March, 2022 - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

188 Prospect Street, photographed by CHC staff (2006)

The one-story commercial building that once stood at 188 Prospect Street was designed in 1912 by the architect Nathan Douglas and constructed by its owner Thomas A. Gannon. Douglas was a prolific local architect with an office on Harvard Street, who designed dozens of three-deckers, apartment houses, and stores between 1901 and 1927. His larger commissions included the Beth Israel Synagogue at 238 Columbia Street (1901) and the Swedish Evangelical Church at 146 Hampshire Street (1902). The façade of 188 was arranged as a single storefront, with a recessed center entrance and two large plate glass windows that angled in to meet the entry door. The façade was detailed with ornamental rafter tails and dentils across the front that wrapped around the corners. A large quarter-round molding decorated the cornice. In 1946 red asphalt shingle siding was added , covering the original clapboards.

Notice of building permit for Gannon’s store, as it appeared in *The Cambridge Sentinel* (6 April 1912)

The first business to occupy the building was Thomas A. Gannon’s ice cream shop. Gannon manufactured his ice cream in the basement of the house at #190 and sold it at the store next door. Gannon died in 1914 and was succeeded by H.L. Fowler. His advertisement in the 1914 city directory includes offerings of ice cream, baked goods, and homemade candies. Fowler kept the store until 1918 and was followed by the Cambridge Funeral Company operated by Daniel L. Shea, a Somerville resident. (There must have been a good freezer in the building.) Later shops included another confectionery, furniture sales and refinishing, tire sales and service, bicycle seat covers and upholstery, and a photographic gallery.

Detail of Fowler’s advertisement in the 1914 Cambridge City Directory

Infill development on Prospect Street related to garaging and repair of automobiles began in the 1920s and 1930s. Even 188 Prospect Street had an automobile related use for a time: a Sanborn atlas lists a tire sales and service business there in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Occupants in the 1960s included Hamilton Television Service and New England Bicycle Cover Co.

188 Prospect photographed by Edward Jacoby (November 1969)

In 1969, the storefront became the first home of a school called Trout Fishing in America, which took its name from Richard Brautigan’s 1967 best-selling countercultural novel. William Hjortsberg wrote in his 2012 biography of Brautigan, Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan, that the school comprised eight different storefronts. For a fee of $10, students could enroll in courses such as English, theories of revolution, math, science, and motorcycle repair. Trout Fishing in America served as both an educational space and a gathering spot for those who wished to listen, socialize, and plan their peaceful revolutionary future.

Richard Brautigan in 1959. Collection: California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection at UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library. via https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/tf9v19p3wd/

In 1969, Brautigan came to the Boston area to promote the release of a collection of three works, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar, and visited the Prospect Street school. With him was the reporter John Stickney, who was on assignment for LIFE magazine; his piece, “A Gentle Poet of the Young”, appeared in the August 14, 1970, issue. (Stickney later volunteered as the school’s journalism teacher.) The LIFE photographer Steve Hansen captured this image of Brautigan seated on the curb in front of the school surrounded by teachers and students. During his visit to Cambridge, Brautigan also participated in a Trout Fishing for America parade that began at 188 Prospect and wound through Central and Harvard squares to the northern end of Cambridge Common.

Richard Brautigan and the Trout Fishing in America School at 188 Prospect St, photographed by Steve Hansen (1969)

The Trout Fishing in America was based at 188 Prospect only for a short time before moving to 353 Broadway where it shared space with the Cambridge chapter of Vocations for Social Change.

188 Prospect St in 1978 (Community Development Department sign survey)

By 1971 The People’s Gallery, a photographers collective, occupied the space at 188 with a storefront gallery and dark room below. They soon shared space with Boston Area Ecology Action, an organic bulk foods store, and another photography studio came in the 1980s. Eventually the building fell into disuse. An application to demolish the commercial building and garage at 188 Prospect Street was filed in early July 2006, and the building was razed later that month. Today, the site is occupied by condominiums.

View of former location of 188 Prospect St via Google Street View (2007)

Sources

brautigan.net

Cambridge Public Library historic newspaper database

CHC architectural survey files

Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan by William Hjortsberg (2012)

“Mapping Out Utopia, Vol. 1: Cambridge” by Tim Devin (2017)

Before there were Funeral Directors, there were carpenters, who, after measuring the deceased, made and delivered coffins to the family parlors where funerals took place. As time went by, coffin makers “undertook” for grieving families more of the duties associated with interment. Many became known as “Undertakers.” Although fitting, the term was not a reference to placing he departed six feet under. Because talking about any aspect of death was considered awkward, “undertaker” became a euphemism for those who organized the process. Undertakers soon were advertising as “Funeral Undertakers” with ready-made coffins available.

