History of Industrial Activity and Filling
This was one of the most heavily industrial areas in the country.
SOUTH BAY RESEARCH NOTES & RESOURCES:
Overview
South Boston & Waterfront
Of coal and wood dealers there was William B. Brooks on Second near C Street, Colburn & Howard's large wharf on Turnpike Street
near the bridge, Henry Crafts on Boston wharf, George W. Merrill & Co. on Boston wharf and Moody & Norris on Boston wharf and Alpheus Stetson at the foot of I Street.... Josiah Dunham and his son, Josiah Dunham, Jr., were the only rope makers in South Boston and they had a large establishment on Fifth, near B Street. Both of the Dunhams represented the district in both branches on the city government, at various times.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
" At the bridge, on the South Boston side was Colburn & Howard's coal and wood wharf and next to that was George Thatcher's foundry, near the junction of Foundry Street. Then came Jabez Coney's machine shops, one of the biggest in the country. He made the boilers and machinery for the first steamer that the United States ever owned. " Along down on Foundry Street was Isaac and Seth Adams' machine shops, builders of sugar machinery and builders of the famous Adams printing press. Next to that and extending to Fourth Street was Alger's foundry. Cyrus Alger's house was next to that of his son corner of Fourth and Foundry Streets, opposite the foundry.... " Over the Bay View way was the government ordnance yard where the large guns cast by Alger were tested.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
The district, however, seems to be, now, in the year 1901, the opening of the 20th century, on the very 'eve of another period of industrial importance, and many arc the indications that in a few years certain sections of South Boston will be transformed into buildings wherein again may be heard the clang of the hammer, and workingmen and workingwomen will be busy at the bench or in the shop. Remarkable changes have already taken place on the made land, between Fort Point Channel and the Reserved Channel, known as the Commonwealth Rands. This filling in was accomplished after a quarter of a century of work, flats reclaimed from tide-water comprising" more than 200 acres. Much of this territory has been sold, by the Commonwealth, to large manufacturing firms and corporations, and already there are nearly a dozen large buildings occupied by busy manufacturing concerns. An immense candy factory, three big concerns combined in the manufacture of all varieties of toothsome luxuries, has just been completed, and numerous other large establishments are projected.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
" But a large portion of the territory on this street was unoccupied, and furnished open fields on which the boys found ample room for their summer and winter sports. Between Broadway and Fourth, from C to D Streets, there was a large pond that afforded excellent opportunities for skating. "The upper part of Fourth Street was sparsely settled, while stretching along the marsh from the bridge to Dorchester was the Turnpike, now Dorchester Avenue, with water at high tide covering the space on either side. First, Second and Third Streets were laid out, but little built upon. " On the easterly side of the peninsula, First Street, was the busy
portion with shipyards, chemical works and glass factories. There were still several swamps and ponds scattered throughout the peninsula, but the)' were principally in sections thinly settled. As the houses increased in number the low lands were filled in. The largest swamps were in the vicinity of Third and O Streets and another on Third, near L Street. Boys used to catch birds and pick blueberries in their vicinity. As early as 1830 plans were made for the filling in of the flats, that portion of the water north of First Street and at the foot of A and B Streets, but it was not until twenty years afterward that anything noteworthy was done in this direction. The delay was largely owing to similar work in the Back Bay district and the filling in of the waters of the Charles River. All along a large portion of Boston's shore, and especially South Boston, there was excellent opportunity to reclaim lands from the tide water. For the past seventy years this work has been going on, and is not yet finished. In 1855 but a small portion of that on the shore of South Boston had been reclaimed and that was principally through the efforts of the Boston Wharf Company. Thus was begun the filling in where now is the large tract known as the Commonwealth Lands.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
The Dix and Brinley chemical works on the shore near where the Boston Wharf was afterward built, was probably the first manufactory in the district. It started before 1804, and the workmen came from Boston in boats, but afterward formed the nucleus of that little settlement. In 1811 the proprietors of the Essex Glass Works erected a building near the chemical works, sent to England for workmen, but the War of 1 812 spoiled their project.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
near the bridge, Henry Crafts on Boston wharf, George W. Merrill & Co. on Boston wharf and Moody & Norris on Boston wharf and Alpheus Stetson at the foot of I Street.... Josiah Dunham and his son, Josiah Dunham, Jr., were the only rope makers in South Boston and they had a large establishment on Fifth, near B Street. Both of the Dunhams represented the district in both branches on the city government, at various times.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
" At the bridge, on the South Boston side was Colburn & Howard's coal and wood wharf and next to that was George Thatcher's foundry, near the junction of Foundry Street. Then came Jabez Coney's machine shops, one of the biggest in the country. He made the boilers and machinery for the first steamer that the United States ever owned. " Along down on Foundry Street was Isaac and Seth Adams' machine shops, builders of sugar machinery and builders of the famous Adams printing press. Next to that and extending to Fourth Street was Alger's foundry. Cyrus Alger's house was next to that of his son corner of Fourth and Foundry Streets, opposite the foundry.... " Over the Bay View way was the government ordnance yard where the large guns cast by Alger were tested.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
The district, however, seems to be, now, in the year 1901, the opening of the 20th century, on the very 'eve of another period of industrial importance, and many arc the indications that in a few years certain sections of South Boston will be transformed into buildings wherein again may be heard the clang of the hammer, and workingmen and workingwomen will be busy at the bench or in the shop. Remarkable changes have already taken place on the made land, between Fort Point Channel and the Reserved Channel, known as the Commonwealth Rands. This filling in was accomplished after a quarter of a century of work, flats reclaimed from tide-water comprising" more than 200 acres. Much of this territory has been sold, by the Commonwealth, to large manufacturing firms and corporations, and already there are nearly a dozen large buildings occupied by busy manufacturing concerns. An immense candy factory, three big concerns combined in the manufacture of all varieties of toothsome luxuries, has just been completed, and numerous other large establishments are projected.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
" But a large portion of the territory on this street was unoccupied, and furnished open fields on which the boys found ample room for their summer and winter sports. Between Broadway and Fourth, from C to D Streets, there was a large pond that afforded excellent opportunities for skating. "The upper part of Fourth Street was sparsely settled, while stretching along the marsh from the bridge to Dorchester was the Turnpike, now Dorchester Avenue, with water at high tide covering the space on either side. First, Second and Third Streets were laid out, but little built upon. " On the easterly side of the peninsula, First Street, was the busy
portion with shipyards, chemical works and glass factories. There were still several swamps and ponds scattered throughout the peninsula, but the)' were principally in sections thinly settled. As the houses increased in number the low lands were filled in. The largest swamps were in the vicinity of Third and O Streets and another on Third, near L Street. Boys used to catch birds and pick blueberries in their vicinity. As early as 1830 plans were made for the filling in of the flats, that portion of the water north of First Street and at the foot of A and B Streets, but it was not until twenty years afterward that anything noteworthy was done in this direction. The delay was largely owing to similar work in the Back Bay district and the filling in of the waters of the Charles River. All along a large portion of Boston's shore, and especially South Boston, there was excellent opportunity to reclaim lands from the tide water. For the past seventy years this work has been going on, and is not yet finished. In 1855 but a small portion of that on the shore of South Boston had been reclaimed and that was principally through the efforts of the Boston Wharf Company. Thus was begun the filling in where now is the large tract known as the Commonwealth Lands.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
The Dix and Brinley chemical works on the shore near where the Boston Wharf was afterward built, was probably the first manufactory in the district. It started before 1804, and the workmen came from Boston in boats, but afterward formed the nucleus of that little settlement. In 1811 the proprietors of the Essex Glass Works erected a building near the chemical works, sent to England for workmen, but the War of 1 812 spoiled their project.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
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New England Nuclear (E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co.)
Du Pont de Nemours, Biomedical Products Department, NEN Products - Greater Boston
NRC License No.'s 20-00320-09, 20-00320-13; Dkt. 030-04579
Boston Facilities HQ: 549 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118
Additional licensed offices: 575 Albany St., 100 E. Canton St., 123 E. Dedham St., 120 E. Dedham St.
NRC License No.'s 20-00320-09, 20-00320-13; Dkt. 030-04579
Boston Facilities HQ: 549 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118
Additional licensed offices: 575 Albany St., 100 E. Canton St., 123 E. Dedham St., 120 E. Dedham St.
Licensed Elements (Any Form):
- Krypton 85
- Molybdenum 99
- Americium 241
- Xenon 133
- Nickel 63
- Sulfur 35
- Carbon 14
- Cesium 137
- Phosphorus 32
- Strontium 90
- Tritium aka Hydrogen 3 (12.32 yr 1/2 life)
- Any byproduct material with atomic numbers 3-94
- Any byproduct material in Schedule B 10 CFR 30.71
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DU PONT (Roger Heiser, Charles Killian): DuPont, a manor research testing equipment manufacturer, bought New England Nuclear, former occupants of the Albany Street building, in 1981. The facility has 20 0,000 square feet of space, approximately 60 percent of which is lab space. Although there has been improvement in the area over the past years that will surely continue now that the El is down, there needs to be better policing of the area to keep it from becoming a junk yard South End is a good location, because it is so near the heart of the biotechnology world.
SOUTH END MEDICAL AREA PLANNING STUDY SUMMARY REPORT: INVENTORY OF EXISTING CONDITIONS SURVEY OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, AND NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERNS (Aug. 1988)
SOUTH END MEDICAL AREA PLANNING STUDY SUMMARY REPORT: INVENTORY OF EXISTING CONDITIONS SURVEY OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, AND NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERNS (Aug. 1988)
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"New England Nuclear was founded in 1956 by Edward Shapiro and Seymour Rothchild to provide radiopharmaceuticals for the new but rapidly expanding field of nuclear medicine. Paul A. McNulty, hired in 1960, was the company's 24th employee. He had previously been employed by Tracerlab Keleket, Waltham Massachusetts. McNulty left New England Nuclear in 1984."
https://archives.sciencehistory.org/repositories/3/resources/404
The Boston site uses approximately 2.5 E7 liters of water per year. ; Sanitary sewer discharges are to the Boston Deer Island Wastewater t Treatment (Winthrop) Facility which treats and disposes of sewerage to the Boston Harbor. The treatment processes include screening and grit removal (at all' headworks), aeration of the influent for a ten minute period, primary sedimentation and post-chlorination of the plant effluent prior to discharge through two submerged outfalls into Presidents Road's channel. Treatment of raw sludge is accomplished by separate sludge thickening i prior to high rate digestion. The resulting product is also discharged
to the Harbor. Approximately 1.7E10 liters per year of sewerage are treated at the Boston Deer Island (Winthrop) Wastewater Treatment Facility. Three percent of the daily sludge production is used in a compost pilot study to develop alternative ways to dispose of sludge. Presently sludge is mixed with effluents and disposed to the Boston Harbor Radionuclides discharged from the Boston facility are carbon-14, sulfur-35, hydrogen-3 and phosphorus-32. Grab samples are taken daily and analyzed by liquid scintillation counting in areas where nuclides are discharged directly to the sanitary sewer. Samples are taken as deemed necessary in the areas where the waste water is stored in holding tanks. Sampling is always done prior to final disposal of the holding tank contents to the sanitary sewer. The Boston facility discharges approximately 2.5E7 liter per year to the sanitary sewer plus 2.8E5 liters per year from the Billerica site. Review of licensee records indicate that sanitary sewer disposals are in accordance with 10 CFR 20, Appendix B limits.
New England Nuclear Products 549 Albany Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02118
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION, REGION I
https://archives.sciencehistory.org/repositories/3/resources/404
The Boston site uses approximately 2.5 E7 liters of water per year. ; Sanitary sewer discharges are to the Boston Deer Island Wastewater t Treatment (Winthrop) Facility which treats and disposes of sewerage to the Boston Harbor. The treatment processes include screening and grit removal (at all' headworks), aeration of the influent for a ten minute period, primary sedimentation and post-chlorination of the plant effluent prior to discharge through two submerged outfalls into Presidents Road's channel. Treatment of raw sludge is accomplished by separate sludge thickening i prior to high rate digestion. The resulting product is also discharged
to the Harbor. Approximately 1.7E10 liters per year of sewerage are treated at the Boston Deer Island (Winthrop) Wastewater Treatment Facility. Three percent of the daily sludge production is used in a compost pilot study to develop alternative ways to dispose of sludge. Presently sludge is mixed with effluents and disposed to the Boston Harbor Radionuclides discharged from the Boston facility are carbon-14, sulfur-35, hydrogen-3 and phosphorus-32. Grab samples are taken daily and analyzed by liquid scintillation counting in areas where nuclides are discharged directly to the sanitary sewer. Samples are taken as deemed necessary in the areas where the waste water is stored in holding tanks. Sampling is always done prior to final disposal of the holding tank contents to the sanitary sewer. The Boston facility discharges approximately 2.5E7 liter per year to the sanitary sewer plus 2.8E5 liters per year from the Billerica site. Review of licensee records indicate that sanitary sewer disposals are in accordance with 10 CFR 20, Appendix B limits.
New England Nuclear Products 549 Albany Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02118
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION, REGION I
NRC Records: Letter from Eastman Kodak Co to NRC re: New England Nuclear Corp.
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The Kodak Park Works of Eastman Kodak Company has many potential uses for luminous paint activated by radioactive materials. Radium activated paints have been used here extensively. As you know, (please refer to my letter of April 5, 1957) we have been interested in using radioactive materials with less potential hazard than exist with radium. All that can be said in favor of
radium is that its use is uncontrolled and, therefore, easy in terms of "red tape" or paper work. We now feel that tritium activated phosphors offer the best and safest substitute. At this time we have a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission byproduct material license for Eastman Kodak Company for the use of tritium containing luminous buttons (sealed sources) at Kodak Park Works. (See application
June 10, 1957 and amendment August 19, 1957 license number 1-461-10. Many of our uses are such that various time pieces, dials, instrument faces and identifying marks or labels must be painted with the luminous material.
New England Nuclear Corporation (575 Albany Street, Boston 18, Mass.) has developed a tritium activated self-luminous paint they call Safeglow. At our request they have had animal experiments done by the Food Research Laboratories to determine the toxicity of this paint and to get information concerning its metabolism and biological half-life. Preliminary results indicate that the tritiated
compotent enters the body water pool and is excreted at the normal rate for water with a biological half-life of between 13 to 15 days. Therefore, it appears to us that this tritium activated paint will offer considerable advantage over radium activated paints.
KODAK PARK WORKS, EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, OCT. 29 1957
radium is that its use is uncontrolled and, therefore, easy in terms of "red tape" or paper work. We now feel that tritium activated phosphors offer the best and safest substitute. At this time we have a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission byproduct material license for Eastman Kodak Company for the use of tritium containing luminous buttons (sealed sources) at Kodak Park Works. (See application
June 10, 1957 and amendment August 19, 1957 license number 1-461-10. Many of our uses are such that various time pieces, dials, instrument faces and identifying marks or labels must be painted with the luminous material.
