Early in the 19th century Dedham become a transportation hub and the "existence of quick freight service promoted a burst of industrial development." By the 200th anniversary of the town's incorporation in 1836, Dedham was "a thriving commercial and manufacturing center." Within 50 years of the railroads' arrival in 1836, the population almost doubled to 6,641.
Agriculture In 1888, the 97 farms in town produced a product valued at $5,273,965, up from only $192,294 in 1885.
Banks The
Dedham Bank was founded in Dedham in 1814 and asked Nathaniel Ames to be a director. Ames declined, citing the large number of lawyers involved with its creation. Ten months after creation, however, the bank had 66 shareholders in Dedham, Boston, Bellingham, Medway, Dover, Walpole, Franklin, Needham, Woburn, Roxbury, Medfield, Sharon, Wrentham, Hopkington, Bridgewater, Canton, and Sherburne. There was an attempted burglary of the Dedham Bank in 1863 with the would-be thieves using gunpowder. The two major banks at the end of the century were the Dedham National Bank, with over $300,000 in capital, and the
Dedham Institution for Savings, with more than $2,000,000 in deposits.
Connecticut Corner In 1800, a group of tinsmiths from Connecticut, including Calvin Whiting and Eli Parsons, began a business at the corner of Lowder and High Streets. They attracted additional businesses, including a dry good store. The area became known as Connecticut Corner. In 1833, the Russel and Baker furniture company moved into the area but, after two bad fires, moved downtown in 1853. It employed 500 people.
Benjamin Bussey amassed 150 acres in the area.
Dedham Pottery Hugh C. Robertson moved the
Dedham Pottery plant from
Chelsea to Dedham in 1896. The architect of the building, who also served on the company's board, was
Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. The plant, which rarely if ever employed more than six people at a time, was located on Pottery Lane, off High Street, where the 2012 Avery School stands. The company closed in 1942 and the building burned to the ground in the 1970s. Maude Davenport, who was raised on Greenlodge Street in Dedham, is regarded as the company's most skilled decorator.
East Dedham In 1825, East Dedham had a valuation of $55,000, of which $22,000 came from a mill along
Mother Brook. There were 20 houses, 30 school children, and no churches. By 1880, thanks in large part to
Thomas Barrows, the valuation was $2.5 million, the population was 3,600, and there were five church buildings. In July 1872, the Dedham Transcript reported that the "sound of carpenters' hammers is heard on every side... The greater part of the building is carried on in
Germantown and Oak Dale.... In visiting Dedham village lately we were impressed with the deathlike stillness of the streets...., contrasting it with the ever-increasing and wide-awake East Dedham. It requires no great penetration to know where the energetic enterprises of the town are." By the end of the century, the intersection of High Street, Bussey Street, Saw Mill Lane, and Milton Street had a bakery, a barber, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a dentist, a florist, several grocery stores, an insurance agency, a lawyer, a lumberyard, a newsstand, a photographer, a shoe store, stables, and an undertaker. Benjamin Boyden's general store, which stood for more than 50 years, gave this intersection the name Boyden Square.
The East Dedham Strike The labor movement in the United States was beginning to have some successes in the 1870s. The
Great and General Court of Massachusetts passed a law in May 1874 that limited the hours women and children could be employed in a mill to 10 a day. However, because there was no way to enforce the law, it was largely ignored. At the Merchant's Woolen Mills, which owned all the mills on Mother Brook at this time, employees were required to work 65.5 hours a week. This included 12.5 hours Monday to Friday, and a "half day" on Saturdays when they would be at their stations for 10 hours. They were not paid for the two 30 minute meal breaks twice a day. In September 1874, employees' wages were reduced by 10%. Hours were then cut back to 10 hours a day in October to meet the requirements of the new law. A slowdown in orders led to about 400 of the 700 employees being laid off, and hours brought back to 65.5 a week for those who remained in violation of the law. On March 2, 1875, workers gathered in Mechanics Hall to discuss their response. The meeting, which included more than a third of those still left employed, was president over by German immigrant and mill hand Andrew Reichell. They voted to draft a letter in which they said they would not work more than 10 hours a day, or 60 hours a week. If the management would not agree to these terms, they said they would
strike for at least a month. They also "unanimously voted that no violence be offered to any persons
who take their places at the mill."
