Yesterday, I posted the image above, describing it as an artists’ camp at Andrews Point in Rockport. That was the description that accompanied the postcard when I purchased it. As it turns out, it was only partly right. Although it is an artists’ camp, it is actually the camp that was run by artist John Coggeshall in Lanesville.

The camp building as it looks today.

Thank you to Gregg Smith for his comment informing me of this and to Elana Brink for doing the same on our Facebook page. The building has since been broken up, but portions of it still stand, directly on the ocean at the foot of Coggeshall Road in Lanesville (a village of Gloucester).

A 1909 listing in the magazine, The School Arts Book, provides this description of Coggeshall Camp and Studio:

Offers a course of instruction in drawing and painting from nature under an experienced teacher who has studied and painted in many lands. Beginners and those who have made some progress in out-of-door sketching will find here an unusual opportunity to work directly from Nature in oil, water color, charcoal, or pencil, by new and simplified methods. The Camp buildings and studio were designed and built three years ago especially for this work and are situated beside the sea on a beautiful spot on the Cape Ann shore. This art students’ camp is unique in that it provides comfortable room, good board and best of practical instruction with pleasantest vacation surroundings and can accommodate a few who do not care to work in the classes, thus enabling students to bring friends as room-mates who would enjoy the out-of-door life. An illustrated booklet on application. John I. Coggeshall, 473 Beacon Street, Lowell, Mass. After June 15th, at Lanesville.

John I. Coggeshall

Coggeshall was a well-known painter of marine scenes and seascapes. Born in Fall River in 1857, he moved to Lowell in 1877 and lived the rest of his life there, until his death in 1927. He moved to Lowell to work as an engraver, after completing an apprenticeship in Boston. But he later said that he was surprised to find that Lowell was home to a thriving arts community.

In addition to painting, Coggeshall was an avid photographer. Fred Bodin has posted three of Coggeshall’s photos at the Good Morning Gloucester blog (here, here and here). He took many photographs of Lowell, capturing both its arts scene and its industry. He was an officer of both the Lowell Art Association and the Lowell Camera Club. Coggeshall’s great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution and Coggeshall was a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.