New England Nuclear Corporation (575 Albany Street, Boston 18, Mass.) has developed a tritium activated self-luminous paint they call Safeglow. At our request they have had animal experiments done by the Food Research Laboratories to determine the toxicity of this paint and to get information concerning its metabolism and biological half-life. Preliminary results indicate that the tritiated
compotent enters the body water pool and is excreted at the normal rate for water with a biological half-life of between 13 to 15 days. Therefore, it appears to us that this tritium activated paint will offer considerable advantage over radium activated paints.
KODAK PARK WORKS, EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, OCT. 29 1957
Wharf & Industrial
"By 1780, several industries had been established in Roxbury, including salt manufacture, a chocolate mill, two
grist mills, and clock making. Roxbury Neck became a major artery to Boston, especially for the cattle trade. By 1790, Roxbury's population had reached only 2,226 inhabitants, however, by 1830 it had risen to 5,247.
Industrial growth during this period was concentrated along the 1795 Roxbury Canal, which ran from South
Bay to Eustis Street in Lower Roxbury. Sailing ship access to this area spurred the growth of meat packaging plants and distilleries. The New England Cordage Factory and the Boston Lead Company, two of the largest factories of their kind in the area, developed along the banks of the canal. New tanneries made Roxbury the most important tanning center in America by 1810 (MHC 1981:8). Boston's first water supply, the Jamaica Plain Aqueduct Co. built their wood pipe aqueduct from Jamaica Pond to Fort Hill in 1795. Completion of the Mill Dam in the 1820s attracted heavy industry to Roxbury, including iron and lead works, such as the Boston Iron Company which organized in 1822. Industry in Roxbury continued to diversify although the banks of the South Bay in Lower Roxbury remained undeveloped and were characterized by marshlands. Cordages including the Sewall and Day Company proliferated, and the Roxbury Carpet Company was formed (MHC 1981:7-8). In 1832 the Roxbury India Rubber Company was founded, leading to Charles Goodyear's 1838 discovery of the rubber vulcanization process (MHC 1981:11). Hampden Street in Lower Roxbury was laid out in 1839 and many early industries developed along this street.
In 1848, the banks of the South Bay near Lower Roxbury were still primarily marshland, but numerous wharfs had been built along Harrison Avenue where industries continued to take advantage of Roxbury's frontage on the bay. By 1848, a turpentine factory and lead factory had been established in the Lower Roxbury Area, and Magazine Street and Dorchester Road (present-day Hampden Street) had been laid out through this undeveloped area (1848 Dearborn Map)."
BOS.RS, Lower Roxbury Industrial District, Roxbury; Dorchester Bay; Massachusetts Historical Commission (Aug. 1997).
A canal fifty feet in width, extending from the wharf at Lamb's Dam Creek nearly to Eustis Street, just east of the burying-ground, was built about the year 1795. Its enterprising projectors, among whom were Ralph Smith, Dr. Thomas ,villiams, and Aaron and Charles Davis, proposed by this means to save two and a half miles of land carriage from the centre of Boston, in their supplies of fuel, lumber, bark for tanning, fl.our, salt, etc., and in conveying to the sllipping in the harbor and stores on the wharves, as well as exporting abroad, the salted provisions and country produce which constituted a large proportion of the trade and commerce of the town at that time. The line between Roxbury and Boston passed through the centre of this canal. Gen. Heath's manuscript journal, under date of March 9, 1796, notes the fact that a large topsail schooner that day came up into the basin of the new canal in" Lamb's Meadow." When Northampton Street was built in 1832, the terminus of navigation was made where Morse & Co. now.have their coal wharf. North of this street and east of Harrison A venue was a dike to keep out the sea ; all else was marsh fiats save where the channel afforded sufficient depth to float small vessels laden with merchandise to Roxbury. The canal, never a paying investment, long ago ceused to be of commercial importance, and is soon to be filled up by the city. A little to the east, in the direction of the old magazine, ran a wide creek, in which the rite of baptism was frequently performed. At one of these ceremonies of unusual interest, the pressure of the spectators against a fence upon its border was so great that it gave way, and a number of sinners were immersed nolens volen :, - a circumstance which greatly interfered with the solemnity of the occasion. The olcl canal-house, where the lumber-yard of Wm. Curtis now is, was the storehouse of Aaron and Charles Dayis, pork and beef dealers and slaughterers. Tllis was at the head of the canal. Near the pier was a little beach or landing-place where fishermen disposed of their piscatory wares. Among them. was Capt. Samuel Trask, a soldier of the Revolution, yet remembered . by those who as boys frequented the beach and enjoyed its boating and other privileges as only boys can. The captain, who late in life kept a fishing vessel here, built in 1812, near the head of the canal, a schooner of about seventy tons. This vessel, laden with provisions by Aaron and Charles Davis, on sailing out of the harbor fell an easy prey to the British fleet then cruising at its entrance
THE TOWN OF ROXBURY: ITS MEMORABLE PERSONS AND PLACES, ITS HISTORY ·AND ANTIQUITIES. WITH NUMEROUS
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ITS OLD LANDMARKS AND NOTED PERSONAGES. BY :FRANCIS S. DRAKE. (1878)
Between the seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries, a variety of individuals and private companies began to fill parts of the watery expanses around what would become the chanmel and built wharves and dockage space. Development was completed in a piecemeal fashion. There were, however, distinctive and large scale fill operations which had dramatic effects on the growth of the channel. Much of this was in the beginning of the nineteenth century. ]be first of these was the South Cove Associates project. The Associates, allied with Boston & '~orcester Railroad interests, had purchased 75 acres of undeveloped tidal zone and fillled in mudflats on the west side of the channel. Between 1833 and 1839, fifty-six acres ofland were filled; mostly with gravel from Roxbury and Dorchester. The land comprises much of what is today Chinatown and the South Station area, including the mid-section of th~ western edge of Fort Point Channel, between what is now the West .Fourth Street Bridge and the Dorchester A venue Bridge:'
South Bay, the channel's southern most terminus, began to be filled in the 1830s and gradually developed into an area of wharves and heavy industry such as foundries, coal pockets and lumber companies. South Bay became an increasingly active industrial area, accessed by Fort Point Channel. In the 1850s more marsh lands were filled and the water at the southern end. of South Bay channeled into the Roxbury Canal. In 1795 the Roxbury Canal, (built by local businessmen as a transportation canal from Roxbury to South Bay) had been constructed from near present day Dudley Station (Orange Line) to South Bay, paralleIling, and south of, Albany Street. Much of the canal was filled in by the 1820s, but it was still used for drainage. It was completel~ filled by the mid-1960s.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
grist mills, and clock making. Roxbury Neck became a major artery to Boston, especially for the cattle trade. By 1790, Roxbury's population had reached only 2,226 inhabitants, however, by 1830 it had risen to 5,247.
Industrial growth during this period was concentrated along the 1795 Roxbury Canal, which ran from South
Bay to Eustis Street in Lower Roxbury. Sailing ship access to this area spurred the growth of meat packaging plants and distilleries. The New England Cordage Factory and the Boston Lead Company, two of the largest factories of their kind in the area, developed along the banks of the canal. New tanneries made Roxbury the most important tanning center in America by 1810 (MHC 1981:8). Boston's first water supply, the Jamaica Plain Aqueduct Co. built their wood pipe aqueduct from Jamaica Pond to Fort Hill in 1795. Completion of the Mill Dam in the 1820s attracted heavy industry to Roxbury, including iron and lead works, such as the Boston Iron Company which organized in 1822. Industry in Roxbury continued to diversify although the banks of the South Bay in Lower Roxbury remained undeveloped and were characterized by marshlands. Cordages including the Sewall and Day Company proliferated, and the Roxbury Carpet Company was formed (MHC 1981:7-8). In 1832 the Roxbury India Rubber Company was founded, leading to Charles Goodyear's 1838 discovery of the rubber vulcanization process (MHC 1981:11). Hampden Street in Lower Roxbury was laid out in 1839 and many early industries developed along this street.
In 1848, the banks of the South Bay near Lower Roxbury were still primarily marshland, but numerous wharfs had been built along Harrison Avenue where industries continued to take advantage of Roxbury's frontage on the bay. By 1848, a turpentine factory and lead factory had been established in the Lower Roxbury Area, and Magazine Street and Dorchester Road (present-day Hampden Street) had been laid out through this undeveloped area (1848 Dearborn Map)."
BOS.RS, Lower Roxbury Industrial District, Roxbury; Dorchester Bay; Massachusetts Historical Commission (Aug. 1997).
A canal fifty feet in width, extending from the wharf at Lamb's Dam Creek nearly to Eustis Street, just east of the burying-ground, was built about the year 1795. Its enterprising projectors, among whom were Ralph Smith, Dr. Thomas ,villiams, and Aaron and Charles Davis, proposed by this means to save two and a half miles of land carriage from the centre of Boston, in their supplies of fuel, lumber, bark for tanning, fl.our, salt, etc., and in conveying to the sllipping in the harbor and stores on the wharves, as well as exporting abroad, the salted provisions and country produce which constituted a large proportion of the trade and commerce of the town at that time. The line between Roxbury and Boston passed through the centre of this canal. Gen. Heath's manuscript journal, under date of March 9, 1796, notes the fact that a large topsail schooner that day came up into the basin of the new canal in" Lamb's Meadow." When Northampton Street was built in 1832, the terminus of navigation was made where Morse & Co. now.have their coal wharf. North of this street and east of Harrison A venue was a dike to keep out the sea ; all else was marsh fiats save where the channel afforded sufficient depth to float small vessels laden with merchandise to Roxbury. The canal, never a paying investment, long ago ceused to be of commercial importance, and is soon to be filled up by the city. A little to the east, in the direction of the old magazine, ran a wide creek, in which the rite of baptism was frequently performed. At one of these ceremonies of unusual interest, the pressure of the spectators against a fence upon its border was so great that it gave way, and a number of sinners were immersed nolens volen :, - a circumstance which greatly interfered with the solemnity of the occasion. The olcl canal-house, where the lumber-yard of Wm. Curtis now is, was the storehouse of Aaron and Charles Dayis, pork and beef dealers and slaughterers. Tllis was at the head of the canal. Near the pier was a little beach or landing-place where fishermen disposed of their piscatory wares. Among them. was Capt. Samuel Trask, a soldier of the Revolution, yet remembered . by those who as boys frequented the beach and enjoyed its boating and other privileges as only boys can. The captain, who late in life kept a fishing vessel here, built in 1812, near the head of the canal, a schooner of about seventy tons. This vessel, laden with provisions by Aaron and Charles Davis, on sailing out of the harbor fell an easy prey to the British fleet then cruising at its entrance
THE TOWN OF ROXBURY: ITS MEMORABLE PERSONS AND PLACES, ITS HISTORY ·AND ANTIQUITIES. WITH NUMEROUS
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ITS OLD LANDMARKS AND NOTED PERSONAGES. BY :FRANCIS S. DRAKE. (1878)
Between the seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries, a variety of individuals and private companies began to fill parts of the watery expanses around what would become the chanmel and built wharves and dockage space. Development was completed in a piecemeal fashion. There were, however, distinctive and large scale fill operations which had dramatic effects on the growth of the channel. Much of this was in the beginning of the nineteenth century. ]be first of these was the South Cove Associates project. The Associates, allied with Boston & '~orcester Railroad interests, had purchased 75 acres of undeveloped tidal zone and fillled in mudflats on the west side of the channel. Between 1833 and 1839, fifty-six acres ofland were filled; mostly with gravel from Roxbury and Dorchester. The land comprises much of what is today Chinatown and the South Station area, including the mid-section of th~ western edge of Fort Point Channel, between what is now the West .Fourth Street Bridge and the Dorchester A venue Bridge:'
South Bay, the channel's southern most terminus, began to be filled in the 1830s and gradually developed into an area of wharves and heavy industry such as foundries, coal pockets and lumber companies. South Bay became an increasingly active industrial area, accessed by Fort Point Channel. In the 1850s more marsh lands were filled and the water at the southern end. of South Bay channeled into the Roxbury Canal. In 1795 the Roxbury Canal, (built by local businessmen as a transportation canal from Roxbury to South Bay) had been constructed from near present day Dudley Station (Orange Line) to South Bay, paralleIling, and south of, Albany Street. Much of the canal was filled in by the 1820s, but it was still used for drainage. It was completel~ filled by the mid-1960s.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
1885
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1884_Plate_A_South_Boston_Sugar_&_Kerosene_&_Iron
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The History of South Boston
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The History of South Boston
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Fertilizer
Just before the Civil War began, William opened a new business in Boston’s South Bay. The company focused on creating commercial grade fertilizers for farmers, and by 1861 it had become so successful a larger manufacturing plant was needed. William therefore moved production to Weymouth Neck in Weymouth, Mass., where he established a very large factory.
1889_Plate66_Fireworks_Fertilizer
Waldo Bros Lime & Cement, ~1900
Sugar
The Boston Wharf Company (BWC) was largely responsible for developing the east side of the channel from First Street north to the harbor. The company was chartered in 1836 by a group of ship owners with commercial interests in Central America and the Caribbean. In the 1810s and 1840s, the company concentrated on importing and exporting sugar and molasses, and building wharves and docks. Board members of the company included local entrepreneurs such as Cyrus Alger, all of whom had a keen interest in the development of the channel. The company's first wharf development was in the area of First Street east of the channel. Filling began in the late 1830s and by the 1850s this huge wharf had been extended north to the edge of the harbor.
