Spring 2009 Newsletter

The Bay Chronicle
The Bay Chronicle
P.O. BOX 498 SEARSPORT, ME 04974-0498
N e w sl e t t e r of t he
Spring 2009
LEARN
A Preview of WHAT’SINSIDE
from Moosepeak Light, Jonesport, Maine. 101122
M. Elmer Montgomery Collection: “Planking the
hull” of the 32’ cabin cruiser HAGGIS, built in 1937
in the attic of the machine shop at Snow Shipyards for
Hamish Mitchell of Bermuda. LB2008.15.48
Carroll Thayer Berry Collection: Finishing a
“peapod” at the Thomaston Boat Shop, 2876.6
GEORGE E. KLINCK, a 560 ton schooner built in Mystic, Connecticut in 1904. Sank in 1941.
CHARLES H. KLINK, a 522 ton schooner built in Noank, Connecticut in 1901. M. Elmer
Montgomery Collection, LB2008.15.80
I
Boutilier Collection: Sardine carrier JACOB
PIKE alongside O’Hara’s fish pier in Rockland, May
26, 1987; Dick Lindahl is captain. LB2005.24.4462
f a picture is worth a thousand
words, what is the value of
100,000 pictures? As of this writing that
is the approximate size of Penobscot Marine
Museum’s photography archive. Housed on
the top floor of the museum’s Stephen Phillips
Memorial Library, the photo archive is
comprised of many collections from a variety
of sources and time periods. This treasury
of images is slowly but surely emerging as a
shared public resource.
Atlantic Fisherman Collection: Pollack at
Eastport, Maine. LB1995.72.229-1
The Colcord Collection: These stunning and rare West
Indies photos are just a sample of the work of Searsport’s
Joanna Colcord. They are among the oldest images in the
museum’s collection and illustrate the immense diversity of
our archive. Joanna often referred to herself as a “citizen of
the world,” and these images support her view.
How does one share them? The task is
challenging. Digital technology, plus many
hours of individual work are required as
Harvesting sponges, Nassau, Bahamas.
Joanna Colcord Collection, 1029
Clipping sponges, Nassau, Bahamas. Joanna Colcord
Collection, 1072
We Need Your Help!
The organization, cataloging and
digitization of our photographic
collections is an enormous and costly
endeavor. Scanners, computers, servers,
printers as well as the archival materials
to house each negative and print are
extremely expensive, and thousands of
hours of labor are required.
West Indian women and children. Joanna
Colcord Collection, 1275
Bay Street by the Sea, Nassau, Bahamas. Joanna Colcord
Collection, 1311
DISCOVER
Welcome to Penobscot Marine Museum’s Bay Chronicle:
First Annual Photography Issue
The mission of the Penobscot Marine Museum is to
preserve, interpret, and celebrate the maritime culture
of the Penobscot Bay Region and beyond through
collections, education, and community engagement.
Eastern Illustrating & Pub. Collection: View
E X P LOR E
Red Cross sign, St. Thomas. Joanna Colcord
Collection, 1152
images are identified, cataloged, documented,
scanned, and edited. Originals—sometimes
glass plates, celluloid, or print—must be
appropriately stored. Consistent organization
is needed; older systems must be standardized
and incorporated with new. Coordination of
many staff and volunteer hands is essential if
we are to realize our goal: an online archive,
searchable by keyword, creator, location, etc.,
that is available to students, amateur and
professional historians, other museums and
historical societies, preservationists, architects
and designers, and anyone interested in
learning more about the past history of our
region and how it has shaped the present.
There are several ways you can help: We
need donors who can help us purchase
significant photographs and negatives
to help grow the archive. If you are in a
position to make a donation we would
greatly appreciate it. If you want to help
but can’t afford to contribute monetarily,
we can still use your help as a volunteer.
