James Humphreys Clapp, 1851-1913
James Humphreys Clapp was born October 18, 1851. He was the youngest child and son of Lemuel Clapp 2nd (b. 1815) who is credited with planting the original seed of the first “Clapp’s Favorite” pear. JHC’s mother was Charlotte Tuttle Clapp. There is an 1858 tin type of the parents, taken when the boy JHC was just 6 or 7 years old.
When the 1860 US census was taken, the household of Lemuel Clapp 2nd and Charlotte was profiled, and the 2 parents, 4 kids, and evidently an older Clapp mother all lived on the property– 7 people total. LC2’s real estate value was $22,500–a large sum in those days. JHC was a boy of just 8 years old then, on the eve of the Civil War.
In 1865, some person, probably a small boy, carved the date “1865” into a wood spin-latch to a door in one of the tack rooms in the barn. Most likely this was JHC who was practicing his whittling. He turned 14 that year the Civil War ended. His 3 older sisters probably weren’t allowed to carry jack-knives, and his only older brother, Wm. Channing Clapp, was 22 in 1865–probably too old to do the wood-whittling thing.
In 1870, although his father Lemuel was still a “Farmer”, JHC tried something else that year. He was “M, Shoe Store” (manager of a shoe store?) as was also Edward J. Howe who lived a few doors away. JHC was 18 then, in the year 1870 when the census-taker came around. 1870 was the year of Dorchester’s annexation by Boston.
In 1880, James H. Clapp still resided on the property–and his occupation was now “Farmer” like that of his father, Lemuel. I’m guessing that the stencil tacked on to the side of the sleigh might have originally been made and crafted about this time–perhaps to mark boxes of fruit that both
JHC and his father produced from the orchards. The unusual fact that most of the barn basement probably by this time had a plastered ceiling also suggests there may have been food-handling downstairs–and they didn’t want dust, dirt or old hay, etc. from upstairs to trickle through the
floor boards and pollute their commercial food products–then being dried, packaged, etc.
JHC was a robust and energetic 28 years old at this time (1880) and perhaps he too was responsible for crafting some of the ingenius ladder “cases” used for protecting the integity of the fruit ladders so important to their business. Although JHC was the only young Clapp on the property at this time, he shared the house with his parents, and a whole bunch of Cushings–which included his older sister Sarah, her husband, and their two boys–Austin A. Cushing and Robert Cushing–who were in-laws, grand-children, and cousins of the Clapps.
By 1900, JHC changed occupations to sell “Real Estate”. No doubt he was cashing in from the increased Dorchester r.e. values after annexation. The census says he was 48 in 1900. Perhaps a bunch of the sleds and things in the barn survive from those turn-of-the-century days, and were kept for the younger kids to have winter fun with (where was the nearest hill?)
By 1908, Clark’s Blue Book of Boston lists “Mr. James H. Clapp” as the ONLY OWNER of 195 Boston Street. In 1911, “James H. Clapp…Dorchester” joined the New England Hist. Gen.
Society–clearly gaining a growing interest in history as he too got older.
The 1900 U.S. Census reported that the occupants of 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, that year were James H. Clapp and Julia E. Clapp, 57, a boarder. James’s occupation was real estate. The 1910 Census calls him John, and he was the sole occupant of 195 Boston Street.
James Humphrey Clapp died on February 11, 1913.
Obituary in Boston Evening Transcript, February 12, 1913
Of an Old Dorchester Family
James H. Clapp Always Had Lived on the Farm Where He Was Born and Which His Father Made Famous
James H. Clapp, of Dorchester, who died on Tuesday at the New England Baptist Hospital. after a brief illness, at the age of sixty-one years, was of an old-time Dorchester family which always has been prominently identified with that place. He was a son of the late Lemuel Clapp, famous as a horticulturist, and his mother was Charlotte Tuttle Clapp. Mr. Clapp was born on the family farm on Boston Street and always had resided there. This farm originally was of great extent, and it was there that his father followed horticulture. Gradually, with the march of progress. it has been converted into many streets with numerals houses built thereon, so that the original farmhouse now is surrounded by only a comparatively small part of the original land.
Mr. Clapp, until a few years ago, carried on the farm, hut of late had lived a retired life. He was a member of the Unitarian Parish in Dorchester and was a regular attendant at church. He belonged to the Unitarian Club and to the Sons of the American Revolution. He was a bachelor and is survived by a brother, William Channing Clapp of Dor.