Much of the southern portion of this wharf was used by the Standard Sugar Company, with which the Boston Wharf Company had an intimate connection. At the tum of the twentieth century, Edwin F. Atkins was president of the American Sugar Refining Company rum BWC. His father, Elisha Atkins, was a Boston sugar merchant, a large stockholder of the Bay State Sugar Refinery and, in 1849, a director of BWC. Elisha was also the owner of two ships, "Neptune" and "Clothilde," which were used solely for the carrying of sugar and molasses. Through the leadership of Elisha Atkins, BWC became the leader in the construction and management of warehouses and refineries for the sugar industry in Boston, a position they held from the 1840s ~hrough the 1880s. During this time period the company continued its filling operations to make new land. Some of their fill came from Boston's Great Fire of 1872: It may be a matter of note to historians and antiquarians that following the great Boston fire in 1872, enonnous quantities of brick, plaster and miscellaneous rubbish were poured, load by load, into empty spaces of Boston Wharf property. Doubtless among this material were relics of some value and significance. Future . archaeologists may discover them well buried somewhere in the area between Northern Avenue and West First Street.' The company also worked in conjunction with the state to fill the South Boston Flats in the 1870s, which resulted in the most northern extension, into Boston Harbor, of the east side of Fort Point Channel.s In 1873 the state began to build the seawalls and finish the filling that the Boston Wharf Company had begun. While most of this work was in the Commonwealth Flats area, east of Fort Point Channel, some was along the seawall as defined by the U.S. Harbor Commission. By 1876 the wall was complete and the fill, behind the wall, was in place lI>y 1879. This resulted" .. .in a long, lobster-claw shaped projection extending almost a mile north of First Street and clearly defining the east side of the Fort Point Channel.,,9 In 1883 the Standard Sugar Refinery decided to import its own raw materials rather than relying on the ships of BWC. In a consolidation typical of the late nineteenth century, three sugar companies with businesses on BWC land merged, fonning the Sugar Refineries Company, which later became part of American Sugar Refining Company, all of which used the buildiings and equipment of the Standard Sugar Refinery. This consolidation forced BWC to reevaluate its position in the business world, and the company decided to get out of the wharf and storage business and enter the real estate market. They turned away from Fort Point Channel. filled in the rest of the mud flats they owned iln South Boston, and began designing and building large brick structures used for warehouses anell offices. The. company continued to construct buildings well into the 1930s and today is still in business managing over se-venty of the structures they still own.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
The New England Confectionery Company was incorporated in 1901 via the consolidation of Chase& Co. and two other leading Boston candy fi rms, and the following year moved into a large manufacturing complex along the Fort Point Channel built for the new combine by the Boston Wharf Company.
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Much of the southern portion of this wharf was used by the Standard Sugar Company, with which the Boston Wharf Company had an intimate connection. At the tum of the twentieth century, Edwin F. Atkins was president of the American Sugar Refining Company rum BWC. His father, Elisha Atkins, was a Boston sugar merchant, a large stockholder of the Bay State Sugar Refinery and, in 1849, a director of BWC. Elisha was also the owner of two ships, "Neptune" and "Clothilde," which were used solely for the carrying of sugar and molasses. Through the leadership of Elisha Atkins, BWC became the leader in the construction and management of warehouses and refineries for the sugar industry in Boston, a position they held from the 1840s ~hrough the 1880s. During this time period the company continued its filling operations to make new land. Some of their fill came from Boston's Great Fire of 1872: It may be a matter of note to historians and antiquarians that following the great Boston fire in 1872, enonnous quantities of brick, plaster and miscellaneous rubbish were poured, load by load, into empty spaces of Boston Wharf property. Doubtless among this material were relics of some value and significance. Future . archaeologists may discover them well buried somewhere in the area between Northern Avenue and West First Street.' The company also worked in conjunction with the state to fill the South Boston Flats in the 1870s, which resulted in the most northern extension, into Boston Harbor, of the east side of Fort Point Channel.s In 1873 the state began to build the seawalls and finish the filling that the Boston Wharf Company had begun. While most of this work was in the Commonwealth Flats area, east of Fort Point Channel, some was along the seawall as defined by the U.S. Harbor Commission. By 1876 the wall was complete and the fill, behind the wall, was in place lI>y 1879. This resulted" .. .in a long, lobster-claw shaped projection extending almost a mile north of First Street and clearly defining the east side of the Fort Point Channel.,,9 In 1883 the Standard Sugar Refinery decided to import its own raw materials rather than relying on the ships of BWC. In a consolidation typical of the late nineteenth century, three sugar companies with businesses on BWC land merged, fonning the Sugar Refineries Company, which later became part of American Sugar Refining Company, all of which used the buildiings and equipment of the Standard Sugar Refinery. This consolidation forced BWC to reevaluate its position in the business world, and the company decided to get out of the wharf and storage business and enter the real estate market. They turned away from Fort Point Channel. filled in the rest of the mud flats they owned iln South Boston, and began designing and building large brick structures used for warehouses anell offices. The. company continued to construct buildings well into the 1930s and today is still in business managing over se-venty of the structures they still own.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
The New England Confectionery Company was incorporated in 1901 via the consolidation of Chase& Co. and two other leading Boston candy fi rms, and the following year moved into a large manufacturing complex along the Fort Point Channel built for the new combine by the Boston Wharf Company.
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Histories of Fort Point begin with the filling of the area’s shallow tidal flats by the Boston Wharf Company in the mid-nineteenth century, and note the land’s initial use for sugar and molasses storage sheds, but they have perhaps undersold just how important the sugar business was to the creation and evolution of the district. They don’t pause to tease out the darker implications of what was for centuries a brutally lucrative trade built on the labor of enslaved millions. While Fort Point would indeed serve a broad range of commercial uses, sugar provided the impetus and a chief source of capital for the Boston Wharf Company’s landmaking and later pivot to real estate development, and as industrial activity in the area generally declined, large-scale sugar refining lasted well into the twentieth century. One powerful Massachusetts merchant family played a central role in all of it. The Atkinses of Truro, later Belmont, trace their lineage almost all the way back to the beginning—family historian Helen Atkins Claflin records their earliest American ancestor’s arrival in Plymouth in 1639—but they didn’t accumulate much wealth or renown for five or so generations. All that’s written about one Samuel Atkins, who lived through the Revolutionary War, is that he ‘made his living from fi shing and farming.’ That began to change with Samuel’s son Joshua, who found success as a sailor and merchant shipowner plying the West Indies trade,’ something of a euphemism for the traffic in tropical commodities produced by the slave colonies of the great European powers. New England merchants had prospered enormously from the famous triangle trade’ for over a century before Atkins got involved; lacking a hinterland full of precious metals or farmland able to support a plantation economy, colonial Boston had to look seaward to sustain its tenuous position far from the motherland. ‘But the challenge of survival,’ Mark Peterson writes in The City-State of Boston , ‘pushed the infant colony into a fatal bargain: an economic alliance with the sugar islands of the West Indies. This effectively made Boston a slave society, but one where most of the enslaved labor toiled elsewhere, sustaining the illusion of Boston in New England as an inclusive republic devoted to the common good.’
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Joshua Atkins made a trading voyage to Cuba in 1806, ‘bringing back as cargo hides, sugar, and molasses,’ the earliest record of the family’s presence there, but the extent and nature of their involvement around this time is murky. Joshua’s son Elisha Atkins would formalize an ongoing, high-volume business in Cuban sugar beginning in the late 1830s, but according to historian (https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:320566/PDF/) Stephen Chambers, the family’s true start in Cuba, like that of many elite New Englanders, began with the illegal slave trade, in a commercial house at the Cuban port of Matanzas, under the leadership of Zachariah Atkins, where he worked since at least 1808.’There are few extant archival records of Zachariah Atkins, and no genealogy detailing his relation to the other Atkinses, but his name appears in British Foreign State Papers regarding the 1822 seizure of the ship Joseph ,which ‘Was employed at the time of Capture in carrying on the Slave Trade for the account of one Zachariah Atkins, resident at Matanzas, in the Island of Cuba.’ Neither Elisha Atkins’s biographer nor Helen Atkins Claflin make any reference to a Zachariah, but it seems plausible that the family may have been unaware of or disinclined to note an ancestor’s direct participation in the most heinous and reviled of businesses. In any event, the later, more famous Atkinses’ relation to Cuban slavery is rather less ambiguous. In 1838 Elisha Atkins established a partnership with the son of William Freeman, a prominent Boston merchant who set the pair up with three of his trading vessels and loans of $2,500 each. Freeman Sr. had close ties to Cuba—his brother and son had both lived there, engaged in the sugar trade—and helped found the Boston Wharf Company in 1836, serving as one of its original directors and later president for 16 years. ElishaAtkins married Freeman’s daughter in 1844, around the time he had begun making regular voyages to Cuba.
Back home, Atkins became a shareholder and director of the Boston Wharf Company in 1849, when theventure was still in the early stages of what would over the next several decades become a massivelandmaking operation. According to his biographer, from then on Atkins ‘gave constant attention to thedevelopment of the company,’ steering it as it overcame persistent opposition from rival property owners andthe Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself. Atkins ‘was never prominent in these controversies, but he wasthe power behind them, leading forward every movement of the company,’ because its main business wasbuilding warehouses to handle the increasingly large quantities of sugar and molasses his ships weredelivering to the port of Boston. It was a shrewd and eff ective step toward vertical integration: the sugarmerchant ‘became the largest customer of the corporation,’ and ‘his interest in the plans for these stores,which gave promise of such profi t to the company and such convenience to himself, was continued for aseries of years, and he became personally familiar with every foot of ground about them.’
Edwin Atkins stayed on, and would serve as president of the Boston Wharf Company from 1896 until 1925,the period when it transitioned fully into an industrial real estate developer and created the Fort Pointneighborhood as it largely still stands today. Though no longer the company’s central source of revenue, thebusiness of sweetness remained a signifi cant physical presence in the area—through the Chase & Co.confectionery, built on Congress Street in 1887; the Necco factory, completed in 1902 and enlarged with twoadditional buildings in 1907; and the expanding footprint and evolution of the Standard Sugar Refi nery,which had operated at a location halfway up the channel, on the company’s earliest made land, since at least1868. In 1887, Atkins agreed to merge the Bay State Sugar Refi nery into Henry O. Havemeyer’s newlyincorporated and soon-notorious Sugar Trust, which controlled the Standard Sugar Refi nery; the news of theshutdown of the Bay State the following year was notable enough to make the front page of the New YorkTimes, the headline just under the masthead reading, ‘Closed by the Trust.’
Atkins’s involvement in the Sugar Trust would, like his father, result in his testifying before Congress in 1911,where he acknowledged that the Bay State refi nery was closed and its machinery removed to the Standard toconcentrate Boston’s refi ning capacity, and that he had received stock in the Trust as part of the deal. (Atkinsclaimed the Bay State was a money-losing operation, and that, rather than a nefarious bid to stifl ecompetition, the ‘purpose of the combination was to. . . turn the business of the weaker houses over to thebest, and reduce the cost of refi ning. . . so that we could sell to the consumers of the country at a lower fi gurethan we would otherwise be able to sell for.’) The Trust, which after the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 wasreorganized as the American Sugar Refi ning Company, became a leading corporate villain of the era,embodying the most fl agrant excesses of encroaching monopoly: ultimately controlling 98 percent of sugarrefi ning in the United States, it ‘often operated on the edges of the law,’ Ulbe Bosma writes, ‘and itperpetrated major legal off ences, ranging from illegal transport arrangements with the New York CentralRailway Company to multiple cases of defrauding customs.’
Following the death of Henry O. Havemeyer in 1907, Atkins took on a central role in overseeing the AmericanSugar Refi ning Co., serving variously as vice president, acting president, and chairman of the board ofdirectors, such that for a period of time he was offi cially running the dominant refi ning concern, plantations inCuba that controlled one-eighth of the island’s total sugar production, and the Boston Wharf Company, onwhose land one of his refi neries and the nation’s largest candy maker both operated. the legacy of the Atkins family and its stewardship ofthe Boston Wharf Company—a legacy bound up with the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade, the decades-longexploitation of workers enduring the punishing conditions of the cane fi elds, and the emergence ofimperialistic industrial monopolies—is little noted, and not well remembered. The most visible remnants ofthe sugar business relate to the fi nal link of the commodity chain, when the refi ned material was transformedinto delightful treats for mass consumption: the Necco factory buildings, Necco St.
On the Channel, This Revolting Traffic: How Sugar Shaped Fort Point
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Boston can lay claim as the birthplace of the American candy industry. It began with an English druggist named Oliver Chase who came here in 1847 and set up an apothecary business.
https://www.edibleboston.com/blog/candy-land-history-of-candy-in-the-bay-state
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Domino Sugar factory, South Boston at Fort Point Channel 1937
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Elisha Aktins, Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, State Street Trust Co., 1918
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Old Molasses Wharf/sugar refinery Mt. Washington Ave., ~1900
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The longest operating candy manufacturer in the United States until its messy demise in 2018, Necco produced its flagship multicolored sugar wafers, conversation hearts, and other sweets for over 150 years in a series of factories in and around Boston..since 2018 Amazon has also occupied the first Necco factory in Fort Point as corporate office space..
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Joshua Atkins made a trading voyage to Cuba in 1806, ‘bringing back as cargo hides, sugar, and molasses,’ the earliest record of the family’s presence there, but the extent and nature of their involvement around this time is murky. Joshua’s son Elisha Atkins would formalize an ongoing, high-volume business in Cuban sugar beginning in the late 1830s, but according to historian Stephen Chambers, the family’s ‘true start in Cuba, like that of many elite New Englanders, began with the illegal slave trade, in a commercial house at the Cuban port of Matanzas, under the leadership of Zachariah Atkins, where he worked since at least 1808.’ There are few extant archival records of Zachariah Atkins, and no genealogy detailing his relation to the other Atkinses, but his name appears in British Foreign State Papers regarding the 1822 seizure of the ship Joseph, which ‘Was employed at the time of Capture in carrying on the Slave Trade for the account of one Zachariah Atkins, resident at Matanzas, in the Island of Cuba.’ Neither Elisha Atkins’s biographer nor Helen Atkins Claflin make any reference to a Zachariah, but it seems plausible that the family may have been unaware of or disinclined to note an ancestor’s direct participation in the most heinous and reviled of businesses. In any event, the later, more famous Atkinses’ relation to Cuban slavery is rather less ambiguous....
Back home, Atkins became a shareholder and director of the Boston Wharf Company in 1849, when the venture was still in the early stages of what would over the next several decades become a massive landmaking operation. According to his biographer, from then on Atkins ‘gave constant attention to the development of the company,’ steering it as it overcame persistent opposition from rival property owners and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself. Atkins ‘was never prominent in these controversies, but he was the power behind them, leading forward every movement of the company,’ because its main business was building warehouses to handle the increasingly large quantities of sugar and molasses his ships were delivering to the port of Boston. It was a shrewd and effective step toward vertical integration: the sugar merchant ‘became the largest customer of the corporation,’ and ‘his interest in the plans for these stores, which gave promise of such profit to the company and such convenience to himself, was continued for a series of years, and he became personally familiar with every foot of ground about them.’....
