We are straying across the border from Rockport into Gloucester for this old view of the Rockport Granite Company’s wharves in Bay View. The site pictured here was in the news just this week, with the Gloucester Times reporting that it is about to become the new home of the Large Pelagics Research Laboratory, a facility dedicated to the study of bluefin tuna and other long-distance marine travelers.
I previously posted a view of Rockport Granite’s wharf in Rockport, at what is now called Granite Pier. The Bay View operation served the company’s quarries in Lanesville.
This postcard is postmarked 1906. There is a small logo that may identify its publisher, but I do not recognize it.
Vintage Rockport 
Hi Robert,
Thanks for all of the postcards, they’re great. This one above of the Rockport Granite works in Bay View- is that an actual photograph that was colored or a sketch that someone did? I live at 19 North Kilby, the far right bottom of the picture and was curious. Thanks, Sandy
It’s hard to say for sure, but I believe this is a photograph, not a sketch. Usually, these early color postcards used black-and-white photographs (or negatives) and colorized them in the printing process.
Hodgkins Cove was the locus of at least 3 granite companies: Rockport Granite, Vernon’s Quarry and Cape Ann Granite. Cape Ann Granite was controlled by Gen. Benjamin Butler of Civil War fame and this location was where he moored his yacht,the America, which won the ‘America Cup’ from the British and this established a great yacht racing tradition that still exists to this day. My grandfather, Capt. John Henry Paschal, sailed from this cove in his 110′ sloop (known as a stone sloop)that carried granite as far north as Montreal and as far south as Florida. In later years, the big building on the left was home to the Consolidated Lobster Co., created by Roger W. Babson, founder of Babson College among other things, and they imported lobsters from Canada by boat and offloaded at the cove and shipped lobsters around the US.
That’s interesting. If you have not already read the recent New York Times Magazine piece about Gen. Butler, you really should. It’s a fascinating back story of his pivotal role in freeing the slaves.
My Dad worked for 20 years at Consolodated Lobster Company. The owner at that time was Mr. Robert Cousins who lived on Page Street in Gloucester. Growing up in Bay View in the 60’s I would often ride my bike to see Dad and we’d walk through the enourmous tanks full of lobsters. The building burnt in the late 60’s. Across from that long driveway on Washington Street was the High Line House where my Mom worked as a waitress for 10+ years and I later started as a dishwasher when I was 14 when the ownership changed and it was called the Garrison House. For a short time it was called Piccadilly Circus before it also burnt down. The lot is now a makeshift park of sorts.
I am trying to locate any pictures of the High Line House. I’m researching my family history and have been told that Hester & Charlie Vitale owned this restaurant at one time.
a vintage high line house menu for sale…….https://www.ebay.com/itm/303822204370
I don’t know which came first, but this photo also appears in an article on Air Power at the Rockport Quarry in Bay View in 1908.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PDEAAAAAMAAJ&dq=mine%20quarry%20bayview&pg=PA213#v=onepage&q=mine%20quarry%20bayview&f=false
Could be that the original photo was for a different purpose altogether than either the postcard or the book. Perhaps it was taken for the granite company.
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