Royal O. Storrs responded that women would be permitted to leave the mills after they worked 60 hour in a week, but that he could not promise that they would still have a job when they returned. Men were required to sign contracts in which they agreed to work the full 65.5 hours. The workers, who demanded all be given 60 hour weeks, walked out of the mills on March 3 and the mills shut down. The next day, employees met again and said that they were not so concerned with their low pay as they were with the number of hours worked. They said they wanted "time to educate ourselves and our children, and value that more highly than the pittance we should receive." They also had particular grievances against Storrs, who they worried would "oppress us still further" if they gave in. A committee of striking employees met with Charles L. Harding, one of the owners. He promised not to fire any women who left after 60 hours but said the mill could not operate profitably if the men didn't work 65.5 hours. As the strike dragged on, the sympathy of the town was with the striking employees. A mass meeting was called at
Memorial Hall and over 1,000 people attended. At the meeting, E.M. Chamberlain of the National Labor Reform Commission spoke and argued for a law mandating a 10-hour work day for men and an 8-hour day for women and children. He also called for mill owners who did not comply to be prosecuted. John Orvis called for the striking workers in Dedham to join forces with striking workers in Fall River. Charles McLean also spoke. McLean, Orvis, and Chamberlain all escorted the president of the striking workers, Patrick Hogan, to the podium. Newspapers, some of which were as far away as New York City and Philadelphia, were mixed in how they covered the strike with some sympathetic towards the workers and others towards the management. The Dedham Transcript supported the strikers and wrote about "the dignity of labor." By March 17, most of the workers, who had little money to support them, were back to work in the mills. They were unsuccessful in getting a 60-hour work week. Instead, they began organized for a state law that would mandate a 10-hour day for all factory workers; such a law was passed in 1880.
Food A grocery store stood in the middle part of the century at the corner of School and Washington Streets. It was owned by Austin Bryant, the Town's treasurer and tax collector. Bryant sold the store to Horatio Clarke in 1845, and in 1847 it was sold again William H. Mason. Mason owned it until his death, at which point it was taken over by Merrill D. Ellis. Another grocery store opened on the first floor of the
S.C. & E. Manufactory on High Street. In East Dedham, at 23 Milton Street, there was a grocery story owned by George Hewitt. The building was shared with the
East Dedham branch of the Dedham Public Library and the
Royal Arcanum hall. Nathaniel Hewins was the Town's baker, and he employed a Mr. Sawin, Bestwick's neighbor. Hewins bakery, which adjoined his residence, faced Franklin Square. On Court Street, near the intersection with Church Street, was a fish market and restaurant. The owner, Warren "Oyster" Fisher, lived next door in a house where a number of people boarded. A few doors down was a bakery. There was a slaughterhouse on Eastern Ave near the railroad station.
Industry Since the founding of Dedham in 1636, farming had been the dominant way of life for residents. Land and other resources were plentiful but, by the early 19th century, they were beginning to become scarce. It was said that by 1814 that "some of the most respectable and enterprising young men of Dedham" were working in the mills, which marked a shift in the life of the community. Large grants of land were no longer available to give to younger sons to start their own farms. With the
arrival of railroads in 1831, Dedham became an attractive location for manufacturing. By 1837, the mills and factories in town were producing cotton and woolen goods, leather, boots, shoes, paper, marbled paper, iron castings, chairs, cabinet wares, straw bonnets, palm-leaf hats, and silk goods. Together they were worth $510,755 with the silk goods alone worth $10,000. A silk factory opened on Eastern Ave in 1836 but burned down on March 11, 1845. In later years it became a dye house, a laundry, and a playing card factory. By 1880, the site had become home to the C.D. Brooks Chocolate Factory. On March 28, 1845, the Ashcroft Calico Works burned down. There were more than 500 people employed in local industries in 1845. That year there were two cotton mills, a silk factory, a furnace foundry, a shovel works, three woolen mills, a paper factory, two tanneries, eight woodworking factories, a cotton thread factory, two iron and tin works, four coach manufacturers, and a number of smaller businesses producing boots, shoes, saddles, harnesses, cigars, marbled paper, pocket books, and headwear. The marbled paper manufactory, S.C. & E. Mann, was located on the south side of High Street between Court and Pearl Streets. Major Jacob Clark was a building contractor who later became a millwright, setting up water-wheels at mills around New England and the
maritime provinces before the advent of the steam engine. Clark lived on Federal Hill and his factory was powered by horses who walked in a circle and powered a large gear overhead. Most of the waterwheels in use at the time, including those on Mother Brook, were
overshot wheels. Clark also built the
Allin Congregational Church. After Clark's death in 1837, his partner, Edward B. Holmes, continued the wheelwright business. In 1846, Thomas Dunbar, who had been their apprentice, became Holmes' partner. They moved the shop from Federal Hill to an old paper mill on High Street near East Street. The building was across the street from the train tracks in a building connected to a blacksmith shop. With the
Industrial Revolution, Dedham experienced the ups and downs of a national economy. In the early part of the century, there were only two holidays a year at the mills on Mother Brook: the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, plus militia training days. When
Catholics began arriving, they refused to work on Christmas. At first Protestants performed the dirty tasks that the Catholic employees typically did, but around 1860 it became a holiday for all.