The Wharf Company made halting progress in filling the South Boston Flats until winning key approvals from the Legislature in the early 1850s; in an 1852 appeal to lift restrictions on their development rights, officials portrayed the firm as an underdog fighting a ‘class of opponents who represent the wealthy wharf owners of Boston. . . who are desirous of keeping up those very high prices of wharfage which are so injurious to the commerce of the State, and who fear the effect of competition with our wharf.’ Surveys from the period show the wharf jutting out from First Street along the upper edge of South Boston, largely unchanged between 1846 and 1852, but by 1868 it had extended far into the Fort Point Channel, about to present-day Congress Street. Most of the land was occupied by several vast molasses warehouses and a sugar refinery.... Edwin Atkins stayed on, and would serve as president of the Boston Wharf Company from 1896 until 1925, the period when it transitioned fully into an industrial real estate developer and created the Fort Point neighborhood as it largely still stands today.... Regarding the legacy of his great-grandfather Edwin F. Atkins, Chet said, ‘The Boston Unitarian didn’t free his slaves until the last possible moment, because they were an asset on his books, and he wanted to be able to depreciate the asset. I think the whole thing is coming to grips with a crazy set of contradictions that he was a paragon of American imperialism, that he in fact developed and refined some of it, bought governments and elections, bent US policy and presidents to achieve his end, which was greater profitability for operations
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
In 2000, during the period in which the land at Fort Point Pier was used as laydown for the casting basin, the Boston Wharf Company sold the parcel (approx. 10 acres) to The Gillette Company (now P&G/Gillette).
Upon restoration of the casting basin, property owners Boston Wharf Co. and P&G Gillette were required to secure respective "amnesty licenses" to bring the casting basin property and other tidelands parcels into strict compliance with state Chapter 91 waterways regulations regarding tideland parcels. The construction of the dock, which formerly had been considered in CA/T Project meetings as a component of C09D2 Fort Point Channel Surface Restoration obligations, was now required of P&G Gillette in order to fulfill public amenity obligations under the amnesty license being drafted.
MassDEP was responsible for reviewing, granting and enforcing this amnesty license, and its decision would ultimately determine the fate of the dock. In May of 2003, DEP and Gillette signed the final draft of the amnesty license. The Gillette Company and Boston Wharf Co. agreed to respective provisions of "Amnesty License 9342a and 9342b" for area improvements, a number of which were required on a tight schedule upon the capping of the casting basin parcel. Among the provisions of Gillette P&G's amnesty license, MassDEP required completion of the public dock.
https://www.fortpointpier.com/history.php
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
Joshua Atkins made a trading voyage to Cuba in 1806, ‘bringing back as cargo hides, sugar, and molasses,’ the earliest record of the family’s presence there, but the extent and nature of their involvement around this time is murky. Joshua’s son Elisha Atkins would formalize an ongoing, high-volume business in Cuban sugar beginning in the late 1830s, but according to historian Stephen Chambers, the family’s ‘true start in Cuba, like that of many elite New Englanders, began with the illegal slave trade, in a commercial house at the Cuban port of Matanzas, under the leadership of Zachariah Atkins, where he worked since at least 1808.’ There are few extant archival records of Zachariah Atkins, and no genealogy detailing his relation to the other Atkinses, but his name appears in British Foreign State Papers regarding the 1822 seizure of the ship Joseph, which ‘Was employed at the time of Capture in carrying on the Slave Trade for the account of one Zachariah Atkins, resident at Matanzas, in the Island of Cuba.’ Neither Elisha Atkins’s biographer nor Helen Atkins Claflin make any reference to a Zachariah, but it seems plausible that the family may have been unaware of or disinclined to note an ancestor’s direct participation in the most heinous and reviled of businesses. In any event, the later, more famous Atkinses’ relation to Cuban slavery is rather less ambiguous....
Back home, Atkins became a shareholder and director of the Boston Wharf Company in 1849, when the venture was still in the early stages of what would over the next several decades become a massive landmaking operation. According to his biographer, from then on Atkins ‘gave constant attention to the development of the company,’ steering it as it overcame persistent opposition from rival property owners and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself. Atkins ‘was never prominent in these controversies, but he was the power behind them, leading forward every movement of the company,’ because its main business was building warehouses to handle the increasingly large quantities of sugar and molasses his ships were delivering to the port of Boston. It was a shrewd and effective step toward vertical integration: the sugar merchant ‘became the largest customer of the corporation,’ and ‘his interest in the plans for these stores, which gave promise of such profit to the company and such convenience to himself, was continued for a series of years, and he became personally familiar with every foot of ground about them.’....
The Wharf Company made halting progress in filling the South Boston Flats until winning key approvals from the Legislature in the early 1850s; in an 1852 appeal to lift restrictions on their development rights, officials portrayed the firm as an underdog fighting a ‘class of opponents who represent the wealthy wharf owners of Boston. . . who are desirous of keeping up those very high prices of wharfage which are so injurious to the commerce of the State, and who fear the effect of competition with our wharf.’ Surveys from the period show the wharf jutting out from First Street along the upper edge of South Boston, largely unchanged between 1846 and 1852, but by 1868 it had extended far into the Fort Point Channel, about to present-day Congress Street. Most of the land was occupied by several vast molasses warehouses and a sugar refinery.... Edwin Atkins stayed on, and would serve as president of the Boston Wharf Company from 1896 until 1925, the period when it transitioned fully into an industrial real estate developer and created the Fort Point neighborhood as it largely still stands today.... Regarding the legacy of his great-grandfather Edwin F. Atkins, Chet said, ‘The Boston Unitarian didn’t free his slaves until the last possible moment, because they were an asset on his books, and he wanted to be able to depreciate the asset. I think the whole thing is coming to grips with a crazy set of contradictions that he was a paragon of American imperialism, that he in fact developed and refined some of it, bought governments and elections, bent US policy and presidents to achieve his end, which was greater profitability for operations
https://on-the-channel.com/2024/03/12/this-revolting-traffic-how-sugar-shaped-fort-point/
In 2000, during the period in which the land at Fort Point Pier was used as laydown for the casting basin, the Boston Wharf Company sold the parcel (approx. 10 acres) to The Gillette Company (now P&G/Gillette).
Upon restoration of the casting basin, property owners Boston Wharf Co. and P&G Gillette were required to secure respective "amnesty licenses" to bring the casting basin property and other tidelands parcels into strict compliance with state Chapter 91 waterways regulations regarding tideland parcels. The construction of the dock, which formerly had been considered in CA/T Project meetings as a component of C09D2 Fort Point Channel Surface Restoration obligations, was now required of P&G Gillette in order to fulfill public amenity obligations under the amnesty license being drafted.
MassDEP was responsible for reviewing, granting and enforcing this amnesty license, and its decision would ultimately determine the fate of the dock. In May of 2003, DEP and Gillette signed the final draft of the amnesty license. The Gillette Company and Boston Wharf Co. agreed to respective provisions of "Amnesty License 9342a and 9342b" for area improvements, a number of which were required on a tight schedule upon the capping of the casting basin parcel. Among the provisions of Gillette P&G's amnesty license, MassDEP required completion of the public dock.
https://www.fortpointpier.com/history.php
Gillette
The release volume may be 10,000 gallons or more, and occurred over a 20-year period. TCE is hydrophobic, and organic-rich soil layers exist in the source area. Volume of the subsurface directly impacted by DNAPL is large, possibly covering an acre. Contamination extends at least to a depth of 120 feet, below surficial fill, clay, and till, and into bedrock fractures. The complexity of the subsurface is substantial, including heterogeneous fill, clay penetrated by pilings, glacial till, and fractured bedrock. The heterogeneity of subsurface deposits such as fill and fractured bedrock. A 60-foot thick clay layer has a low hydraulic conductivity (less than 10i cm./sec). Groundwater flow patterns are influenced by tides and periodic construction dewatering/recharge. There are strong downward hydraulic gradients from the fill to the clay. The source has migrated through a thick clay stratum along the annulus of pilings set in till and bedrock, thus allowing the source to become widely distributed in a complex subsurface system. The source is located largely beneath an active manufacturing building underlain by a complex network of utilities. The integrity of the building's foundation is sensitive to groundwater extraction and land subsidence.
Phase III Remedial Action Plan Gillette South Boston Manufacturing Center, RTN 3-11312 29 (December 1998)
Phase III Remedial Action Plan Gillette South Boston Manufacturing Center, RTN 3-11312 29 (December 1998)
GILLETTE MANUFACTURING
1 GILLETTE PARK, BOSTON, MA 02127
FRS Id: 110000310761, https://ofmpub.epa.gov/frs_public2/fii_query_dtl.disp_program_facility?p_registry_id=110000310761
RCRA ID: MAD066605809, https://echo.epa.gov/detailed-facility-report?fid=110000310761
CWA ID: MAR053258, MA0003832
CAA ID: 7239811, MA0000002511900033 (CAACFC, CAAGHG, CAAMACT, CAANSPS, CAASIP, CAATVP), https://echo.epa.gov/air-pollutant-report?fid=110000310761 ; eGGRT 1002497
TRI ID: 02106THGLLGILLE
Parcel ID: 0601169000
Address: 20 GILLETTE PK, BOSTON, MA 02127
Owner: GILLETTE MANUFACTURING USA INC
Land Use: OFFICE CLS B
Lot Size: 1,331,764 SQ FT
GILLETTE MANUFACTURING, BOSTON, 02127
Case ID 01-1996-0070
Enforcement Type CWA 309 AO For Compliance, Violations Discharge Emission Or Activity WO Required Permit, Unilateral Administrative Order Without Adjudication
COMPANY INITIATED DISCHARGE OF NON-CONTACT CODING WATER PRIOR TO RECEIVING PERMIT.
AIR EMISSIONS
Reports releasing 44k - 55k MTCO2e/year greenhouse gases; 75k-87k lbs/year CAPs; 3.8 lbs/year HAPs; 11k-16k lb/year VOCs. Includes 106,809,134 lbs/year CO2; 6k lb/year NOx; 576-592 lb/year SOx; & up to 148 lb/year ammonia.
WATER EMISSIONS
988,146,437 lb/year solids; 224,491 lb/year suspended solids
https://echo.epa.gov/trends/loading-tool/reports/dmr-pollutant-loading?permit_id=MA0003832&year=2024
GE to Reimburse State for $87M Incentive Package, Sell Fort Point Headquarters
GE and MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency, have reached a deal to jointly market the 2.7-acre site
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/general-electric-to-sell-fort-point-property-boston-reimburse-massachusetts/8824/
General Electric chooses Boston for headquarters
Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker today celebrated General Electric's decision to relocate their world headquarters to Boston to take advantage of Boston and the Commonwealth's innovative and competitive economy and access to human capital and world-class educational institutions.
https://www.boston.gov/news/general-electric-chooses-boston-headquarters
Documents Show Boston Doubled Its Tax Incentive Offer To Help Lure GE
WBUR Newsroom April 07, 2016
https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/04/07/boston-doubled-ge-tax-incentives
GILLETTE MANUFACTURING, BOSTON, 02127
Likely Point Source Category
433 - Metal finishing, 438 - Metal products and machinery
Facility Type NON-POTW
Permit Type NPDES Individual Permit
Solids, total 988,146,437 lb/yr
Solids, total suspended 224,491 lb/y
1 GILLETTE PARK, BOSTON, MA 02127
FRS Id: 110000310761, https://ofmpub.epa.gov/frs_public2/fii_query_dtl.disp_program_facility?p_registry_id=110000310761
RCRA ID: MAD066605809, https://echo.epa.gov/detailed-facility-report?fid=110000310761
CWA ID: MAR053258, MA0003832
CAA ID: 7239811, MA0000002511900033 (CAACFC, CAAGHG, CAAMACT, CAANSPS, CAASIP, CAATVP), https://echo.epa.gov/air-pollutant-report?fid=110000310761 ; eGGRT 1002497
TRI ID: 02106THGLLGILLE
Parcel ID: 0601169000
Address: 20 GILLETTE PK, BOSTON, MA 02127
Owner: GILLETTE MANUFACTURING USA INC
Land Use: OFFICE CLS B
Lot Size: 1,331,764 SQ FT
GILLETTE MANUFACTURING, BOSTON, 02127
Case ID 01-1996-0070
Enforcement Type CWA 309 AO For Compliance, Violations Discharge Emission Or Activity WO Required Permit, Unilateral Administrative Order Without Adjudication
COMPANY INITIATED DISCHARGE OF NON-CONTACT CODING WATER PRIOR TO RECEIVING PERMIT.
AIR EMISSIONS
Reports releasing 44k - 55k MTCO2e/year greenhouse gases; 75k-87k lbs/year CAPs; 3.8 lbs/year HAPs; 11k-16k lb/year VOCs. Includes 106,809,134 lbs/year CO2; 6k lb/year NOx; 576-592 lb/year SOx; & up to 148 lb/year ammonia.
WATER EMISSIONS
988,146,437 lb/year solids; 224,491 lb/year suspended solids
https://echo.epa.gov/trends/loading-tool/reports/dmr-pollutant-loading?permit_id=MA0003832&year=2024
GE to Reimburse State for $87M Incentive Package, Sell Fort Point Headquarters
GE and MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency, have reached a deal to jointly market the 2.7-acre site
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/general-electric-to-sell-fort-point-property-boston-reimburse-massachusetts/8824/
General Electric chooses Boston for headquarters
Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker today celebrated General Electric's decision to relocate their world headquarters to Boston to take advantage of Boston and the Commonwealth's innovative and competitive economy and access to human capital and world-class educational institutions.
https://www.boston.gov/news/general-electric-chooses-boston-headquarters
Documents Show Boston Doubled Its Tax Incentive Offer To Help Lure GE
WBUR Newsroom April 07, 2016
https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/04/07/boston-doubled-ge-tax-incentives
GILLETTE MANUFACTURING, BOSTON, 02127
Likely Point Source Category
433 - Metal finishing, 438 - Metal products and machinery
Facility Type NON-POTW
Permit Type NPDES Individual Permit
Solids, total 988,146,437 lb/yr
Solids, total suspended 224,491 lb/y
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Lead Factory
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1873 V2 Plate A W13 Lead Factory
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Iron Foundary
The Norway Iron Works was built about 1845, and Mr. English had control for many years. It did a thriving business for forty years manufacturing all kinds of machinery and wire.
History of South Boston (its past and present) and prospects for the future
At least one building from the Norway Iron Works survives (383 Dorchester Avenue)but with its facade completely altered and later additions almost obscuring the early structure South Boston preservation study
Cyrus Alger was one of the leading citizens, if not the most prominent. He was born in Bridgewater in 1781, and came to South Boston in 1809, and with Gen. Winslow formed a partnership and conducted a foundry business on Second Street, near Dorchester Street. About 1814 Gen. Winslow retired in favor of his son, and Mr. Alger then started in on his own account on Foundry Street, near Fourth Street. He bought all the property between the Turnpike and the channel, and from the North Free Bridge to the foot of Fifth Street. This purchase was made from the association that took charge of South Boston lands after annexation. The South Boston Iron Company, of which he was the originator, was incorporated in 1827, and with him were George C. Thacher, W. II. Howard and Caleb Reed. Gradually the works were extended, about 250 men were employed, he filled in the flats, built up Fourth Street to the bridge, also Foundry Street, and in other ways developed the territory. Cyrus Alger and his family lived at the corner of Foundry and Fourth Streets. Large sums of money were paid out to beautify the surroundings. I lis influence was great, and to him, more than any other one man, is due the first impetus given to South Boston. He was member of the Common Council the first year of the municipality, and alderman in 1824 and 1827. He was a friend of labor and the first employer in the district to introduce the ten hour system.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
Particularly interesting to the history of city, was a section southeast of the city on which the notable inventor and metallurgist Cyrus Alger built the largest iron foundry of its time. Due to his excellent skill in purifying iron, the quality of his work was unmatched. From this South Boston location, Alger furnished the US government with munitions and weaponry for many years. In fact, it was from his foundry that the first ever gun rifled in America was manufactured. After Alger’s death, the foundry changed hands but remained an economic force in South Boston. Guns were no longer a priority, so the foundry produced wire instead. It was said that the spectacle of the wire works was so great that local schools would send their children on field trips to see the sparks and dancing flames as the molten iron was cast.
