By Peter F. Stevens

(The second article in a two-part series.)

In the spring of 1869, Dorchester's political and civic battle-lines were drawn over the bitter issue of the proposed annexation of the old town to Boston. The Friends of Annexation &emdash; replete with such Dorchester notables as William Pope and the Coffin family &emdash; pushed the issue ever harder, buttressed by the measure's overwhelming legion of supporters in the Massachusetts legislature. Still, "Old Dorchester's guardians" met the prospect of civic takeover with "strenuous opposition."

The proverbial handwriting on the wall that proclaimed Dorchester's imminent annexation in its supporters' collective mind had arrived full-force in a late 1868 resolution from the City Council of Boston: "Ordered, That his honor the Mayor be requested to appoint a commission of three discreet and intelligent persons, who shall carefully examine the subject [annexation] in all its financial, industrial, and sanitary relations, cause such surveys to be made by the city [of Boston] surveyor, or under his direction, as they may consider necessary, and report the result of their doings, with such suggestions as they may think proper, to the City Council, as soon as may be." To no one's surprise in either Dorchester or Boston, the mayor and city councilors heartily endorsed the tribunal's recommendation that annexation was warranted on commercial, sanitary, and logistical grounds.

N.W. Coffin, whose pamphlet vigorously advocating his hometown's annexation to Boston was distributed to virtually every home, shop, and business from Savin Hill to Lower Mills and Neponset, pontificated: "We have spoken of our close identification with the city of Boston. It is so intimate and mutually beneficial, as scarcely to admit the idea of a line of separation. We spend our days toiling in her streets, and our nights within sound of her bells. The line that divides us is but little more than an imaginary one, and yet if we should need the aid of the police force of the city [Boston] in any emergency, we could not obtain it, except by a good deal of vexatious circumlocution. If we wish to place our children in the higher grades of the public schools, we are as much barred as if we were citizens of a foreign country. If we would like to make use of the public library, the privilege is denied us; and there are many other benefits which we have helped to make, and which we are constantly engaged in helping to preserve, from which we are excluded."

Assailed verbally in Town Meetings by the foes of annexation, Coffin and his allies countered that townspeople could not "live in the past," no matter how historic that past was.

"It is not difficult to find objections to every new undertaking," the annexationts asserted, "and there are, doubtless, some objections to this measure. From the standpoint which we occupy today, and not looking before us, it may seem as though we were sufficiently well off as we are; but this is looking at very short sight, and we are bound in conscience and in justice to those who shall come after us, not to be content with a narrow view."

Coffin harangued: "It is the future only that, as a collective body, we possess; the past is lost to us. It is our duty so to shape our action today as to make that future an improvement upon the past."

That future, many in Coffin's camp proclaimed, was "annexation."

Many opponents of annexation literally feared that their town's and their families' proud past would be swallowed up whole by Boston. Everywhere in Dorchester, the old guard saw the literal images of that past &emdash; the old homes and meeting houses and the literal acreage between their community and Boston's sprawl and urban problems. As local chronicler Richard Bonney would note, "until the mid-19th century, Dorchester was a self-sufficient Yankee community, commercing with Boston, yet not dependent on the larger town....The emerging middle class who were building homes in Dorchester wanted, not a suburb as we know it, but...a little more green, more space and opportunity for elegance, to share with people 'of their own kind.' " In short, many of Dorchester's residents feared the looming influx of Boston's Irish and other immigrants.

Bonney relates, "There was an economic discrimination to 19th-century Dorchester. Unless someone was already living there before the development of the 'garden suburbs', he had to be a 'man of means' to buy there. This economic segregation guaranteed virtual isolation from immigrant society, at least until the end of the century."

The enemies of annexation, appearing before the Committee on Towns of the Massachusetts Legislature in early 1869, launched into arguments "taking the points of advantage urged by the 'annexationists' and denying their existence." The "preservationists" insisted that annexation offered the town no crucial benefits. "Her [Dorchester's] town affairs appear to be well-managed," the anti-annexationists insisted. "Her schools are among the best in the Commonwealth; and we fail to see that there is anything in her local affairs which cannot be as well provided for by the town as by Boston, and with as great economy."

