Telegraph Hill

"View of Boston from Telegraph Hill, South Boston" by Bernard Spindler, 1854.


George Washington famously brought cannon to bear on occupied Boston from Dorchester Heights, and forced the British to evacuate the town.  In the early years of the 19th century, what had been Dorchester land was annexe to Boston, and the district of South Boston came into being. Dorchester Heights, so called, was a pair of adjacent hills,

Dorchester Heights, 1806. The left of the two adjacent hills became Telegraph hill.

This 1839 map (turned 90 degrees from normal orientation) shows Telegraph street, showing the earliest example of the name I can find.


When I decided to write a post about Telegraph hill, I assumed there would be a source giving the origin of the name.  In fact, there is no source I can find that gives the history of the name. Rather, the story comes roundabout from multiple sources. And like all such inventions, many people in many places contributed to what is now called a the telegraph. For our story, we can begin in France, where Claude Chappe developed a semaphore system in 1792 that eventually spread from city to city across the nation. Signals were sent by manipulating two flexing arms that could represent 196 characters. The arms were placed on towers in sight of each other, and could relay messages much faster than a man could travel.

Claude Chappe's telegraphe. Jonathan Grout's mechanism would have looked similar.


In 1801, Jonathan Grout, a Massachusetts, built the first such optical telegraph system in the United States, spanning 70 miles between Boston and Martha's Vineyard, to serve the commercial shipping business. Mechanisms similar to that used in France were built on hills running down the South Shore of Massachusetts and across Cape Cod to Woods Hole. Little is available on the actual system used, but apparently it differed somewhat from Claude Chappe's original design. Grout used the name telegraphe, so he must have known of the Frenchman's work.

Grout's system was not a money-maker, and went out of business by 1807. In 1822, John Rowe set up a similar system in Boston harbor, which remained in operation until the 1850s. The problem is that there is no reference I can find to the use of Dorchester heights in either Grout's or Rowe's system, although it certainly must have been so. There is a reference to Rowe's signals being transmitted from Boston to a harbor island, and from there to Hull, but I cannot find South Boston's Telegraph hill in any of the sources that are online. And unfortunately, the older books that may contain such citations are hidden away in libraries.


Of course, Boston has a place in the history of the electric telegraph as well, but that is a story for another blog post.

Alger's Gun Works

Cyrus Alger, 1827.


Cyrus Alger was born in West Bridgewater Massachusetts in 1781, and learned metal casting from his father. He set up a foundry in  Easton, and in 1809 moved to South Boston, recently stolen (legally, of course) from Dorchester and annexed to Boston . One source has him supplying cannon balls to the government during the War of 1812.

Cyrus Alger mortar, cast in 1863, currently located on the grounds of the North Carolina State Capitol (Wikimedia Commons).

Alger's Iron Foundry, South Boston, 1852.


In 1816, Alger bought from the South Boston Land Association most of the land west of the Dorchester Turnpike (now Dorchester avenue), and soon began filling in the mudflats of the South Bay. Here, he built his foundry, and made a name for himself as one of the leading metallurgists of his time. Alger developed a process for purifying cast iron, producing a much stronger material, and produced the first rifled gun in the nation. He personally supervised the pouring of the Columbiad, the largest gun to be produced up until that time.


From the Boston Directory, 1848-49. Although now known for his cannons, Alger's company supplied castings for many commercial uses. He had patents for improving both stoves and plows.

The red 'X' marks the 1855 location of the Alger foundry in South Boston, and shows both water and railroad access (BPL map collection). Much of the land at the site marked above was created by Alger.

Closeup map view of Cyrus Algers' Boston Iron Works, Iron (later Foundry) street, South Boston, 1852. The South Boston (Dover street) bridge crosses the South Bay on the left, and the Turnpike to the right.The site had both water and rail access - note Alger's Wharf  and the tracks of the Old Colony railroad.

Alger's gun yard, end of Sixth street, at the outer edge of South Boston (red), United States gun yard (blue) 1852. Cannon were tested by the batch. Samples would be taken from each batch, and fired into earthen walls repeatedly to test for defects. If there were no failures, the batch would be shipped.They also fired guns from Nut island, Quincy towards a target on Peddock's island.