The Foundry, https://grandten.com/about/the-foundry/
The South Boston Iron Works, which had started out in 1809 as Cyrus Alger’s foundry business on West Fourth Street and was continued after his death in 1856 by his son Francis, was extremely active during the Civil War. Over the years, this plant had become a particularly valuable source of military equipment. It had produced the first rifle-cannon in 1834; in 1836 it had turned out the first malleable-iron cannon; and it was Cyrus Alger who had improved time-fuses for spherical shells. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the ironworks doubled its capacity and made extensive additions to its plant. With wartime contracts, the plant turned out large orders of guns, cannon, ammunition and an experimental missile called the “schenkle projectile,” while Francis himself was kept busy consulting with government engineers on questions of ordnance. According to one source, government orders kept the ironworks operating “day and night,” producing guns and projectiles that were an “important factor” in defending the Union and bringing hostilities to a successful conclusion. “Their guns sank the Merrimac and the Alabama,” he wrote, “and played a conspicuous part all along the coast from Norfolk to New Orleans.” So great was the wartime demand that early in 1863 Francis built an additional foundry, a large machine shop and three additional forty-five-ton air furnaces to take care of war orders.
O'Connor, Thomas H. South Boston, My Home Town: The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood. Northeastern University Press, 2019. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/68428.
Alger's C.A. Alger & Co. foundry was based in South Boston, along the shores of what was then South Bay, near West 4th Street (on what is today still called Foundry Street). In the early 1800s, Alger bought a large piece of largely marshy land along the bay (much of it thrown in by the seller at little cost because they thought it was worthless marshland), rebuilt a failing seawall, filled it in and built what eventually became the largest foundry in the United States (in 1850, he did lose an appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court over a wharf he built that went too far into the bay). Alger's forges turned out all sorts of metal objects, but he specialized in cannons, cannon balls and fuses. He was a major supplier to the army in the war of 1812. In 1837, the foundry started producing a Howitzer that the Union Army relied on heavily in the Civil War. Alger originally test fired his cannons in South Boston, but as the area became more populated (Alger himself lived next to his foundry, in a house with a large garden out back), he had to find someplace else to test the weapons.
Seasholes, S., Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston, The MIT Press (August 29, 2003)
The South Boston Iron Works, incorporated in 1827 and located on Iron Street, was one of the major operators located back then near what is now National Development’s current property on Dorchester Avenue. The South Boston Iron Works was founded by Cyrus Alger who played a key role in the development of this area of South Boston (soon to be known as Andrew Square) when he moved there in 1809. After the annex of South Boston from Dorchester to Boston, he bought most of the land west of the Dorchester Turnpike (Dorchester Avenue). This is where he built his foundry and made a name for himself as one of the leading metallurgists of his time. Iron and steel were the peak industries in the advancement of this particular facet of chemical engineering, allowing the world to move forward with more advanced material science.
https://ironworkssb.com/history/
During the nineteenth century, South Boston began to be developed with wharves and heavy industry such as foundries and machine shops, among them the South Boston Iron Works, founded by Cyrus Alger. By the mid-nineteenth century, Alger's foundry was the largest in the country, and to accommodate his operation he repeatedly filled his land from the mid-1830s through 1860.5 Alger and other enterprises filled in an area on the east side of the channel, stretching south of the West Forth Street Bridge to just north of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge. Much as South Cove Associates defined the western edge of the channel, from the West Fourth
Street bridge to Dorchester A venue Bridge, Alger and his colleagues did the same on the eastern side of the channel.
The first zone. running from the Broadway Bridge north to· $e Dorchester A venue Bridge was an area of.heavy industrial development beginning in 1832 w~en Cyrus Alger began to fill lin this area of South Bay to accommodate his iron works and other bflsinesses as well. Alger first began to fill south of the Broadway Bridge. By 1852 he had fill~~ his land north to the Dor¢hester Avenue Bridge and worked his way north completing his last! filling operation during the 1860s. This first zone was occupied by the Old Colony Railroad; in ) 852 their round house was ~ocated here. During the 1870s and the early 1880s the land in this zone was used by Tufts Elevator Company and· Alger's Fulton Iron Works Foundry. By 1~84 the Old Colony Railroad had expanded their property to build a machine shop and railyatd that was used for the storage of passenger cars. These yards are now owned and operated by the ly1BT A. During the construction of the South Station project this yard was expanded and a sbwall built.31 . Because this portion of seawall was built for the Boston T~rminal project, the wall is laid the same as described above in the section titled West Side of fort Point Channel. Running from the south side of the Dorchester A venue Bridge to the sout~ side of the Rolling Lift Bric!ige. the wall is laid in 12 courses due to the depth of the channel ~ere. About 6 feet south of the fir. bridge, the wall steps down two courses and continues this ~ay to the north side of the Broadway Bridge. The second zone, running from the Dorchester Avenue Bri<l1ge to Gillette's intake pipe was the last area to be filled by Cyrus Alger and was filled betweqn 1852 and 1860. His land! abutted on the north, the last remaining unfilled inlet in the channdl. This zone can be seen in Downs' 1899 View of Fort Point Channel. This Was the site of A~ger's South Boston Iron Works well into the 1880s. By 1884 Continental Sugar Refining had! constructed a refining facility here, soon to be merged with the American Sugar Refining Co~pany. This zone has been occupied by the Gillette Company since the 1950s. This is the oldest wall in the area of impact, probably dating from Alger's period. The wall has shown signs of wear and disturbance and although similar in ~ppearance to the Boston Terminal Company's walls, i.e. large rectangular blocks randomly intenjpersed with square fillers, this wall is now not as tightly laid and has shown signs of shifting. CJearly, while using the conv¢ntions of seawall" building (backfill and dry-laid stone walls) this w~ll was not as carefully built as the Boston Tenninal Company. At low tide five courses of stone are visible. The granite in this wall is cut in a rough faced ashlar and is a dark-to-medium gtiy. Some coping has been r(jplaced in this. section.' Just north of the Dorchester Avenue Bridg¢, where the wall was disturbed to build the bridge, is a pile of loose riprap. The third zone is now owned by the Gillette Company and, was the last inlet and wha~f to be filled on the east side of Fort Point Channel. The inlet ab).ltted a wharf. completed by 1860, which was used by both the iron works and sugar comp~ies and was used well into the twentieth century. As described above, the area runs appro~imately 275 feet north of the intact pipe and, can be seen in the plan developed by the Gill¢tte Company in. 1960 when they petitioned the Commonwealth for pennission to fill in the i~let.33 Although Gillette's filling and seawall building project was !100 years later than Alger's and 70 years later than the Terminal Company, the technology was ~imilar; i.e. coffer dam, bacwfill and piles and a dried laid seawall. The wall, though, in this section, is quite different since it is roughly laid in a random pattern with randomly sized stonejs as welL In Gillette'S parking lot, adjacent to the small brick intake house, is an area with paying removed which shcl>ws the extensive rubble backfill.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
1884_Plate_C_South_Boston_Iron_Works
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1874 Atlas
Jenney Refinery
The Jenney Manufacturing Company, another of the old establishments of South Boston, is still flourishing and .... superintendent, are well known throughout the district, where they .... The treasurer, Edward .... connected with the firm since 1869, is one of the prominent oil merchants of New England, and respected throughout the trade. It is no exaggeration to sBaoys t tohant Snoeuvtehr had a more loyal or public spirited resident than Bernard Jenney. In the refining of petroleum and the manufacture of burning oils, this company occupies al leading position in the business world and it is also distinguished as being one of the very few that were not absorbed by the oil trust. Isaac and Stephen Jenney established the business at 50 State Street in 181 2, and the refining of petroleum was begun in 1861, when the business was carried on by Bernard Jenney and his brother, Francis H. Jenney, under the name of Stephen Jenney & Co. In 1884 the Jenney Manufacturing Company was incorporated. The works of the Jenney Manufacturing Company are located at the corner of E and West First Streets. The oils manufactured here have a world-wide reputation, being of the very highest grade of excellence. The works have a capacity of more than 500 barrels of oil a day. Bernard Jenney, a native of Boston, has been a resident of South Boston since 1837. Early in his youth he was engaged in the manufacture of chemicals, and afterward of a burning fluid, composed of a mixture of camphene and alcohol. Although never aspiring to public office, Mr. Jenney has been prominent in the affairs of the district, and has a wide acquaintance among its residents. Walter Jenney is a native of South Boston and was always in the employ of his father. He graduated from the Bigelow and the English High Schools, and continued his education at the Institute of Technology, graduating in the class of 1877.
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
HISTORY OF SOUTH BOSTON (ITS PAST AND PRESENT) AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE WITH SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN BY JOHN J. TOOMEY AND EDWARD P. B. RANKIN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (1901).
Roxbury Gas Light Co.
The Roundhouse was constructed circa 1887, and was operated by the Roxbury Gas Light Co. as a gas holder for approximately a decade. Gas was produced by the pyrolysis of coal, and the retort, gas cleaner, and primary gas holders were located several hundred feet I northeast of the Roundhouse Property along Bradston and Southampton Streets. Coal was unloaded via the Roxbury Canal (extension of Fort Point Channel), which formerly extended within 500 feet north-northeast of the Roundhouse Property. By 1914, Boston Consolidated Gas Co. had removed the gas holder mechanism and installed the concrete floors and freight elevator in the building. Boston Consolidated Gas then used the Roundhouse Property for storage and offices until at least 1931. A 1925 I building permit indicates that a 6-foot by 6-foot addition was to be constructed for the storage of paints and oils. There is no evidence that this addition was ever constructed. In 1914, the adjoining parcel to the north (herein the 865 Massachusetts Avenue Property)
was improved with two buildings occupied by Boston Consolidated Gas Co. and used for storage. By 1938, additions had been constructed to achieve the current building configuration. The adjoining parcel to the south (herein the 895 Massachusetts Avenue Property) has operated as a gasoline station since circa 1931, and also formerly operated as a fuel oil Idepot. Underground storage has included gasoline, diesel, kerosene, fuel oil, and motor oil, including several USTs located immediately adjacent to the southemrn boundary of the Roundhouse Property.
iHistorically, the area surrounding the Roundhouse Property was a tidal area that was filled in the 1800s and then was used for industrial and commercial purposes. The property to the west at 11 Gerard Street has operated as a lumber yard since circa I 1969, and was a stone cutting works prior to that time. The Mobil gasoline station to the east has operated as such since at least 1931, and the sub shop to the north of the Mobil station operated as a gasoline station between circa 1931 and 1971. I Remnants of the manufactured gas plant structures remained to the east of the RoundhouseProperty on Bradston Street until at least 1950, and a number of industrial concerns were developed in that area in the 1930s: Master Chemical Co., Steiff Adhesive & Business Binding, and General Waste Co.
8 Gerard Street, Roxbury, MA, ENSOL, Inc. September 1999.
was improved with two buildings occupied by Boston Consolidated Gas Co. and used for storage. By 1938, additions had been constructed to achieve the current building configuration. The adjoining parcel to the south (herein the 895 Massachusetts Avenue Property) has operated as a gasoline station since circa 1931, and also formerly operated as a fuel oil Idepot. Underground storage has included gasoline, diesel, kerosene, fuel oil, and motor oil, including several USTs located immediately adjacent to the southemrn boundary of the Roundhouse Property.
iHistorically, the area surrounding the Roundhouse Property was a tidal area that was filled in the 1800s and then was used for industrial and commercial purposes. The property to the west at 11 Gerard Street has operated as a lumber yard since circa I 1969, and was a stone cutting works prior to that time. The Mobil gasoline station to the east has operated as such since at least 1931, and the sub shop to the north of the Mobil station operated as a gasoline station between circa 1931 and 1971. I Remnants of the manufactured gas plant structures remained to the east of the RoundhouseProperty on Bradston Street until at least 1950, and a number of industrial concerns were developed in that area in the 1930s: Master Chemical Co., Steiff Adhesive & Business Binding, and General Waste Co.
8 Gerard Street, Roxbury, MA, ENSOL, Inc. September 1999.
The Roxbury Gas Light Company was chartered in 1852 by Samuel Guild, Alvah Kittredge, and John H. Blake for the purpose of making and selling gas in Roxbury (RGLC 1853:7). The company established a plant on the Roxbury Canal, which extended into Roxbury from the Fort Point Channel and Boston Harbor, and imported coal from Newcastle and Nova Scotia to convert into gas. The gas was stored in a telescoping metal tank (the gasholder) within a large, brick enclosure, known as a gasholder house (PAL 1997). The Roxbury Gas Light Company Gasholder, 8 Gerard Street (1868–1873) was the last, and largest gasholder constructed for the Roxbury company. The gasholder was constructed with a double-lift telescoping tank, and the exterior had elongated, round-topped windows and a cupola on the roof (Pyne 1989:56). A purifier house and retort house, both of which are no longer extant, were adjacent to the gasholder, near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Gerard Street (Bromley 1899). In 1905, the Roxbury Gas Light Company consolidated with the Boston, Brookline, South Boston, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain gas light companies, the Bay State Gas Company, and the Massachusetts Pipe Line Gas Company to form the Boston Consolidated Gas Company (Boston Globe 1905:1). Following the consolidation of the various gas light companies, the retort and purifier houses were removed, and the building was altered by removing the gasholder and attendant apparatus from the interior, inserting of three floors on the interior, and cutting 24 windows through the gasholder house exterior; it is possible the cupola was removed at this time as well (BISD; Stott 1983). In 1925, the Boston Consolidated Gas Company constructed a paint storage building, now 875 Massachusetts Avenue (BISD). The gasholder building was occupied by various uses through the remainder of the twentieth century, including light manufacturing and storage under the ownership of Hemingway Brothers, and a warehouse in the 1980s (Morgan 2009:249). In 2000–2001 the gasholder was converted into a hotel, a use which continues to the present (BISD; Morgan 2009:249).