Lumber and carpentry Frederick L. Bestwick, the harness maker, lived on School Street just east of the
Centre School with his nephew, Albert. After Joel Richard's died, Aaron Marden and Henry Curtis opened up a planing mill and sawing business in this first floor of the Richards' shop. Sumner Wilson had a carpenter shop on Wilson's Lane where the saws and lathes were run by horsepower. He later built a two family rental house next door. A carriage manufacturing and painting shop owned by Elisha McIntosh was located on Court Street and a blacksmith was located in the rear. In the basement of Jacob Clark's shop was a
stationary engine of a peculiar design. In the lower story were circular saws, lathes, and planers. On the floor that was level with the train tracks was iron work machinery. The pair then moved to an unused building near
the old stone depot on Mother Brook where they used steam power. There were still
saw pits in Dedham as late as 1827, though there was a sawmill
in Tiot in 1644 and one on Mother Brook
in 1699.
Medical In 1819, George Dixon bought the land at
601-603 High Street and built a home there. In the ell of the house was an
apothecary shop that sold products produced by Dedham's
Wheaton & Dixon. After Dixon's death, an apothecary named Tower took over the shop. When Tower was named postmaster, George Marsh, who had attended the
Dedham Public Schools, then became the village apothecary. Marsh had learned the trade at a chemist's stop on Cambridge Street in Boston. Jesse Wheaton, a doctor in the town, opened an apothecary shop on High Street. In the shop he employed his nephew,
Jesse Talbot. Wheaton lived on the south side of Court Street and was one of the oldest residents in Dedham. He also hired Lemuel Thwing to sell his patent medicines, including Wheaton's Itch Ointment, Lee's Bilious Pills, Dumfrey's Eye Water, Godfrey's Cordial, and Godfrey's Bone Liniment, around New England and Canada in a large wagon with "Itch Ointment and Others" emblazoned on the side. Jeremy Stimson was a family physician and president of the
Dedham Bank who lived on High Street. Doctor Samuel Stillman Whitney lived in Franklin Square and later sold his house to Dr. J.P. Maynard. Maynard also lived in a house just to the west of what is today
601-603 High Street. Maynard invented a forerunner to the
Band-Aid.
Other businesses On Ames Street in the mid-19th century near High Street was a long building that housed a number of lawyers, with their signs adorning the exterior. Two houses down from the
Centre School lived Jeremiah Radford, who cared for both the
Norfolk County Courthouse and
St. Paul's Church. Daniel Marsh was a mason. The town's 1889 directory lists 10 blacksmiths, six boarding houses, five hotels, two ice dealers, 17 grocers, seven physicians and surgeons, four lawyers, 17 dressmakers, and one dentist. The products produced in town that year included boots, cabinets, chocolate, carriages, cigars, dresses, harnesses, slippers, suspenders, soap, tools, watches, and whips. After the
Columbian Minerva, the Norfolk Repository began covering the news of Dedham. Both were published by
Herman Mann. It was followed by the Dedham Gazette, published by
Jabez Chickering with
Theron Metcalf as editor. There were two weekly newspapers, the
Dedham Standard and the
Dedham Transcript. The
Norfolk Democrat was published by Elbridge G. Robinson. George Guild, who was also chief of the Dedham Fire Department, owned a jewelry shop in Dedham Square, first on High Street and then on Washington Street. In the 1800s many Dedham men, constrained by the growing population and the scarcity of land, left Dedham for the
Ohio Country. They could thank, in part,
Manasseh Cutler, a former Dedham resident and the son-in-law of South Dedham's Minister,
Thomas Balch, who convinced Congress to approve a plantation there. Some of those people would die in Indian raids there. The
town pump was located at the head of Franklin Square. It was made of wood painted green with an iron handle. Two lots over was an octagonal building with a large circular reservoir inside fed by the
Federal Hill spring. The cistern was filled with hay in the winter to keep it from freezing and then emptied each spring. It was later taken down and rebuilt as a residence near
Stone Haven station. In the mid-1800s, a small traveling circus would come to town once a year. It was popular with those who worked in the mills on
Mother Brook, "surpassing in its manifold attractions even Independence day," but the mill owners and town officials worried that it took too much money out of the town.
