Archaeology at the Blake House
Ever Wonder Why Pond Street is Called Pond Street?
Since October of 2007, professional and avocational archaeologists have been excavating a 1x4 meter trench in the front yard of the Elder James Blake House. In celebration of Massachusetts Archaeology Month (October), a month long celebration set aside to educate the public about their below ground cultural resources, the DHS applied for and received a permit from the State Archaeologist to dig at the Blake House. The DHS intended to invite the community to participate in the history and preservation of this touchstone, as well as investigate research questions generated by the results of a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey of the grounds by Dr. Allen Gontz of the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
GPR sends electrical impulses into the ground which reflect the subterranean composition. These “reflections” can assist in identifying man-made or natural features or deposits, and in selecting a site to excavate. The results of the GPR study indicated that a glacially created pond (ca. 18,000–14,000 years ago) lies directly below the front yard of the Blake House. The trench was strategically placed straddling what scientists believe is the original shoreline of Great Pond.
In 1630 when Dorchester was settled by Europeans, Richardson Park, the present location of the Blake House, was part of the Dorchester Common. The first meeting house was located in what is now Meaney Playground, just 200 feet south of the Blakey. The Dorchester Common extended to the South and West to Stoughton Street and the Dorchester North Burying Ground (established in 1634). The common area was selected because of its proximity to resources, including what soon became known as Great Pond.
Research questions for the Blake House excavation are addressing not only the land-use history, but are providing for the collection of geological data that will contribute to an environmental reconstruction of this area. Archaeologists are currently excavating dense layers of fill deposits rich in artifacts and fire-by-products such as coal, slag, and furnace scales (scraped from the insides of 19th century stoves). The artifacts are typical of everyday discarded trash items including broken plates, bottles (complete with labels), bones (a toothbrush made of a deer leg bone and boar bristles), toys, buttons, shoes and textiles. Digging will continue until the Great Pond level is reached and the excavate is "culturally sterile" (meaning no more artifacts are found). The date recovered will tell us about the filling and preparation for the relocation of the Blake House as well as the filling of the pond.
If you are interested in becoming an archaeologist for a day, contact Ellen Berkland at 617-474-9307 or 617-635-3850, for more details. Digging will continue every Friday, weather permitting, from 10 am to 2 pm, through October.
Whatever happened to the pond?
From an early date a highway (formerly Green Lane, now Pleasant Street) led north from Savin Hill Avenue to a point near the present joining of Cottage and Pond Streets. The road turned north-westerly, and was carried over a small hill, and continued thus for several hundred feet (the present Pond Street). It then turned sharply north or north-easterly and followed the line substantially of the present Boston street, which led to the neck, now South Boston.
To the south of the road, and lying under the hill, was a marshy pond of variable extent. South of this again was the road known as the Road to Boston, which is now represented by Cottage Street.
At the Dorchester Day celebration held at the Blake House in 1907 Richard Humphreys said, “When I was a boy I used to skate on Newhall's Pond where we now stand and on Andrew’s Pond (by the Russell School), opposite, separated from the former only by Pond Street as it runs to-day. Before 1776, a cow had wandered into the swamp about where the William E. Russell school-house now stands and stuck fast in the mud, so that the wolves from the forest had come down before morning and devoured her. ”
The Selectmen’s Report of the Town of Dorchester for the Year Ending March 4, 1850, discussed the subject of the pond. The subject of adjusting the boundaries around the Pond and Land belonging to the town, situated in Pond street, was committed to [the Board of Selectmen]...with instructions to have the rights of the town defined and arranged with the owner of land adjoining, and also to build a wall around the Pond for the purpose of a watering place and public Reservoir.
Upon a consultation with Mr. Geo. Newhall, an agreement was made with him upon the following basis: The said Newhall to quit-claim to the town the Pond and a certain quantity of land as the same is now fenced in...the said Newhall agreeing to build a wall around the Pond as the Committee might direct — all of which has been completed by him as agreed.
The town on its part in accordance with the aforesaid agreement, is to quit-claim to the said Newhall all its right and interest to the land adjoining the above described lot, the fence as it now stands to be the dividing line.
By 1869, the selectmen reported that the stagnant pond of water on Pond street has, by request, been filled nearly to a level with the street, and “making something more than 9,000 feet of land which the abutters would like to purchase, and as it is not wanted by the town, and will probably bring more than the cost of filling, we recommend that it be sold.” The front yard of the Blake House is at least partially the site of the former pond. Other neighboring houses must occupy part of the former pond as well.
The known history of Richardson Park begins with Robert Oliver, a wealthy planter from Antigua, who settled in Dorchester in 1737, bringing his wife Anne and son Thomas. Thomas, who became the last Lieutenant-Governor of the British colony of Massachusetts, built the house, now demolished, at the northeast corner of Columbia Road and Boston Street, later occupied by the Everett family and the location of the birth of Edward Everett. Edward Everett’s mother leased the house to George Richardson first in the spring of 1819. Edward Everett sold it to George Richardson November 10, 1833. John Richardson inherited the estate from his brother George in 1861, and on the death of John Richardson his executors sold the house and part of the estate to William Stanford Stevens “October 19, 1888.” The “triangle,” a piece of land lying between Pond and Cottage Streets, which was originally part of the Oliver estate, was not purchased from the Everetts, but was purchased at auction by George Richardson in 1841. John Richardson bequeathed “the triangle” to the city of Boston “to be used as a park or any other purpose except being sold for house lots.”
A footnote about Thomas Oliver may be of interest. Oliver was President of the Governor's Council (the Mandamus Council), and in 1774, by a curious mistake, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor. His immediate predecessor was Andrew Oliver, of a totally distinct family, and it is understood that the King thought he was appointing a brother of Andrew. Thomas was forced by popular uprising to resign this position. He remained in Boston for a year and left in March, 1776, with the British troops at the evacuation. He forfeited a large estate here but was still wealthy and lived till 1815, dying in Bristol, England.
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