Paintings and Objects in the Meeting Room
24978
Portrait of Mary Blake Williams
Painted 1848
Gift of Mrs. Edwin B. Anderson, 1922
The portrait of Mary Blake Williams was painted four years before her death. Mary lived on Boston Neck, the daughter of Thomas Blake and Mary Barnard.
She was born January 30, 1794, and married Moses Williams, a tallow maker in Boston, on Dec. 22, 1818. Her father fought in the American Revolution. Moses
Williams and Mary Blake Williams lived in Jamaica Plain in later life.
24979
Quilt made by Ina Nenortas of Alban Street.
8604
Painting of Commercial Point
Painted circa 1840. Gift of Miss Margaret Preston.
Description from an exhibit catalog, Portraits of New England Places, Twenty-
fifth Anniversary Exhibition. (Waterville, Colby College Museum of Art, 1984)
Dorchester scene. The painting shows the area of Dorchester where the huge, colorful gas tank is now located near the Expressway. The painting reveals a scene of a residential and commercial area, called in the 1700s Preston’s Point and also Captain’s Point. It was home port to a fleet of whaling and fishing ships. The twin neoclassical mansions at center were located where the Dorchester gas tank stands, today. They were commissioned from the architect Charles Bulfinch by Joseph Newell and Ebenezer Niles who were East India traders. They started the industrial development on the Point. Their enterprises in the South Sea Islands took them to the Island of Tinian from which derives the name: “Tenean Beach”, today. The towers off to the left are the Perkins School for the blind, a little more toward center is the Hawes Church of East 4th Street.
TPreston family, owners of the Point in the 18th century. The painting was displayed in Margaret Preston’s house on the corner of Park and Ashland Streets in what is now known as Clam Point, formerly Harrison Square.
24980
Portrait of Isaac Bonnell
Bonnell’s daughter was Jemima Bonnell Robinson who lived in the William Clapp House as Frank Clapp’s housekeeper until the 1950s when Mr. Clapp passed away. She lived to be 104 years old and remembered the Society in its growing stages. Given to the Society by Jemima Bonnell Robinson. Bonnell was the father of Mrs. Olivia Howes, Mrs. Sam C. Dunham and Mrs. Jemima J. Robinson (or Robertson), all of whom probably worked for the Clapps.
Mantel Clock
Gift of a resident of Westmoreland Street ca. 1990
24997
Three very large wooden shipping boxes from the Walter Baker Chocolate company
Anonymous gift from a couple from Connecticut, who retrieved them rom their neighbor’s trash
12264
Portrait of Walter Humphreys
Donated by the last of that family line, Blake Humphreys, in 1949.
Walter Humphreys (1842-1864). Walter, who was the son of Henry Humphreys and Sarah Clapp Humphreys, enlisted in Company A of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment four days after his twentieth birthday in 1862.
He wrote a letter home dated May 2, 1864, when he was near Mitchell’s Station , Virginia:
“I must say that I am ready for the coming contest and hope that victory although it may come with the sacrifice of life and the flow of much precious blood may be the result of our arms—with haste—
“Yours in love,
“Walter”
Walter died one month later on June 2, 1864, at Cold Harbor.
One of the members of his company, Warren Freeman of West Cambridge, wrote about Walter:
“One day last week Walter Humphrey of our company, whom you know, while digging in the trenches was struck in the bowels by a bullet and died the next day. I was going to relieve him and was just on the point of taking his spade when he was struck. He looked at me as he said, “Well this is what we must all expect.” We are throwing up a line of rifle pits at this time. Since my last we have lost in the regiment twelve men killed and wounded.” This is an excerpt from a letter by Warren home to his family, published by his father in a book, Letters from Two Brothers Serving in the War for the Union to Their Family at Home in West Cambridge, Mass. (Cambridge, 1871).
The Clapp family genealogy, The Clapp Memorial, has the following entry.
“Walter, b. July 4, 1842; enlisted August, 1862 in the 13th Mass. Reg’t; d. June 2, 1864, from effects of a wound received the day previous, while engaged in raising breastworks under the enemy’s fire at Cold Harbor, Va.”
Richard Clapp Humphreys was Waler’s brother. Richard was later president of the Dorchester Historical Society from 1903 until his death in 1912.