Cyrus Alger was also active in the community. He served on Boston's Common Council and as an Aldermn.  He paid to have sidewalks laid and trees planted along Dorchester avenue. He is said to have kept his workers on half time when they weren't needed, and introduced the 10 hour day to South Boston industry. When he died, stores closed along the route of his funeral, and factories all over South Boston shut down. Today, Alger cannons sit in front of Town Halls and on village greens all over the country, and are bought and sold by collectors as pieces of American history.






Sources: Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston, Nancy S. Seasholes.

 A genealogical history of that branch of the Alger family which springs from Thomas Alger of Taunton and Bridgewater, in Massachusetts. 1665-1875

Perkins Institution for the Blind - South Boston

Perkins Institution, East Broadway, South Boston - early 20th Century postcard.


Perkins School, BPL Flickr photo group.


"Blind Asylum," Broadway, 1852.




Perkins Institution property marked in red, 1884.


I've already discussed South Boston's Carney Hospital - here's an institution that has its roots in the older, Yankee Boston. The Perkins Institution for the Blind was founded in Boston proper in 1829 by John Dix Fisher. After merchant Thomas Handasyd Perkins donated his Pearl street estate, the school was named to honor him.

It might be worthy of notice here that Perkins and his brother James made their money in the China trade, primarily selling Turkish opium on the Chinese black market, and entirely against Chinese law. The Perkins company and other Boston companies were the leading Americans in this notorious trade, and were different from contemporary South American and Mexican drug cartels only in that they didn't go about killing people. They simply bribed them. Thomas H. Perkins - the so-called Merchant Prince - was a pillar of the community and a philanthropic leader. And everyone knew where his money came from, and no one seemed to mind.

Originally the New England Asylum for the Blind, the institution was founded in 1829. The first leader of the schools was Samuel Gridley Howe, probably better known today as the husband of Julia Ward Howe, activist and composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This is unfortunate, because Howe's story is remarkable, and deserves to be remembered. When the school outgrew it's first home, Thomas H. Perkins allowed his Pearl street mansion to be used.

In 1839, Perkins sold the house and donated the proceeds to buy the former Mt Washington hotel in South Boston. As a side note, over time the hill the school sat on was gradually cut away over time for ease of building. The black and white photograph above shows the walls that had to be built to retain the earth around the building after the slope had been cut down, a reminder of Boston's many cut-and-fill projects.

In an effort to help blind children of pre-school age, the Perkins Institution opened a Kindergarten in Jamaica Plain. I've already discussed that institution on my Jamaica Plain blog, so please go here to read about it.

In time, the school outgrew it's South Boston campus, and moved both the main school and the Jamaica Plain kindergarten to Watertown.

Blinstrub's Village

For Bostonians of a certain age - like me - Blinstrub's was a name like Jordan Marsh or Anthony's Pier 4. Even if you never went there, you knew the name, and you knew that it was a big deal. Would today's newcomers to the city guess that Boston's leading nightclub through the post-World War II era was located in South Boston.

Stanley Blinstrub was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant. The family moved from Staten Island to Brighton when Stanley was three. After school and working various jobs, Stanley opened a restaurant on the corner of Broadway and D street in South Boston. In 1934, the restaurant would be reopened as a nightclub. In 1952, the decision was made to book big name acts.

While baby boomers (like me) and the following generations may think of the 1950s as the time of Elvis and the birth of rock and roll, the stars of the day, who filled seats at Blinstrubs were the pop singers and show business staples of the day like Patti Page, Wayne Newton, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. The club continued packing in crowds into the 1960s. Diana Ross suffered a notorious on-stage meltdown when performing with the Supremes at Blinstrub's.

A fire in February of 1968 destroyed the building, ending 35 years of success on the site. Blinstrub's Old Colony restaurant survived for years in Dorchester, a reminder of a time when the name Blinstrub's was the leader in Boston entertainment.

Carney Hospital

Carney Hospital, Telegraph Hill, South Boston, 1899.


Andrew Carney, born 1794, was a self-made Irish immigrant, who made his business in the clothing trade. In 1863, he bought an estate to provide for the first Catholic hospital in New England, and among it's first patients were Civil War soldiers. In 1953, the institution moved to the southern end of Dorchester avenue in Dorchester.