No. 2942 John Tucker’s Harness Shop
The house in the illustration, which still exists, is located behind the stores at 1156 to 1160 Washington Street. It was built in 1798. The atlases indicate that the stores in front of the house were first built after 1889 and before 1894, probably following Tucker’s death in 1892.
John Atherton Tucker operated a harness shop at 1158 Washington Street and lived there much of his life. Later in life, sometime between 1857 and 1861, he moved to 1079 Adams Street.
The house on Washington Street, shown in the illustration, was built by John’s father, Atherton Tucker in 1798. In 1830, Atherton divided the property, apparently keeping a third interest for himself, giving a third to his son, William, and giving John a third interest. John’s portion was described as:
“the south part of the chaise maker’s shop, bounded by the partition as it now stands measuring about 14 feet more or less, the whole of the south chamber over said shop and the whole of the chamber over the same on the third story and the whole of the bedroom in the entry of the third story in the building ceded by and belonging to me, [and] a certain parcel of land hereinafter described, also one third of the cellar on the south side of said building containing two arches and the privilege of passing to and from said rooms and places in a convenient manner. Also one undivided third part of the barn on said land except the paint shop in the south part of the same, measuring fifteen feet in front with the platform adjoining the same, also one undivided third part of the wood house thereon …”
John A. Tucker was born in 1803. At the time of his retirement in 1891, an article in The Dorchester Beacon newspaper stated that John started in business in 1829. The non-population U.S. Census schedules for 1850 and 1860 give the value of his annual production of harnesses as $1,000.
No. 2941 Atherton H. Tucker in Harness Shop