If you have strong organizational skills
This issue of the Bay Chronicle is our First
Annual Photography issue. In it we share
images from six of our collections, along
with a bit of history on the creators and
how we came to own these works. The
Atlantic Fisherman collection catalogs
the early days of motorized fishing along
the New England coast. The Eastern
Illustrating and Publishing Company of
Belfast has a unique history as a photo
postcard company documenting small
town life in the early twentieth century.
Carroll Thayer Berry, well known for
his illustrative woodcuts, was also a
remarkable photographer in the 1950s.
Searsport’s own Joanna Colcord grew up
at sea and left us with images of her trips to
the Orient aboard her father’s vessel around
the turn of the 20th century, as well as
later trips. Maynard Bray , technical editor
of WoodenBoat, gave us a collection of
images of the Rockland area waterfront in
the years before World War II, taken by his
uncle M. Elmer Montgomery, and Everett
L. “Red” Boutilier’s photojournalism
provides a record of nearly every boat
launching along the midcoast from the
1950s to the 1990s. And this is just the
beginning…
We hope you enjoy this issue. Soon, images
from these collections and more will appear
on the museum’s web site:
www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org.
and are good with technology (or willing
to learn) we would appreciate some of
your time. We would not have made as
much progress as we have without the
help of our great volunteers. Lastly, every
print we sell helps us to raise money to
fund the project. Our prints are beautiful
and make great gifts; buy a print today!!
--Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist
5 Church Street
PO Box 498
Searsport, ME 04974
Tel: 207-548-2529
Fax: 207-548-2520
[email protected]
www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
Board of Trustees
Mary R. Saltonstall, President
Wayne Hamilton, Vice President-Operations
R. Kirk Moore, Vice President-Development
Peter Neill, Treasurer
Deirdre H. Henderson, Secretary
David G. Conover
Jeffry Fitch
John K. Hanson, Jr.
Ralph G. Harvey
Patrick Jones
Jeffrey A. Marger
Matthew P. Murphy
Clark Nichols
Bronson Platner
Galen Plummer
John G. Roulstone
Ralph Stanley
Michael Stein, M.D.
Johanna Tutone
Marie E. Underwood
Staff
Colcord Collection
Atlantic Fisherman
Boutilier
Collection Collection
J
E
oanna Colcord was the daughter of
Captain Lincoln Colcord. She was born
in 1882 aboard the bark Charlotte
A. Littlefield in the South Seas. To
be the daughter of a sea captain and to be
born at sea are both rare traits, but Joanna
further distinguished herself by learning
photography and documenting her
trips to the Far East with her father. The
Colcord collection consists of nearly 500
glass plate and cellulose nitrate negatives
taken between 1890 and 1899, as well as
a spectacular photo album of her prints
(both silver gelatin and cyanotypes) and
postcards and prints she collected on her
journeys. One can sense the wonderment
that Joanna must have felt in her years at sea
and in these distant lands by looking at her
images. Joanna went on to earn a masters’
degree in chemistry from the University
of Maine, later becoming a social worker,
and authored three books on sea music
and language. The negatives were given
to the museum in 2003 by Joanna’s niece,
Nina Colcord. The album was donated by
a Searsport family in 2004.
“British Ship PHILOMENE photographed
in the Trades, from our ship STATE OF
MAINE”. Joanna Colcord Collection, 1022
verett L. “Red” Boutilier was a
classic Maine character. A freelance
photographer and journalist from
Bremen, Maine, Red was a fixture in the
boat yards of the mid-coast from the early
1970s through the mid-1990s. He rarely
missed a boat launching, and often he
photographed the construction process
as well. In addition to photographing
ships and boats, he also told their stories,
A cyanotype of the Bengal Lancers Commissary
Camp, Hong Kong, c. 1900. This image was taken
during Joanna Colcord’s trip to China with her
father on the STATE OF MAINE. It coincided with
the Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901, during which the
Chinese attempted to remove foreign influence
from their country. Westerners retreated to the
legation section of Peking, and were eventually
rescued by a multinational force commanded by
Count Alfred von Waldersee. The rescue army
was escorted to Peking (the Forbidden City) by the
British/Indian troops of the famous Bengal Lancers.