BOS.11243, Roxbury Gas Light Company Gasholder, 8 Gerard St / 865 Massachusetts Ave (June 2017).
The Roxbury Gas Light Company Gasholder at 865 Massachusetts Ave (MHC 11243, mid-19th c.lbefore 1873) was the last and largest brick gasholder built by the Roxbury Gas Light Company. The company was organized in 1852 and established a plant on the Roxbury Canal at the southern end of South Cove. They received coal by schooner from Newcastle and Nova Scotia and converted it into gas, which was stored in a telescoping metal tank, which would maintain pressure in the gas mains, inside of the brick holder. By 1873, two gasholders were located north of Southampton Street and the larger, present one to the south. Gas generation on the site ended in 1905, when Roxbury Gas Light Company joined the Boston Consolidated Gas Company. The plant was demolished in 1906 and the tank was removed from the gas holder (its iron frame remains inside the brick cylinder). Three floors were inserted into the building and lit by 24 new windows. Since these additions the gasholder has been used for a motion picture exhibition in the 1920s, the Hemingway Brothers' light manufacturing and storage plant in the 1930s, and a warehouse in the 1980s. This is one of three gasholders remaining in Boston, the others being the Charlestown Gas Company Gasholder (MHC 4230, ca. 1853) in the Mystic River Area (MHC RM), and a small, ca.1855 gasholder built for a private estate in Brookline. This gasholder is one of six remaining in Massachusetts, and one of thirteen remaining in New England (BLC 1984 [8 Gerard Street])
BOS.RS, Lower Roxbury Industrial District, Roxbury; Dorchester Bay; Massachusetts Historical Commission (Aug. 1997).
BOS.11243, Roxbury Gas Light Company Gasholder, 8 Gerard St / 865 Massachusetts Ave (June 2017).
The Roxbury Gas Light Company Gasholder at 865 Massachusetts Ave (MHC 11243, mid-19th c.lbefore 1873) was the last and largest brick gasholder built by the Roxbury Gas Light Company. The company was organized in 1852 and established a plant on the Roxbury Canal at the southern end of South Cove. They received coal by schooner from Newcastle and Nova Scotia and converted it into gas, which was stored in a telescoping metal tank, which would maintain pressure in the gas mains, inside of the brick holder. By 1873, two gasholders were located north of Southampton Street and the larger, present one to the south. Gas generation on the site ended in 1905, when Roxbury Gas Light Company joined the Boston Consolidated Gas Company. The plant was demolished in 1906 and the tank was removed from the gas holder (its iron frame remains inside the brick cylinder). Three floors were inserted into the building and lit by 24 new windows. Since these additions the gasholder has been used for a motion picture exhibition in the 1920s, the Hemingway Brothers' light manufacturing and storage plant in the 1930s, and a warehouse in the 1980s. This is one of three gasholders remaining in Boston, the others being the Charlestown Gas Company Gasholder (MHC 4230, ca. 1853) in the Mystic River Area (MHC RM), and a small, ca.1855 gasholder built for a private estate in Brookline. This gasholder is one of six remaining in Massachusetts, and one of thirteen remaining in New England (BLC 1984 [8 Gerard Street])
BOS.RS, Lower Roxbury Industrial District, Roxbury; Dorchester Bay; Massachusetts Historical Commission (Aug. 1997).
1873 V2 Plate C W13 Gas Light Co
1874_Ward7_P_Boston_Gas_Light_Co
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The site is the location of a former chemical manufacturing operation for products used in the shoe industry, primarily latex adhesives, and also blended salt and chemical cleaners, as well as manufacturing of shoe finishes, dressings, slips and leather softeners. The site was developed on a filled area of former tidal wetland. There are two buildings on the property, one three story structure where the chemical operations took place and a second single story building used primarily for product storage and warehousing. Chemical processing operations ceased on-site in November 1984.
There are no obvious environmental problems associated with any of these properties. However, Steiff Rubber, the Gens property and the Safe 'N Sound property have housed storage tanks and/or manufacturing in the past and could have served as sources of contamination. In addition, other facilities upgradient could potentially have been sources, as there are numerous fuel tanks in the area.
There are no federal National Priorities List (NPL) or Superfund sites in Boston, Massachusetts. There is a second nationwide list of locations scheduled for investigation by EPA or the State relative to potential hazardous waste contamination, the Emergency and Remedial Response Inventory-System (ERRIS) list. There are twelve ERRIS list site in Boston: Boston Edison L Street - New Boston Station, 766 Summer Street; Commercial Point LNG Plan, 220 Victory Road; Honeywell Info. Systems, Life Street; Lewis Chemical Corp., Fairmont Court; Mile Road Dump, Columbia Point; Salem Lead Co., 800 Albany Avenue; South Station (Foundation Fill Disposal), Summer Street; Sperry Univac Recording & Statistical, Wm. T. Morrisey Blvd.; South Street Incinerator, Off S.E. Expressway; Suffolk Services Inc., Taylor Street; U.S. Navy, Boston Naval Shipyard; Safety Projects and Engineering, Mass Bay Foul Area, Boston Harbor Area.
SOIL CONTAMINATION SITE ASSESSMENT FOR THE FORMER MASTER CHEMICAL PROPERTY 29 BRADSTON STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, CDM, December 3, 1985
Railroad / MBTA
In March 1993, an unknown oil sheen was identified in a sewer at the Boston Transportation Yard (N93-0361, 03/30/1993)
Widett Circle Properties, Boston, MA, Prepared by VHB for MBTA, Phase I Initial Site Investigation, Tier Classification, & Phase II Scope of Work (Aug. 9 2024).
In the late nineteenth century, the west side of the channel underwent a dramatic change. A union· station, one which would consolidate the lines and facilities for the railroads entering from the south and west, was one of the principal goals of Mayor Josiah Quincy (1859-1919), CUt ardent believer in civic improvements. Additionally, by 1893 the powerful New Haven Railroad had bought three of the four rail lines that entered Boston. Early in January 1896, even prior to officially taking office as the city's thirty-fourth mayor, Quincy met with New Haven President Charles Clark to suggest that he consider a single passenger station on the south side of the city. The railroad agreed to the mayor's proposal and with the backing of the city, in 1896, organized the Boston Terminal Company to acquire the necessary land and to construct and operate the new terminal. The South Station project was substantial, involving a large, two-story, headhause and terminal building, a glass and steel trainshed (that when completed was the second wide$t in the world, after St. Louis),an underground tracked baggage handling system, and a large railyard with a capacity for 737 daily trains. The project necessitated not only the realignment of major train lines and construction of a new bridge across the channel (HAER No .. MA-35, New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, Fort Point Channel Rolling Lift Bridge), but. also a reconstruction of portions of the west and east shores of Fort Point Channel as well. Work began in July 1896, and the new station, when it opened on December 30, 1898, was considered the largest train station in the world. II After the completion of South Station, the channel was, for the most part, in its present configuration. Due to the difficulty of navigation in Fort Point Channel, because of the many bridges, the southern and eastern sections of South Bay were filled in by 1916. Sh~p-borne transportation declined in the twentieth century and. more of South Bay was filled, although two wharfs were still in existence as late as 1948. The construction of the Southeast Expressway in the mid-1950s necessitated the filling of the remainder of South Bay, and at that time the southern end of the channel was diverted into a culvert. A small slip at the bend of the ,channel . on the east side was filled in by the Gillette Company in the 1960s; with this last fill the ,channel reached its present configuration. 12 While the fill activity and harbor commission lines depict the physical history of Fort Point Channel, they do not convey the activity level of the waterway or its relevance to Boston shipping. At the beginning of the century, in 1906, the draw tender of the Broadway Bridge reported opening that swing span 2,381 times {Approximately 6 112 times each day). IS FC)rt Point' Channel was a vital, crowded, busy waterway. Ship traffic had to be coordinated through up to seven bridges in less than I 112 miles depending on which wharf the cargo was headed for. Yet beginning as early as the 1890's, the channel's importance as a waterway slowly began to erode, an early target in the gradual dominance of vehicular traffic. The battle over the disruption of traffic flow over Fort Point Channel was a harbinger of the steady transformatiolll in the shipping industry from water based transport to that of land and air based transportation.
In 1835, a state commission was formed to determine the boundaries within which wharves could be built to lessen their impact to the harbor.28 This ruling, with a few later modifications, determined the present day configuration of the western edge of Fort Point Channel from the West Fourth Street Bridge up to the mouth of the channel. In 1896, construction of South Station and its rail yards began on both sides of the chann¢l with extensive land acquisition and large-scale demolition of existing structures. At that tinne, the' entire west side of the channel was lined with wooden and granite wharves. Betore any construction could begin, the wharves and docks had to be filled and a new west edge of the channel defined. The reconfiguring of the channel was done in conjunction with the City of Boston and the Massachusetts Harbor Commission, which granted permits for the work to be done. In the spring of 1897, the city began construction of the seawall along what would become Dorchester A venue from the Dorchester Avenue Bridge north W Summer Street. In 1898 Federal Street was abandoned and removed (it was incorporated into the South Station rail yard) and Dor¢hester A venue was extended over the channel from South Boston to Boston .. In April 1898, a contract was let for the construction of the wall south of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge .. Downs' .1899 View of Fort Point Channel depicts the new seawall extending to the Broadway Bridge.19 In the spring of 1897, an extensive cofferdam was completed along the line of what would become the east side of Fort Point Channel. Borings indicated a layer of clay about 40 feet below the street surface, upon which the dam, built of hard pine timbers, was laid. Wherever this sheet piling was laid, it was necessary to remove any rocks or debris to ensure a close fit on tip of the clay to keep the water out. Piles were driven down to the clay layer and the space between the coffer dam and piles were backfilled with stone ballast, earth and rubble (possibly from the demolished buildings on the site.30 A granite wall was then constructed on top of the piles. Granite blocks cut into rectangular lengths, were laid horizontally, randomly interspersed with square granite blocks. At low tide, 11 courses are visible; the wall is capped with a granite coping. All the stones are cut in rough faced ashlar and are medium gray. The wall was dry laid. The construction of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge in 1948 and the small "Y" connector built in the 1980s resulted in the removal of sections south of the Rolling Lift Bridge but the remaining wall has survived unchanged since its construction.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
Widett Circle Properties, Boston, MA, Prepared by VHB for MBTA, Phase I Initial Site Investigation, Tier Classification, & Phase II Scope of Work (Aug. 9 2024).
In the late nineteenth century, the west side of the channel underwent a dramatic change. A union· station, one which would consolidate the lines and facilities for the railroads entering from the south and west, was one of the principal goals of Mayor Josiah Quincy (1859-1919), CUt ardent believer in civic improvements. Additionally, by 1893 the powerful New Haven Railroad had bought three of the four rail lines that entered Boston. Early in January 1896, even prior to officially taking office as the city's thirty-fourth mayor, Quincy met with New Haven President Charles Clark to suggest that he consider a single passenger station on the south side of the city. The railroad agreed to the mayor's proposal and with the backing of the city, in 1896, organized the Boston Terminal Company to acquire the necessary land and to construct and operate the new terminal. The South Station project was substantial, involving a large, two-story, headhause and terminal building, a glass and steel trainshed (that when completed was the second wide$t in the world, after St. Louis),an underground tracked baggage handling system, and a large railyard with a capacity for 737 daily trains. The project necessitated not only the realignment of major train lines and construction of a new bridge across the channel (HAER No .. MA-35, New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, Fort Point Channel Rolling Lift Bridge), but. also a reconstruction of portions of the west and east shores of Fort Point Channel as well. Work began in July 1896, and the new station, when it opened on December 30, 1898, was considered the largest train station in the world. II After the completion of South Station, the channel was, for the most part, in its present configuration. Due to the difficulty of navigation in Fort Point Channel, because of the many bridges, the southern and eastern sections of South Bay were filled in by 1916. Sh~p-borne transportation declined in the twentieth century and. more of South Bay was filled, although two wharfs were still in existence as late as 1948. The construction of the Southeast Expressway in the mid-1950s necessitated the filling of the remainder of South Bay, and at that time the southern end of the channel was diverted into a culvert. A small slip at the bend of the ,channel . on the east side was filled in by the Gillette Company in the 1960s; with this last fill the ,channel reached its present configuration. 12 While the fill activity and harbor commission lines depict the physical history of Fort Point Channel, they do not convey the activity level of the waterway or its relevance to Boston shipping. At the beginning of the century, in 1906, the draw tender of the Broadway Bridge reported opening that swing span 2,381 times {Approximately 6 112 times each day). IS FC)rt Point' Channel was a vital, crowded, busy waterway. Ship traffic had to be coordinated through up to seven bridges in less than I 112 miles depending on which wharf the cargo was headed for. Yet beginning as early as the 1890's, the channel's importance as a waterway slowly began to erode, an early target in the gradual dominance of vehicular traffic. The battle over the disruption of traffic flow over Fort Point Channel was a harbinger of the steady transformatiolll in the shipping industry from water based transport to that of land and air based transportation.
In 1835, a state commission was formed to determine the boundaries within which wharves could be built to lessen their impact to the harbor.28 This ruling, with a few later modifications, determined the present day configuration of the western edge of Fort Point Channel from the West Fourth Street Bridge up to the mouth of the channel. In 1896, construction of South Station and its rail yards began on both sides of the chann¢l with extensive land acquisition and large-scale demolition of existing structures. At that tinne, the' entire west side of the channel was lined with wooden and granite wharves. Betore any construction could begin, the wharves and docks had to be filled and a new west edge of the channel defined. The reconfiguring of the channel was done in conjunction with the City of Boston and the Massachusetts Harbor Commission, which granted permits for the work to be done. In the spring of 1897, the city began construction of the seawall along what would become Dorchester A venue from the Dorchester Avenue Bridge north W Summer Street. In 1898 Federal Street was abandoned and removed (it was incorporated into the South Station rail yard) and Dor¢hester A venue was extended over the channel from South Boston to Boston .. In April 1898, a contract was let for the construction of the wall south of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge .. Downs' .1899 View of Fort Point Channel depicts the new seawall extending to the Broadway Bridge.19 In the spring of 1897, an extensive cofferdam was completed along the line of what would become the east side of Fort Point Channel. Borings indicated a layer of clay about 40 feet below the street surface, upon which the dam, built of hard pine timbers, was laid. Wherever this sheet piling was laid, it was necessary to remove any rocks or debris to ensure a close fit on tip of the clay to keep the water out. Piles were driven down to the clay layer and the space between the coffer dam and piles were backfilled with stone ballast, earth and rubble (possibly from the demolished buildings on the site.30 A granite wall was then constructed on top of the piles. Granite blocks cut into rectangular lengths, were laid horizontally, randomly interspersed with square granite blocks. At low tide, 11 courses are visible; the wall is capped with a granite coping. All the stones are cut in rough faced ashlar and are medium gray. The wall was dry laid. The construction of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge in 1948 and the small "Y" connector built in the 1980s resulted in the removal of sections south of the Rolling Lift Bridge but the remaining wall has survived unchanged since its construction.
