Main Street, Pigeon Cove, Showing Tool Factory, c. 1915

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

This old view of a sleepy Main Street in Pigeon Cove shows the now-abandoned Cape Ann Tool Company to the right and the trolley tracks that once circled Cape Ann to the left. A sign on the third utility pole (by the man in the road) says “Railroad Crossing.” That could refer to the trolley track or to one of the tracks that ran from the granite quarries down to the piers.

The postcard has no date. Because it was printed in Germany, it was before 1917. According to a 1913 item in The Iron Age, a fire that year destroyed the factory and plans were underway to build a new structure made out of steel. The building in this picture appears to be the one that remains there today, so it would have been built around 1914. That puts the date of this image as between 1914 and 1917.

The earliest reference I could find to the Cape Ann Tool Company was in 1893. I believe it began operating in the late 1880s. It closed in 1987.

This postcard was published by E.C. McIntire of Gloucester.

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The Fleet in Harbor, Rockport, Mass., circa 1910

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

Here is another view of the warships of the U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Squadron at anchor in Rockport Harbor. For other views and to read more about the annual visits of these ships, see my other posts tagged “warships.”

The note written on the reverse of this postcard is addressed to “Miss Kennedy” and says:

I am here spending my vacation. Last Sunday I spent three very pleasant hours on the warship “New Hampshire.”

Based on these images from the Naval Historical Center, the USS New Hampshire was built in 1907 and commissioned in 1908. Pictures on that site show it with three smokestacks and two masts, so if it is one of the vessels in this picture, it is either the one to the far right or the one directly in the center.

This postcard was published by The Rotograph Co., New York City, and printed in Germany. It bears a postmark of 1911.

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Fishing Boats, Rockport, Mass., circa 1910

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

The coloring of this postcard makes it look more like a modern painting than a 100-year-old postcard. One source I found attributed this look to the crude form of hand coloring used by the postcard’s publisher, E.C. McIntire of Gloucester.

On the reverse side of the postcard, someone wrote:

From distant lands her sons return to show their love for home.

On stony land and stormy seas she raises hardy men.

Astute readers of this blog may recognize that quote (with one word off) as the inscription that appeared on the Gloucester 250th Anniversary Memorial Arch.

There is no date or postmark on the card. It was printed in Germany, which indicates it was printed before 1917, when World War I broke out and all such commerce came to a halt. This card is very similar in style and markings to this circa 1910 view of Rockport, also published by E.C. McIntire.

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Old Witch House, Pigeon Cove, circa 1906

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

See my earlier post about the Old Witch House for more details on this house, which still stands in Pigeon Cove. Most accounts date the house as having been built in 1692 and some describe it at the first house built in Pigeon Cove. Accounts I have read say that the first settler of Sandy Bay, Richard Tarr, arrived here in 1690 with his wife and two children. This house, then, would be almost as old as the settlement of what is now Rockport.

A wonderful feature of this postcard is its misspellings. Instead of Old Witch House, it says “Old Nitch House.” Instead of Pigeon Cove, it says “Pigeon Cove.” I attribute these errors to the fact that it was printed in Germany. Somewhere along the way, something was lost in translation. The publisher of the postcard is The Metropolitan News Co. of Boston, Mass.

The postcard bears a postmark of Jan. 1, 1907. It is an undivided back postcard, which means it was published prior to 1907 (as its postmark shows). The postcard was sent to someone in Portland, Ore., with the simple message, “Wish you all happy new year.”

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Two More of the Rocky Shores, as a Private Estate in 1910

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

I previously posted a more sweeping view of this one-time summer estate on Eden Road, a home now known as the Rocky Shores Manor. That previous post received a comment from Christine Kostka Cohen, who grew up in the house and whose family owns it still.