On the back of the cyanotype is written “Who
recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
(violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening
air)?” This is a line from a poem by Rudyard
Kipling, actually referring to South Africa. Joanna
Colcord Collection, LB2004.21.18
Niles D. Parker, Executive Director
Pam Delehey, Operations & Communications Dir.
Benjamin A.G. Fuller, Curator
Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist
Dennis Hansen, Buildings & Grounds Supervisor
Page Lilly, Archivist
Edith Murphy, Registrar
Betty Schopmeyer, Education Director
Matthew Timney, Finance & Administration Dir.
Copyright 2009 Penobscot Marine Museum
2 The Bay Chronicle
Lobsterboat MARGARET M built by Bruce Farrin, South Bristol,
1974. Boutilier Collection, LB2005.24.2054
work ethic that is demonstrated in his
collection. In 2004 museum supporters
purchased Red’s work from his son and
donated it to the museum.
Launching the dragger FAIRTRY, Goudy
& Stevens, East Boothbay, 1981. Boutilier
Collection, LB2005.24.1936
Dragger SEA BRING at Goudy & Stevens Yard,
December 16,1978. Built in Rockport, Texas in
1967, she was one of the fleet of Gulf of Mexico
fishing vessels that came to Maine waters after the
200 mile limit rule was passed in 1978, limiting
off shore fishing grounds to US vessels. Boutilier
Collection, LB2005.24.2176
Roy Blaney planking JENNY IVES in his shipyard
in Boothbay Harbor, 1981. Boutilier Collection,
LB2005.24.7595
Cooking shrimp, Farrin’s Wharf, South Bristol.
Captain Phil Page is the cooker, Van Seidas is his
helper. A tray holds 100 pounds of shrimp; 200
pounds are cooked for 7 minutes in brine, with
10,000 pounds cooked per day. March 19, 1970.
Boutilier Collection, LB2005.24.4219
The Bay Chronicle
The member newsletter of the
Penobscot Marine Museum.
Established in 1978 by William Pendleton.
going to great lengths to research the
boats, owners, and builders. Red’s marine
stories and photographs were published
in numerous magazines, newspapers and
journals, but he was interested in other
topics too. When he did not have a boat
story to cover, he sought out other subjects
to photograph and write about including
dog sledding, haying, curling, sheep dogs,
fires, and even quilting! He had a tireless
One of a series of fishery photos taken by
Joanna Colcord on the island of Grand
Manan. This one is captioned “Baiting up
trawl with pieces of herring. A good day’s
work is 5 tubs at 25 cents each.” Date is
uncertain. Joanna Colcord Collection,
LB2004.21.135
World War I Enlistment poster, Nassau, Bahamas.
The poster reads “Every fit Briton join our forces
at the front. Enlist now.” This image was likely
shot in the early days of the war. Joanna Colcord
Collection, LB2004.21.50
Tolman family quilting bee, Broad Cove, 1973.
Boutilier Collection, LB2005.24.3555
Spring 2009 7
Carroll Thayer Berry Collection
arroll Thayer Berry is a
C
familiar name in the Maine
art world.
Berry was an accomplished
woodcut and wood engraving artist, and
his prints are collected worldwide. What
is less known, however, is that Berry was
an avid and accomplished photographer. It
is thought that Berry took up photography
to create studies for his woodcuts, which
may be true, but it seems he also enjoyed
Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company of Belfast, Maine
this medium in its own right. He was
active in the Knox County Camera Club
What is less known, however,
is that Berry was an avid and
accomplished photographer.
and added a darkroom to his studio in
Rockport. His photographs document
Maine’s in-shore fishing industry including
Launching the
CHALLENGE at
Bob Lane’s, later
the Apprenticeshop,
Rockport, September
1969. Carroll Thayer
Berry Collection,
1104.5
Captains Haskell and
John A. Stephens, both
over 80 years old, of
Rockland, Maine,
July 1950. Both captains
first went to sea with
their fathers at an early
age. Carroll Thayer
Berry Collection, 500.4
Children wading
behind Bartlett’s
Store, Stonington,
Maine, March 1953.