In many ways, the "turf war" raging between Dorchester's friends and foes of annexation was literally about real estate. While many fought to preserve Dorchester's vistas as they were, Coffin and company knew that a "land boom" would accompany a union with Boston. Annexation, savvy local businessmen realized, would "enhance the value of our land." In a ledger-book-style analysis, Coffin wrote, "We have an abundance of cheap land, which will be sought after by householders of moderate means." He also had his eye on families of more substantial means: "There is an increasing tendency among the business population of the city [Boston] to seek residences in the suburban towns, caused by the rapid conversion of dwelling-houses, in what were considered the most desirable parts of the city, into stores; and this fleeing away of valuable citizens" would provide Dorchester with "an infusion of fresh blood...a new, healthy and vigorous population."

Such financial arguments notwithstanding, the anti-annexation camp decried any real-estate boom as grounds for a loss of the town's old identity.

In May 1869, the Massachusetts Legislature took up the question in earnest, Boston's mayor and City Council having officially endorsed the proposal. Eighteen prominent men of Dorchester presented the legislature a petition favoring annexation and bearing the signatures of 860 "legal voters of the town of Dorchester." Still, the foes of the measure, strong in their resolve but outnumbered, also made a final pitch to dissuade the politicians from adding all of Dorchester to Boston proper.

The result proved a foregone conclusion, as the legislature gave precedence to the petition of "the majority", the annexationists. For victory for the Friends of Annexation, just one step remained: a special vote in which the "legal voters of Boston and Dorchester should express themselves" on the issue.

On June 22, 1869, the voters &emdash; all male, as women's suffrage was nearly fifty years away &emdash; jammed the polls to decide the question of annexation for good. Dorchester's foes of the union cast 726 ballots; the annexationists' tally numbered 928. By a majority of 202 residents' votes, Dorchester was destined to become Boston's Ward 16. Bostonians voted nearly 6-1 in favor of annexation, 3,420 to 565. Dorchester would officially become part of the city on "the first Monday in January 1870."

The last Town Meeting of "Good Old Dorchester" was convened on December 28, 1869. In the wistful words of historian William Dana Orcutt, "The last reports were received from the selectmen, and votes of thanks were extended to all the officers. Thus Dorchester, which was the first of the New England settlements to establish the ancient institution of the town meeting, transferred it to other towns as she took up her new existence as a part of the city of Boston. It is the proud boast of Dorchester that, at the time of the annexation, it had not a single almshouse, and there was no licensed liquor saloon within its limits."

"Annexation Day" arrived on January 4, 1870. Father Daniel Dunn, pastor of St. Margaret's parish, recorded the events of the auspicious occasion: "Spring-like weather, with green lawns and emerging buds, was the atmosphere at that midnight hour when the first Sunday of 1870 met the first Monday. At that stroke of midnight, the 239-year-old Town of Dorchester became the new Ward Sixteen of Boston...

"This annexation terminated most of the duties of Selectmen James H. Upham, William Pope, and William Henry Swan. But they had a week of grace. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, mayor of Boston, in his address to the City council, spoke of the union.

"He charged to the council, 'In welcoming this new addition to our city, we must endeavor to see that all the rights, reasonable demands, and just privileges of the inhabitants of the Sixteenth Ward are fairly considered and attended to.'

"The mayor remarked that Dorchester was 'distinguished for the delightfulness of its views.'

"Bringing particular joy to the approximately 11,000 new citizens of Boston were the words of his forceful wish, 'let the Cochituate flow to such places where it is required and absolutely needed.' The pure water of Lake Cochituate had been piped to the homes of Boston residents since 1848. Now the homes of Dorchester would be tied in with the city water supply.

"Pleasure in being a Ward Sixteen citizen was shown by the owner of the J.H. Upham Company, who had the new title painted on his grocery delivery wagons. They had come up in the world!"

As the Friends of Annexation had anticipated, a real estate boom that, for a time, inflated property values to "a fictitious value" ensued. New trolley lines criss-crossed the town, and an influx of both wealthy and middle-class families built graceful mansions and sturdy two-family homes on open acreage. Even ardent foes of the union with Boston could not charge that annexation buried the town's legacy.

(Journalist Peter F. Stevens is the author of The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion, 1846-48, Brassey's.)