and roadside stand.
The Great Depression put the family fortunes on a decline. Then the Fuller St. bottling plant was destroyed in an explosion abt. 1941, and that ended the Gushee Milk Co.
Dave has revealed that his father Almond E. ended his days as a deliveryman for White Brothers Milk .
From Charlie O’Hara 2/6/2012
In regards to the Gushee Farm Dairy, one of the Gushee family homes still stands and is a small Victorian house at 104 Fuller Street. It is the 3rd house just west of the foot path that leads from Fuller Street into the Woodrow Wilson School yard. The first two houses are 3 families [at nos. 98 and 102] and then the 3rd one is the Gushee’s. Just east of the foot path stand two small 1950–1960 Cape houses # 90 & 94 where the barn and bottling plant were located. As a boy attending the Woodrow Wilson School in the early 1940’s I, along with other students, would stop at the barn, which was always open and we would feed the horses our lunch apples. It was a small operation with only two or three milk delivery wagons of the kind with small truck wheels and rubber tires similar to those used by the Hood and Whiting milk