Carroll Thayer Berry
Collection, 3732.11
A
nyone who has been on the Penobscot
Marine Museum’s mailing list or
read the local papers over the past two
years has heard a lot about the Eastern
Illustrating and Publishing Company
collection. Well frankly, there is a lot to
say about this collection of over 40,000
glass plate negatives of Maine and New
England produced by a little postcard
company in Belfast. The collection came
to the museum in the spring of 2007 as
a donation from the Rockport Institute
of Photographic Education, after it was
rescued from a flood caused by frozen
pipes. The images, taken between 1909
and 1950, act as a photographic survey of
New England and upstate New York by
documenting the architecture, industry,
landscape and people of nearly every
town and village. R. Herman Cassens, the
company founder, probably had no idea of
the historical value the collection would
come to have as he pursued his efforts to
become the largest manufacturer of real
photo postcards. Since the collection’s
arrival in Searsport, nearly 3,500 negatives
that had “escaped” over the years have been
located and reunited with the collection
through donations and purchases, and
many more are known to be still at large.
At the time of this publication, more than
10,000 of the negatives have been scanned,
and our database contains over 30,000
entries. One of the nice things about
working with this collection is the ease of
identification, owing to the hand-written
labels added by young female workers at
Cassens’ Belfast location.
Schooners in fog, Bucks
Harbor, Maine, 1951.
Carroll Thayer Berry
Collection, 299.12
Fishing with nets,
Wadsworth’s Weir,
Rockport Harbor,
September 1949.
Carroll Thayer Berry
Collection, 616.10
6 The Bay Chronicle
lobstering and the herring weir fishery.
He also documented the windjammer
fleet, including its schooners, captains
and clients. What is ever-present in his
photographs is the natural beauty of the
Maine coast and coastal communities. He
gave his collection of nearly 9,000 negatives
and 4,000 prints to the Penobscot Marine
Museum in 1977, the year before he died.
Boy with toy sailboat,
May 1956. Carroll
Thayer Berry
Collection, 1229.2
Post Office, Hull’s Cove,
Maine. EIP Collection,
101061
Islesboro, Maine.
EIP Collection,
107063
American Can plant,
Lubec, Maine.
EIP Collection,
101270
Otis W. Ellis Store,
Cape Jellison, Stockton
Springs, Maine. Note the
different name above
the door! EIP Collection,
114388
Steamer BELFAST on
the Penobscot River,
Winterport, Maine.
EIP Collection,
103216
Summit, Cadillac
Mountain, Acadia
National Park.
EIP Collection,
115066
B. T. Orne’s store, East
Friendship, Maine.
EIP Collection,
100589
Lighthouse, Monhegan
Island, Maine.
EIP Collection,
101552
Spring 2009 3
Atlantic Fisherman
he Atlantic Fisherman was
T
founded as a monthly in
Boston in 1919
as “a paper for fishermen
-- producers -- the men who actually fish
for a living.” It was fueled by advertising
for everything that a fisherman needed:
from new larger engines to power the new
draggers that were starting to take over the
Banks fisheries from sailing schooners, to
hip boots. Its masthead read “A farm journal
for the Harvesters of the Sea.” It informed
fishermen about new designs, gear and
catches and provided historical articles
and profiles of prominent fishing captains.
Captain Peter Favazza (left) & Skipper
Salvatore (right) owner of the ST. PETER,
Gloucester, Massachusetts. Atlantic
Fisherman Collection, LB1998.34.957
In May 1929, P.G. Lamson became president
and in July moved the office to Goffstown,
New Hampshire. By then the magazine had
M. Elmer Montgomery Collection
color covers, a color advertising insert, and
correspondents reporting from Canada as
well as Maine and Massachusetts. Lamson
continued publishing the magazine, taking
his son Gardner Lamson into the business
as a correspondent, photographer and
a paper for fishermen -producers -- the men who
actually fish for a living.