Railroads Within a few decades of the turnpikes' arrival, railroad beds were laid through Dedham. The railroad was initially "considered dangerous. It was new fangled. People didn't trust it, so they wouldn't ride it. Only a very few brave souls in those opening years" ever boarded one. This fear was short lived, however as the first rail line came in 1836 and by 1842 locomotives had put the stagecoach lines out of business. The first line was a branch connecting Dedham Square to the main Boston-Providence line in
Readville. In 1848 the Norfolk County Railroad connected Dedham and Walpole and in 1854 the Boston and New York Central ran through town. The train bridge over Wigwam Creek, near the intersection of East and High Streets, had a red roof. Mrs. Hutchins' boarding house was next door. In 1886, the railroad built a new bridge over High Street and placed a granite plaque there to commemorate both the new bridge and the 250th anniversary of the town's incorporation. The plaque was removed sometime thereafter and ended up in the woods near railroad tracks in
Sharon. It has since been returned to Dedham. In 1881 the
Boston and Providence Railroad company built a station in Dedham Square out of Dedham Granite. There were more than 60 trains a day running to it in its heyday, but it was demolished in 1951 and the stones were used to build an addition to the main branch of the Dedham Public Library. Moses Boyd was the "well-known and gentlemanly" conductor of the Dedham branch of the Providence Railroad. At a party for his 25th wedding anniversary his passengers presented him with gifts of cash that totaled between $600 and $700. In addition to the passengers from Dedham,
West Roxbury and
Jamaica Plain, the President and Superintendent of the railroad attended the party at his home and presented him with a silver plate.
Retail shops Enoch Sutton, the watchmaker, owned the house just south of Bryant's grocery store on Washington Street. Andrew Wiggin's shoe store was on the corner of High Street and Washington Street. At the same corner was a tailor and Mason Richard's dry goods store. A Mr. Eaton was the lumber dealer. A
millinery store was located under
Temperance Hall. Erastus Shumway owned a stove and tinshop on School Street. He later moved the shop to Court Street on the first floor of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows building. Next door lived Ambrose Galucia, a house painter. The home of Joseph Guild, the hardware dealer, was in Franklin Square. On Church Street, near the intersection with Norfolk Street, was William Field's dry good store. Above the store was the original location of
Dedham High School. Just north of the school was Mr. Packard's stove store. Next door was a hat making shop owned by Timothy Phelps. In the back, Phelps had a bathing establishment that offered both hot and cold baths. Just north on Church Street was a barber shop owned by Amory "Barber" Fisher who later owned and an ice and coal business. Further up the street was the home and paint shop of John Cox. Next to the Cox home was Nancy Damon's store that sold "thread, ribbons, silks, and fancy goods." It was previously located across the street from the
Norfolk House. At the corner of Washington and High Streets, where the police station sits in 2021, was a number of buildings owned by Charles Coolidge. Those buildings "were rented by a class of people, especially in the rear, that made the whole locality an eyesore in the heart of the village." At the corner was Coolidge's book and newspaper store, a tailor by the name of Lynch, and another store that sold secretly sold liquor.
Memorial Hall was later built on the site. In East Dedham, Adam Geishecker opened a dry goods store in 1896, 15 years after he had immigrated from Germany.
Roads Turnpikes, including the South Road, linking
Boston and Providence, and the Middle Road, linking
Dedham and Hartford, were laid through town during the first few years of the 19th century. In 1810, the stage left Boston at 4 a.m. and passed through Dedham as it traveled 100 miles to Hartford. It arrived at 8 p.m., stopping only to change horses. In 1802,
Fisher Ames and a group of others requested that the
Great and General Court lay out a new turnpike between the
Norfolk County Courthouse and Pawtucket. Dedham's representative,
Ebenezer Fisher, voted no, but the
Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was chartered on March 8, 1802.
Nathaniel Ames was incensed and believed Fisher's no vote made him a "traitor" motivated by "an ancient prejudice against the Old Parish." At the following May's election, the issue of turnpikes was a greater driver of participation than political party. Those from the outlying parts of town attended in large numbers to support Representative Fisher and his opposition to the turnpike. The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike created modern day Washington Street from High Street in Dedham Square to the Roxbury line. It then turned west to Court Street, where it ran south to Washington Street, and then straight to Pawtucket. High Street, which connected the village to the mills on
Mother Brook, was constructed in 1806. Edward L. Penniman laid out Mt. Auburn Street (modern day Whiting Avenue) and Mt. Vernon Street through his own property. The Town named the intersection of those two streets Penniman Square, but Penniman died the same day and never learned of the honor.
Jeremiah Shuttleworth leased a lot of land from
St. Paul's Church at the
corner of Church and High Streets. The minister,
William Montague, referred to the intersection as "Jere Square" in his honor. Modern day Worthington Street was known in the 19th century as Wilson's Lane. Dwight's bridge over Wigwam Creek stood at the intersection of High and East Streets. Lyons Street is named for a 19th-century landowner, Elisha Lyon. Lyon lived on the Needham side of the Charles River. There has been a bridge on the site since the 1740s, but the current bridge was built in 1879. Lyons Street originally ran as far as Common Street but was cut short and dead ended when
Route 128 was built. ==Taverns==