The term “Funeral Director” emerged after undertakers took on all of the social, health, and legal burdens of death. This included a change in where funerals were held. Rather than continuing the tradition of holding services in personal homes, funeral directors now provided “funeral homes” for these services. The funeral director received the body, embalmed or preserved it, provided the coffin, and arranged for viewing at the funeral home. They wrote obituaries, transported or shipped bodies, and arranged religious services and interment. They even extended their services to renting door wreaths and selling memorial books, gloves, and black armbands.

At the same time, embalming, first used on a mass scale during the Civil War, was becoming increasingly popular, which led to the development of both the profession of undertaker and that of mortician. The U.S. National Funeral Directors Association was founded in 1882, the same year that the first school of “mortuary science” was opened in Cincinnati, Ohio. Eventually, the terms Undertaker and Mortician became interchangeable, although it is interesting to note that no one cared to list themselves as a mortician in the Cambridge City Directory.

Amos P. Rollins was one of those whose career followed the path from carpenter to undertaker. In 1848, he was listed in the City Directory as “carpenter” and in 1850 as “coffin maker” – even though he had been advertising himself as a “funeral undertaker” since 1849.

Interestingly, even though Rollins was an undertaker, in the federal census he consistently listed himself as “carpenter.” He also held the posts of Constable and City Messenger.

Roland Litchfield Jr. was another of those undertakers who started out as a carpenter while simultaneously holding the posts of City Messenger and Superintendent of Lamps. Once he became an undertaker, Litchfield took full advantage of advances in technology, as described in this advertisement the City Directory of 1859 regarding preserving bodies that could be “conveyed hundreds of miles”!

Many in the undertaking profession were also appointed by the Mayor as City Undertakers. As such, they handled arrangements for persons who died unidentified or were considered indigent. By 1852, there were twelve appointees listed in the City Directory, including Amos P. Rollins and Roland Litchfield, Jr.

CASKET OR COFFIN?

Why coffins became referred to as caskets is a little murky. The general consensus seems to be that the magnitude of death during the Civil War is what drove the change in terminology—and the shape of containers for the deceased. The English word “coffin” derives from the French “cofin” which originally meant a basket. The primary difference between coffins and caskets was that early wood coffins had six sides and were hexagonal to accommodate the width of shoulders. Caskets, on the other hand, were and continue to be rectangular.

What about the connection to the Civil War? There are varying views, but most agree that changes in funeral rituals were created in response to the personal and national heartache caused by the unprecedented death toll. People desired more significant ways to pay homage to the deceased. More elaborate coffins— caskets—were part of that impulse. Over time, elaborate caskets were also meant to convey the social standing and wealth of individuals.

William Lockhart, who had emigrated from Nova Scotia to the U.S. at age 16, was yet another carpenter turned coffin maker. By 1885, Lockhart had a large manufactory on Bridge Street in East Cambridge.

Lockhart died in March of 1902, just six months before his new plant was erected on First Street. His brothers carried on the business, until in 1906 the company was absorbed by the National Casket Company, which operated out of the East Cambridge plant for several decades before closing its doors in 1976.

National Casket Co. at 120 First Street, ca. 1968 (Cambridge Historical Commission)

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox

Sources

“A History of Funerals in the United States.” Frazer Consultants, July 30, 2020. https://web.frazerconsultants.com/2016/07/a-history-of-funerals-in-the-united-states/

Short, Jessica. “A Brief History of Funeral Directors.” Gather. Accessed March 9, 2022. https://blog.gather.app/a-brief-history-of-funeral-directors.

“Funeral Homes and Funeral Practices: Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Case Western Reserve University.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University, May 11, 2018. https://case.edu/ech/articles/f/funeral-homes-and-funeral-practices.

Further Reading

“Morticians: A History.” Accessed March 9, 2022. https://blog.borgwardtfuneralhome.com/morticians-a-history/.

Zahn, Jonas A. “A Brief History of Caskets.” Northwoods Casket Company, September 16, 2021. https://www.northwoodscasket.com/northwoodscasket/2011/03/brief-history-of-caskets.html.

Month: March 2022

Torn Down Tuesday: 188 Prospect Street

National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day