The Atlantic Fisherman Collection
provides an unmatched look at fishing on
the Maine - Massachusetts coast in the first
fifty years after the motor supplanted sail in
fishing. The museum has also done some
test scanning of the Maine columns from
1930 to 1953 and is exploring ways to put
these on line as searchable documents.
editor. In 1954, they took on a broader
mission, becoming National Fisherman. In
1960 the magazine was sold to Maine Coast
Fisherman, which had started in Belfast in
1946; for a while the resulting publication
was called National Fisherman Combined
with Maine Coast Fisherman. Gardner Lamson kept the magazine’s photo
files and some correspondence, and in 1992
he began giving these files to the Penobscot
Marine Museum. The files have about 1,000
prints dating back into the 1920s, most of
which can be traced to specific uses in the
magazine, as well as about the same number
of negatives. All have been scanned, but it
will be a challenge matching negatives to
prints as few negatives were labeled. Along
with the photographs, Lamson gave the
museum a full bound run of the magazine.
ur most recent addition to the
O
photo archives is the collection
of M. Elmer Montgomery
that was
donated to the museum late last year by his
nephew, good friend and supporter of the
museum, Maynard Bray. Maynard decided
on Penobscot Marine Museum as the right
place for his uncle’s, and eventually his
own, photography collection because of
the museum’s goal to share its images with
the public. Elmer was not only Maynard’s
uncle, but his mentor. They shared a deep
passion for boats that is evident in the
collection’s stunning images of the great
vessels that were built, cruised, worked
and died in Maine’s mid-coast waters.
Though photography was a hobby for
Elmer, his images demonstrate great skill in
composing and exposing his photographs.
The collection consists of over 700 negatives
taken in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s
primarily around the Rockland, Camden
and Wiscasset waterfronts.
Three masted schooner HELVETIA, started in 1903, launched in July 1905
at I.L. Snow & Co., Rockland. John L. Gamage, designer and master builder.
Nearly lost on a ledge in Jericho Bay in 1937. She was floated off, then
converted to a barge. M. Elmer Montgomery Collection, LB2008.15.58
Winter view looking down the cove from what is now Snow Marine Park.
Two three-masted schooners tied up at Snow’s Shipyard, yawl boat hauled
out in foreground. M. Elmer Montgomery Collection, LB2008.15.472
SOMMERS N. SMITH, a steam tug built around 1887 by Neafie & Levy of Philadephia
and registered in Boston in 1897. Named for the chief engineer and later general manager
of Neafie & Levy. Tugboat EUGENIE SPOFFORD, owned by Goss Corporation at
Snow’s in Rockland. M. Elmer Montgomery collection, LB2008.15.255.58
Pilot house of steamer VINALHAVEN sunk at dock. High tide view. On
November 11, 1938 her guard rail caught on the wharf at Tillson’s Wharf, and
the vessel filled and sank. She was raised two weeks later, stripped for salvage,
and in July 1945 towed between Munro and Sheep Islands and sunk.
Penobscot Marine Museum, 1938. Incorporated in 1936, the museum opened in the
Old Town Hall the following year. M. Elmer Montgomery Collection, LB2008.15.649
“The bones of the ‘Jennie Cheney’ lie in silhouette against an August sunset—
1938 in (Tenant’s Harbor?)” M. Elmer Montgomery Collection, LB2008.15.578
Unidentified man on schooner, in oilskins, with pipe.
Atlantic Fisherman Collection, LB1995.72.231-1
Canadian fishing fleet at Eastport, Maine, July 4.
Atlantic Fisherman Collection, LB1995.72.232-1
Launch of the MARY GRACE (Gloucester) in Rockland, Maine. Atlantic Fisherman Collection, LB1998.34.1409
4 The Bay Chronicle
Spring 2009 5