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD FORT POINT CHANNEL HAER NO. MA-130
1874_Ward7_P_Railroad
1884_Ward13_PlateA_South_Boston_Train
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1874_Ward5_PlateP_Dock_Fort_Point_Coal_Yards
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1884_SBFlats_Wharf_&_Trains_&_Sugar
Salt Works
The manufacture of bricks and of salt was formerly carried on upon the marshes and upland along the causeway
After the close of the Revolution, Gen. Joseph Palmer settled in Roxbury, and established salt-works on Boston Neck. He had just completed extensive works for this purpose, for which he had built a dam on the east side of the Neck. when he discovered that the frost had strengthened the brine, and that the ice formed upon it was perfectly fresh. Elated by- his discovery, he walked into Boston on one of the coldest days of the winter to make known his success to Gov. Bowdoin, an intimate friend and a subscriber to the project, and returning to Roxbury that night after sunset, incautiously sat down by a warm fire. It was soon perceived that he could neither speak nor move. He was struck with palsy. and died at his residence in Roxbury. on Dec. 25. 1783, at the age of seventy, leaving as a visible memorial only the dam on Boston Neck.
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, N.B., A Topographical Historical Description Boston.(1871).
After the close of the Revolution, Gen. Joseph Palmer settled in Roxbury, and established salt-works on Boston Neck. He had just completed extensive works for this purpose, for which he had built a dam on the east side of the Neck. when he discovered that the frost had strengthened the brine, and that the ice formed upon it was perfectly fresh. Elated by- his discovery, he walked into Boston on one of the coldest days of the winter to make known his success to Gov. Bowdoin, an intimate friend and a subscriber to the project, and returning to Roxbury that night after sunset, incautiously sat down by a warm fire. It was soon perceived that he could neither speak nor move. He was struck with palsy. and died at his residence in Roxbury. on Dec. 25. 1783, at the age of seventy, leaving as a visible memorial only the dam on Boston Neck.
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, N.B., A Topographical Historical Description Boston.(1871).
Charts and Tables
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PHotos
Title:
Mass Chemical Co./Conners Brothers, hay, grain & straw, etc.
Sponsor:
Boston Wharf Company
Date:
[ca. 1898–1907]
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Item Information
Title:
Three alarm fire at close range, waste factory, South Boston
Photographer:
Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967
Date:
September 1916
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Explosions
East Boston District Court position on June 1 at pumping station of Metropolitan Water Works. Explosion resulted in the death of James Grourk, Philip Healy, Maritn Devereaux, Cornelius Sullivan, Thomas Butler, and Elmer Gifford. Expert investigation. Explosion due to gasoline in the sewers which vaporized and was ignited from some unknown source.
The Boston Globe, Mon, Oct 26, 1914 ·Page 1
South Boston explosion. Strandway. Day prior. Exploded caps, magazine. I find there is a general laxity on the part of the local authorities in preventing this and I recommend that the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage board or the district police take the necessary action to remedy this evil.
The Boston Globe Fri, Aug 09, 1957 ·Page 5
May 26 1885 explosion in South End. Buildings destroyed and people killed. Explosion was muffled and ponderous. Followed by a sky-piercing column of smoke and a downpour of bricks and mortar occurred in five story brick building which stook at the corner of WA and LA Grange. (525). Dows drug store. 6:30pm. No cause but saw started by a brilliant flash and an upheaval of the floor.
The Boston Globe Thu, Nov 01, 1900 ·Page 4
The Boston Globe, Mon, Oct 26, 1914 ·Page 1
South Boston explosion. Strandway. Day prior. Exploded caps, magazine. I find there is a general laxity on the part of the local authorities in preventing this and I recommend that the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage board or the district police take the necessary action to remedy this evil.
The Boston Globe Fri, Aug 09, 1957 ·Page 5
May 26 1885 explosion in South End. Buildings destroyed and people killed. Explosion was muffled and ponderous. Followed by a sky-piercing column of smoke and a downpour of bricks and mortar occurred in five story brick building which stook at the corner of WA and LA Grange. (525). Dows drug store. 6:30pm. No cause but saw started by a brilliant flash and an upheaval of the floor.
The Boston Globe Thu, Nov 01, 1900 ·Page 4
March 17 1954
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March 17 1954
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July 23 1886
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July 23 1886
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Examples of spills, releases, leaks, and dumping
- MBTA: In August 1985, a spill of approximately 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel occurred within Food Market Circle. (N85-0635, 8/21/1985)
- MBTA: In January 1989, a release of an unknown quantity of antifreeze was reported at the Boston Transportation Yard (N89-0082, 01/18/1989)
- Boston ISD / Widett Circle: 12k gallon fuel, 3x AST for gas and diesel (1989).
- FPC: an unknown quantity of ammonia was released from a pipe/hose/line at the BECO site. (1990, N90-0038).
- MBTA: In July 1991, approximately 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid was released to a manhole within Foodmart Road (N91-1048, 07/31/1991)
- BWC: a 3,000-gallon UST formerly used to store No. 2 fuel oil was excavated and removed from the 44 Farnsworth Street property. During UST removal activities, soil within the tank excavation was observed to be "heavily stained" and an oil sheen was observed on groundwater at the base of the excavation. (1991, RTN 3-4363, N91-1320).
- MBTA: In May 1992, approximately 500 pounds of propane was released at the Boston Transportation Yard due to equipment failure. (N92-0629, 05/18/1992)
- MBTA: In March 1993, an unknown oil sheen was identified in a sewer at the Boston Transportation Yard (N93-0361, 03/30/1993)
- BWC: During reconstruction of a Boston Edison (BECO) manhole on 31 March 1993, oil believed to be either No.4 or No.6 fuel oil was observed migrating into the open manhole excavation located along a private way owned by Boston Wharf Company. (N93-0362:, 1993).
- MBTA: In August 1994, lead and petroleum were detected in soil in excess of applicable regulatory standards (RTN 3-11499, 08/16/1994)
- Gillette: discovery of VOCs including vinyl chloride and trichloroethene (TCE) in excess of reportable concentrations in groundwater and TCE in excess of reportable concentrations in soil. The source of the VOCs was attributed to previous unidentified spills of chlorinated solvents. (1995, RN 3-11312).
- 540 Albany: release of approximately 25 gallons of diesel fuel (RTNs 3-11229 and 3-35747, 1994).
- NYNEX: On 17 October 1995 MADEP assigned RTN 3-13047 to the Nynex site following the identification of a release of No. 2 fuel oil to site soils and groundwater, and asbestos materials. The release was identified during the excavation and removal of a 3,000-gallon No. 2 fuel oil UST and associated underground piping. (1995).
- In August 1995 URAM activities were initiated in response to the discovery of a previously unknown and abandoned UST containing a mixture of soil and oil located west of Gillette Building Z (approximately 0.13 mile east of the Fort Point Channel Sewer Separation alignment). (1995, RTN 3-12767).
- Farnsworth: On 5 November 1996, a 3,000-gallon UST was removed from beneath the concrete floor slab of the building located at 34 Farnsworth Street. Sampling and subsequent chemical analysis of soils around the USTdetected levels of TPH in exceedence of Upper Concentration Limits. (1996).
- Gillette: On 28 June 1996 MADEP was notified of the presence of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) in monitoring wells installed directly east of Gillette Building Z (approximately 0.17 mile east of the Fort Point Channel Sewer Separation alignment). DNAPL was encountered in wells installed in the overburden and bedrock strata and consisted of chlorinated solvents. (1996, RN-13952).
- NYNEX: On 2 January 1997, MADEP was notified of lead concentrations in site soil and groundwater above MCP reportable concentrations. (RTN 3-15220 , RTN 3-15221 , 1997)
- FPC: A two-hour reporting condition resulted from the identification of a sheen in the Fort Point Channel surface water discharging from several drums on 27 January 1998. (1998, RTN 3-15952).
- MBTA: In July 1999, a vehicular incident caused the release of approximately 90 gallons of diesel fuel to the asphalt-paved surface (RTN 3-18540, 07/21/1999)
- MBTA: In December 2010, elevated levels of PAHs, metals, and petroleum constituents were detected in soil (RTN 3-29676, 12/01/2010)
- MBTA: In September 2019, a release of approximately 347 pounds of anhydrous ammonia occurred (RTN 3-35885, 09/30/2019)
- MBTA: All six releases at the property are associated with ammonia (RTNs 3-17408- 3-29408, 1998 Through 2005).
- MBTA: A sudden release of 185 gallons of diesel fuel occurred at the property (RTNs 3-32760 & 3-35617, 2015)
- 540 Albany: presence of PAHs, metals, and petroleum constituents in soil in excess of the applicable regulatory criteria (RTN 3-35737, 2019)
- MBTA: A release of approximately 768 gallons of diesel occurred during refueling locomotives at the property (RTN 3-36662, 2020).
- Gillette Manufacturing, Inc., 1 Gillette Park (RTNs 3-4365, 3-11418, 3-11801, 3-12233, 3- 12352, 3-12767, 3-12777, 3-13952, 3-14687, 3-15548, 3-17924, 3-11312).
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Dumps & LandFills
Complaints against Boston, Lowell Railroad Corporation, and Harford & Erie Railroad Co. for recent and ongoing attempts to fill South Bay and the marshland including placing roads and railroads on flat surfaces across the bay rather then elevating them.
Trustee of Boston want a solid embankment across the bay and the railroad already acted with “solid filling that has been unlawfully put into the bay”
Sanitary conditions require that South Bay should be deepened, so that its flats, impregnated with sewage matter, should not be exposed at every low tide to the sun. Commerce needs a deeper water in South Bay.
The westerly portion of the bay can only be deepened economically by using the material dredged out in filling up so much of the bay as lies east of the railroad. Such an excavation and filling would harmonize all interests. “
The Board has also requested the DA for Suffolk Co to edict George W. Gerrish for unlawfully building a wharf to Chelsey in violation of the four and fifth section so of Chapter 149.
Boston Post, Legal Proceedings, Thu, Feb 26, 1874 ·Page 4
"The Roxbury Transfer Station is an active operating solid waste handling facility located at 66 Norfolk Avenue in Roxbury, Massachusetts (Figure 1). The Site is approximately 1.9 acres in area and is bounded by Kemble Street to the northeast, Gerard Street to the southeast, and Norfolk Avenue to the southwest (Figure 2). Commercial and light industrial businesses abut the property to the northwest. Based on available Site information, the Site has been operating as an active MSW handling facility
(transfer station) since 1977. The existing transfer building was constructed not long after operations began, and a major renovation was conducted in the mid-1980's. Information prior to 1977 regarding Site use and ownership is unknown. ... The OHM is likely caused by general historical industrial uses of the property and/or historical filling of the property with poor quality urban fill. "
CONSTRUCTION RELEASE ABATEMENT MEASURE PLAN, ROXBURY TRANSFER STATION, 66 NORFOLK AVENUE ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS July 15, 2005
Planned as an area of three and four-storey b r i c k row houses, the South End was mostly developed between ca. 1850 when the City of Boston began filling marshland to create building lots and the Financial Panic of 1873.
United States Department of the Interior, NPS, National Register of Historic Places inventory—Nomination Form, SEP 30.1983
Agree ment reached between Boston, MA, Boston Wharf Co and Boston & Albany Railroad co to enclose with sea walls on the borders of Fort Point Channel and the main channel of Boston Harbor and fill on or before oct 1 1876 their several parcels of flats on the SE side of Fort Point Channel. Boston Post, Thu, Feb 26, 1874 ·Page 4 The Boston Globe Thu, Aug 25, 1887 ·Page 6
1860 – new commission on South Bay. Boston Evening Transcript Fri, Jun 22, 1860 ·Page 4
Gov Moratorium on all greater Boston Highway projects, The Boston Globe, Sun, Sep 29, 1974 ·Page 42
Eisenhower signed bill declaring tidewaters are “non navigable water.” Excuse was Central Artery connection on filled land, causeway, or low bridge. Otherwise need drawbridge. Before there was even a plan DPW says they’re filling part of it to build a surface road beside line of new Artery. Says south bay pro filled by DPW, but waiting on final plans. Hyland DPW wants industrial. In 1950 BPA recommended filling. And let artery run over it. But artery isn’t doing that and “may other objections have been raised.”
The Boston Globe, Sun, May 22, 1955 ·Page 74
Historical Development of the Fort Point Channel Landmark District Boston Wharf Company’s land-making Making land by leveling hills and filling the marshes and muddy flats that ringed Boston for the purpose of expanding the build-able area of the town is something Bostonians have been doing since the beginning of European settlement. As a pamphlet from 1910 proudly noted “possibly no city in the world has altered more the physical conformation of its site” than Boston has.4 And this was written before the huge area of East Boston that would become the site of Logan airport or the expanse east of the Commonwealth Flats in South Boston – future site of the Army Supply Base – had been filled. Land-making was encouraged by the Commonwealth’s colonial-era riparian law, which “gives shoreline property owners rights to the adjacent tidal flats down to the low tide line or 1650 feet from the line of high tide, whichever is closest to the shore.”5 The original intent of this law was not to encourage land-making so much as to encourage waterfront landowners to build wharves. Land-making only commenced in a big way during the first decade of the nineteenth century, with the formation of several land development corporations, some of which began to make new land for the purpose of increasing the developable area of the city. Well-known Boston land-making projects include the “Bulfinch Triangle” – today’s North Station district – created by filling the Mill Pond (1807-29), and Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market, created by filling in the town docks and wharves east of venerable Faneuil Hall (filling completed 1826). Fort Hill, from which Fort Point and Fort Point Channel take their names, was cleared and cut down between 1866 and 1872 and the material used to fill the shorelines at Fort Point and in South Boston. Fort Hill was located immediately south of the central business district as it existed in the mid 19th century, in an area bounded by Milk, Pearl and Broad streets.
Real estate developers and speculators were active on both sides of Fort Point Channel at the opening of the nineteenth century. Coinciding with the annexation of South Boston (originally part of the town of Dorchester) to Boston in 1804, men with property interests in South Boston joined to build the first bridge linking the two areas. The South Boston Bridge, a toll bridge, opened in 1805. It was located at the south end of Fort Point Channel, extending from Dover Street in Boston. On the South Boston side of the channel, the South Boston Association, like Boston’s other land-making corporations, began to “wharf out” into the channel. Later, in 1827-28, a more direct free bridge was built from the end of Federal Street in Boston to the Turnpike in South Boston (roughly where today’s Dorchester Avenue Bridge stands). The encroachments interfered with boat access to the south end of the channel and encouraged filling on both sides of the channel south of the bridge. Between 1836 and 1839, the South Cove Associates, formed in 1833, filled the former wharves below the Free Bridge on the Boston side. This land became the site of terminals for the newly established railroads. Around the same time, north of the Free Bridge on the opposite shore, the Boston Wharf Company began its wharfing-out and land-making venture.
