The first real “building boom” in this area dates between 1884-1894, with streets like Ware and Rill set out during this period. The enclave of Stick Style houses at 3, 5 and 7 Ware Street were developed by Dorchester real estate magnate Franklin King around 1880. (Note: 9 Ware Street was part of this gro but is no longer extant). King owned these houses wel1 into the 1890s. By 1910, King’s heirs owned #3 while an Annie Brigham owned the other two houses. By 1930, Frederick G. Perinee, clerk., owned #3, James F. Cooper, custodian at the Phillips Brooks School owned # 5 and William T. Coleran, clerk lived at #7.
Rill Street’s housing was also mostly a prodcut of the mid 1880-mid 90s. Rill Street was named for a brook or “rill” which crossed this street near Hancock Street. King also developed properties on Tru1l Street, including #10 Trull Street which was owned by Hosea E. Bowern and later by his heirs from c.1915-1945. By 1945, this building contained the Upham’s Corner Registry for Nurses. King’s real estate on Trull extended from Bellevue to Glenn Street. Another King- developed house is 19 / 21 Trull Street which was built c.11880 and remained in the King family until c.1920. By 1930, Frank J. Armstrong, carpenter, lived at #19 Trull Street, and Ruth A. Irwin, nurse, and Benjamin A. Tyler, “helper” lived in #21.
Trull Street slopes climbs a steep rise, feeding into Belvedere Street and the site of the former Elizabeth A. and Henry J. Nazro estate. Containing 84,802 Square feet, this estate encompassed a significant part of the area between Bellevue and Quincy streets. The Nazro house (demolished) was orienred towards the intersection of Trull and Bellevue Streets and its grounds included a 1arge stable and hot house. Just to the north of this house at what is now the northeast corner of Quincy and Stanley Street was a City of Boston Public School, now a playground. 27 Bellevue Street’s, for example, was carved from the Nazro estate c. 1895-1900 and was originally owned by an Annie B. James. By 1930, William A. Sampson, a druggist with Parker’s pharmacy on Columbia Road lived here. Warners and Hoits owned 28 Bellevue Street until c.1925 when it became the residence of Dr. James J. Lynch. A survivor from the Nazro years and probably approaching the scale of the Nazro house is 14 Bellevue Street. Built by 1874, 14 Belvedere’s first owner was J. Homer Pierce, One of the civic-minded members of Dorchester’s Pickwick Club. Pierce was on the club’s committee “to solicit subscriptions, to select a design for a (Civil War) soldiers’ monument on Meeting House Hill and to take the general charge of its erection.
During the 1890s, the electric trolley was introduced along Dorchester’s major thoroughfares, ushering in a new “street car suburb” era of less costly. multi – family housing in the form of 2-family and three-decker residences.
[Source: http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=612]