Incorporated in 1836, the Boston Wharf Company (BWCo) purchased land and adjoining flats from the South Boston Association with the intention of building wharves for docking and warehousing. Its property ran along First Street on the south, from what became Dorchester Avenue to B Street, and then extended north along B Street about 1200 feet (in 1845, increased to 1400 feet), and ran east to the channel. BWCo built its wharves in the usual fashion, first constructing a seawall then filling in behind it. By 1837, it completed the first stage of its landmaking: a wharf that extended roughly north into the channel from First Street (today, this area is part of the The Gillette Company plant). It built a seawall twelve feet high, then brought in fill material from Nook Hill, the site of today’s Andrew Square, and finally constructed two stone wharves with streets down their centers. This wharf structure can be seen on maps from the 1840s, for example, the 1847 U.S. Coast Survey’s Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston.
Over time, the company extended the seawall north along the channel towards Boston Harbor and filled in behind it. Lawsuits and controversy over the boundaries of the company’s property, as well as poor vehicular access to the area, slowed the process of making land. No bridge served the northern part of the site until about 1855, when Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge opened and connected BWCo land to Boston proper at Kneeland Street. Also around this time the Midland Railroad obtained a right of way through the BWCo site.
A board of engineers – the U. S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor – investigated the situation at the behest of the City of Boston, and it concluded that the many wharves and other encroachments built into the harbor interfered with the natural scouring action of the tides. In 1866, the state legislature established a Board of Harbor Commissioners that was charged, among other duties, with remedying the silting problem. The Board adopted the plan proposed by the U.S. Commissioners, which called for building a seawall and filling in the South Boston Flats in order to concentrate the force of the tides. The wall was to run along the east side of Fort Point Channel then parallel with the main ship channel of the harbor, as far as the slate ledge (a natural obstacle in the water). The curve of the seawall where the harbor wall met the Fort Point Channel wall was a key feature of the plan, designed to combine the force of the channel’s outgoing tide with the tide in the harbor. The “ebb current from the south bay … would be led by the curved bank … to follow the line on its eastern side, along the new [sea]wall, till its direction hould essentially contribute to … the velocity and momentum of the ebb in the ship channel.”7 This resulted in Boston’s distinctive “fan pier.”
BWCo decided to improve the property itself rather than sell it. Thus, following the original plan, it built a light seawall along the channel and filled behind it with material brought over from Fort Hill, which was being chopped down. The seawall had a wooden dock along its length to accommodate vessels and to protect the wall. By 1870, the company had filled an area north of the railroad tracks, as far as the proposed alignment of the new (Congress Street) bridge
BWCo was not obligated to dredge, nor did it have to be picky about what it used to fill its land: in addition to material from Fort Hill, rubbish from the Boston conflagration of 1872 was dumped in its site. The work of filling both the BWCo and Commonwealth sites was completed by 1882. (Fig. 15.)
The Boston Wharf Company is an important example of a Massachusetts real estate development corporation. BWCo’s land-making created a sizable section of South Boston, roughly 96 acres in total. Exactly how this achievement ranks compared with that of other private land-making companies is unknown, as no list 64 of companies and the amount of land they filled is available. However, BWCo can be counted among the larger real estate companies
The Fort Point Channel Landmark District Boston Landmarks Commission Study Report (2008)
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/embed/f/fort-point-study-report.pdf
Trustee of Boston want a solid embankment across the bay and the railroad already acted with “solid filling that has been unlawfully put into the bay”
Sanitary conditions require that South Bay should be deepened, so that its flats, impregnated with sewage matter, should not be exposed at every low tide to the sun. Commerce needs a deeper water in South Bay.
The westerly portion of the bay can only be deepened economically by using the material dredged out in filling up so much of the bay as lies east of the railroad. Such an excavation and filling would harmonize all interests. “
The Board has also requested the DA for Suffolk Co to edict George W. Gerrish for unlawfully building a wharf to Chelsey in violation of the four and fifth section so of Chapter 149.
Boston Post, Legal Proceedings, Thu, Feb 26, 1874 ·Page 4
"The Roxbury Transfer Station is an active operating solid waste handling facility located at 66 Norfolk Avenue in Roxbury, Massachusetts (Figure 1). The Site is approximately 1.9 acres in area and is bounded by Kemble Street to the northeast, Gerard Street to the southeast, and Norfolk Avenue to the southwest (Figure 2). Commercial and light industrial businesses abut the property to the northwest. Based on available Site information, the Site has been operating as an active MSW handling facility
(transfer station) since 1977. The existing transfer building was constructed not long after operations began, and a major renovation was conducted in the mid-1980's. Information prior to 1977 regarding Site use and ownership is unknown. ... The OHM is likely caused by general historical industrial uses of the property and/or historical filling of the property with poor quality urban fill. "
CONSTRUCTION RELEASE ABATEMENT MEASURE PLAN, ROXBURY TRANSFER STATION, 66 NORFOLK AVENUE ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS July 15, 2005
Planned as an area of three and four-storey b r i c k row houses, the South End was mostly developed between ca. 1850 when the City of Boston began filling marshland to create building lots and the Financial Panic of 1873.
United States Department of the Interior, NPS, National Register of Historic Places inventory—Nomination Form, SEP 30.1983
Agree ment reached between Boston, MA, Boston Wharf Co and Boston & Albany Railroad co to enclose with sea walls on the borders of Fort Point Channel and the main channel of Boston Harbor and fill on or before oct 1 1876 their several parcels of flats on the SE side of Fort Point Channel. Boston Post, Thu, Feb 26, 1874 ·Page 4 The Boston Globe Thu, Aug 25, 1887 ·Page 6
1860 – new commission on South Bay. Boston Evening Transcript Fri, Jun 22, 1860 ·Page 4
Gov Moratorium on all greater Boston Highway projects, The Boston Globe, Sun, Sep 29, 1974 ·Page 42
Eisenhower signed bill declaring tidewaters are “non navigable water.” Excuse was Central Artery connection on filled land, causeway, or low bridge. Otherwise need drawbridge. Before there was even a plan DPW says they’re filling part of it to build a surface road beside line of new Artery. Says south bay pro filled by DPW, but waiting on final plans. Hyland DPW wants industrial. In 1950 BPA recommended filling. And let artery run over it. But artery isn’t doing that and “may other objections have been raised.”
The Boston Globe, Sun, May 22, 1955 ·Page 74
Historical Development of the Fort Point Channel Landmark District Boston Wharf Company’s land-making Making land by leveling hills and filling the marshes and muddy flats that ringed Boston for the purpose of expanding the build-able area of the town is something Bostonians have been doing since the beginning of European settlement. As a pamphlet from 1910 proudly noted “possibly no city in the world has altered more the physical conformation of its site” than Boston has.4 And this was written before the huge area of East Boston that would become the site of Logan airport or the expanse east of the Commonwealth Flats in South Boston – future site of the Army Supply Base – had been filled. Land-making was encouraged by the Commonwealth’s colonial-era riparian law, which “gives shoreline property owners rights to the adjacent tidal flats down to the low tide line or 1650 feet from the line of high tide, whichever is closest to the shore.”5 The original intent of this law was not to encourage land-making so much as to encourage waterfront landowners to build wharves. Land-making only commenced in a big way during the first decade of the nineteenth century, with the formation of several land development corporations, some of which began to make new land for the purpose of increasing the developable area of the city. Well-known Boston land-making projects include the “Bulfinch Triangle” – today’s North Station district – created by filling the Mill Pond (1807-29), and Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market, created by filling in the town docks and wharves east of venerable Faneuil Hall (filling completed 1826). Fort Hill, from which Fort Point and Fort Point Channel take their names, was cleared and cut down between 1866 and 1872 and the material used to fill the shorelines at Fort Point and in South Boston. Fort Hill was located immediately south of the central business district as it existed in the mid 19th century, in an area bounded by Milk, Pearl and Broad streets.
Real estate developers and speculators were active on both sides of Fort Point Channel at the opening of the nineteenth century. Coinciding with the annexation of South Boston (originally part of the town of Dorchester) to Boston in 1804, men with property interests in South Boston joined to build the first bridge linking the two areas. The South Boston Bridge, a toll bridge, opened in 1805. It was located at the south end of Fort Point Channel, extending from Dover Street in Boston. On the South Boston side of the channel, the South Boston Association, like Boston’s other land-making corporations, began to “wharf out” into the channel. Later, in 1827-28, a more direct free bridge was built from the end of Federal Street in Boston to the Turnpike in South Boston (roughly where today’s Dorchester Avenue Bridge stands). The encroachments interfered with boat access to the south end of the channel and encouraged filling on both sides of the channel south of the bridge. Between 1836 and 1839, the South Cove Associates, formed in 1833, filled the former wharves below the Free Bridge on the Boston side. This land became the site of terminals for the newly established railroads. Around the same time, north of the Free Bridge on the opposite shore, the Boston Wharf Company began its wharfing-out and land-making venture.
Incorporated in 1836, the Boston Wharf Company (BWCo) purchased land and adjoining flats from the South Boston Association with the intention of building wharves for docking and warehousing. Its property ran along First Street on the south, from what became Dorchester Avenue to B Street, and then extended north along B Street about 1200 feet (in 1845, increased to 1400 feet), and ran east to the channel. BWCo built its wharves in the usual fashion, first constructing a seawall then filling in behind it. By 1837, it completed the first stage of its landmaking: a wharf that extended roughly north into the channel from First Street (today, this area is part of the The Gillette Company plant). It built a seawall twelve feet high, then brought in fill material from Nook Hill, the site of today’s Andrew Square, and finally constructed two stone wharves with streets down their centers. This wharf structure can be seen on maps from the 1840s, for example, the 1847 U.S. Coast Survey’s Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston.
Over time, the company extended the seawall north along the channel towards Boston Harbor and filled in behind it. Lawsuits and controversy over the boundaries of the company’s property, as well as poor vehicular access to the area, slowed the process of making land. No bridge served the northern part of the site until about 1855, when Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge opened and connected BWCo land to Boston proper at Kneeland Street. Also around this time the Midland Railroad obtained a right of way through the BWCo site.
A board of engineers – the U. S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor – investigated the situation at the behest of the City of Boston, and it concluded that the many wharves and other encroachments built into the harbor interfered with the natural scouring action of the tides. In 1866, the state legislature established a Board of Harbor Commissioners that was charged, among other duties, with remedying the silting problem. The Board adopted the plan proposed by the U.S. Commissioners, which called for building a seawall and filling in the South Boston Flats in order to concentrate the force of the tides. The wall was to run along the east side of Fort Point Channel then parallel with the main ship channel of the harbor, as far as the slate ledge (a natural obstacle in the water). The curve of the seawall where the harbor wall met the Fort Point Channel wall was a key feature of the plan, designed to combine the force of the channel’s outgoing tide with the tide in the harbor. The “ebb current from the south bay … would be led by the curved bank … to follow the line on its eastern side, along the new [sea]wall, till its direction hould essentially contribute to … the velocity and momentum of the ebb in the ship channel.”7 This resulted in Boston’s distinctive “fan pier.”
BWCo decided to improve the property itself rather than sell it. Thus, following the original plan, it built a light seawall along the channel and filled behind it with material brought over from Fort Hill, which was being chopped down. The seawall had a wooden dock along its length to accommodate vessels and to protect the wall. By 1870, the company had filled an area north of the railroad tracks, as far as the proposed alignment of the new (Congress Street) bridge
BWCo was not obligated to dredge, nor did it have to be picky about what it used to fill its land: in addition to material from Fort Hill, rubbish from the Boston conflagration of 1872 was dumped in its site. The work of filling both the BWCo and Commonwealth sites was completed by 1882. (Fig. 15.)
The Boston Wharf Company is an important example of a Massachusetts real estate development corporation. BWCo’s land-making created a sizable section of South Boston, roughly 96 acres in total. Exactly how this achievement ranks compared with that of other private land-making companies is unknown, as no list 64 of companies and the amount of land they filled is available. However, BWCo can be counted among the larger real estate companies
The Fort Point Channel Landmark District Boston Landmarks Commission Study Report (2008)
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/embed/f/fort-point-study-report.pdf
Major filling of tidelands started around 1850 , used clean sand and gravel from Needham, used for commercial and residential development
1910 – tidal dam build across Charles river
Report on Groundwater Observation Wells, Vol. 1, Stone & Webster for City of Boston ISD, (April 1990).
The work of filling up the cove commenced on the third of May, 1834; and before the close of the year 1837, seventy-seven acres were reclaimed from the sea and the contiguous low lands.
Jenkins, S., The Old Boston Post Road, G.P. Putnam and Son’s (1913).
In Boston there are at least three water tables: superficial fill (unconfined), sand outwash overlain by organic silt and/or peat (confined), and granular glacial till (confined). In addition, localized aquifers may exist in sand lenses within Blue Clay.
Report on Groundwater Observation Wells, Vol. 1, Stone & Webster for City of Boston ISD, (April 1990).
1910 – tidal dam build across Charles river
Report on Groundwater Observation Wells, Vol. 1, Stone & Webster for City of Boston ISD, (April 1990).
The work of filling up the cove commenced on the third of May, 1834; and before the close of the year 1837, seventy-seven acres were reclaimed from the sea and the contiguous low lands.
Jenkins, S., The Old Boston Post Road, G.P. Putnam and Son’s (1913).
In Boston there are at least three water tables: superficial fill (unconfined), sand outwash overlain by organic silt and/or peat (confined), and granular glacial till (confined). In addition, localized aquifers may exist in sand lenses within Blue Clay.
Report on Groundwater Observation Wells, Vol. 1, Stone & Webster for City of Boston ISD, (April 1990).
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South Bay area, Boston and Taunton Transportation Company, Boston, MA; September 26, 1963
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South Bay area, Boston and Taunton Transportation Company, Boston, MA; September 26, 1963
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South Boston, Southampton Street, South Bay, business and residential areas, various views of area, Boston, MA. May 13, 1963
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South Boston, Southampton Street, South Bay, business and residential areas, various views of area, Boston, MA. May 13 1963.
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South Boston, Southampton Street, South Bay, business and residential areas, views of area, Boston, MA. [ca. 1955-1964]
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400 Frontage ESA, New Fueling Station
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400 Frontage ESA, New Fueling Station
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400 Frontage ESA, New Fueling Station
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400 Frontage ESA, New Fueling Station
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