The man who built the house and first summered there was Francis Smith of San Antonio, Texas. He had been the head of a San Antonio investment firm that helped Texas farmers and ranchers obtain financing to expand. By the time he built this house, he had sold his interest in the firm and retired. According to Christine, Smith and his family traveled to Rockport from Texas by train. For more about him, see my previous post.

These are real photo postcards, produced not commercially but for personal use. One of these postcards is stamped on the back with the name of a Boston photography studio, Hoffman Studio, which is listed by the Massachusetts Historical Society as active around 1900.

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Pousil Hill, Pigeon Cove, Mass., circa 1911

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

In the 100 years since this picture was taken, this scene along Granite Street in Pigeon Cove has changed surprisingly little. The wall and columns you see to the right are still there today. The house is also still there, although a garage has been added. There is even still a fire hydrant at about the same spot as the one you see at the center of this picture.

This postcard was published by Rockport Photo Bureau and printed in Germany. The reverse side is postmarked from Pigeon Cove, but the year is difficult to read. It appears to be 1911, which would comport with the fact that this is a pre-1917 postcard.

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General View Rockport from Highway, Pigeon Cove, c. 1915

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

This harvesting scene shows Knowlton’s Field at Rowe Point long before the site was developed into the condominiums that now occupy the site. At the center is a horse-drawn wagon full of harvested grass. A figure in white stands on the right side of the picture.

According to the Gloucester Daily Times, Ann Fisk, a well-known Rockport civil leader who died in 2009, led a campaign to purchase and preserve Knowlton’s Field. Here is how the Times described it in her obituary:

Another favorite cause was land conservation. One of her early campaigns was to raise money to purchase Knowlton’s Field, an effort that failed because many townspeople assumed the land could never be developed and was therefore not worth raising money to preserve. A few years later when the land became Rowe Point condominiums she found a more receptive audience for her fundraising drives. She was instrumental in arranging for the town to purchase a piece of land at the top of Pigeon Hill that remains open for the public to enjoy, and in raising funds to purchase a 30-acre parcel at the town’s entrance along Nugent’s Stretch.

The condos at Rowe Point were built in 1980. At the time, Rockport had no cluster zoning so the developer had to get special approvals from the Rockport Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

This postcard identifies no publisher or date. Based on both the picture and the design of the back, I am making a wild guess that it is from around 1915.

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Charles H. Cleaves, Rockport Photographer, in 1900

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

©Bodin Historic Photo

Regular readers of this blog may recognize the name Charles H. Cleaves as the founder of the Rockport Photo Bureau, the company that produced many early postcards of Rockport. (Click on the Rockport Photo Bureau tag in the right-hand column to see the postcards of his that I have posted so far.) Cleaves founded the company in 1907 and ran it until his death in 1937. His daughter, Virginia Cleaves Little, continued to run it at least into the 1940s.

I am thrilled today to share this photo of Cleaves, provided courtesy of Fredrik Bodin at Bodin Historic Photo in Gloucester. (See Bodin’s Facebook page for more examples of his amazing collection of photos.) Fred writes this about the picture:

The information I have about this photo, which is a 4×5 inch glass negative (#A9445-063): Charles H. Cleaves Junior, and Mill standing in Mill’s yard, Rockport, circa 1900. I believe it was taken on Granite Street, with Sandy Bay in the background. Mill was the nickname of the woman, and I guess she lived right there.

As for Charles H. Cleaves Jr., I surmise from the negatives I own that he was involved in the granite industry (photos of a few granite structures in the Northeast, such as the Brooklyn Bridge), went to Harvard (photos of Harvard buildings and a dorm room), and loved to photograph. He lived at the top of Pasture Road, which has a granite post at its intersection with Granite Street inscribed with the letters CC (Charles Cleaves).

I can add to that information that Cleaves was a lawyer. As his obituary from the New York Times says, he graduated from Harvard in 1899 and from Harvard Law School in 1902. The photo above, then, would have been taken while he was in law school and well before he started taking his own photographs professionally.

Fred says that he has 259 Charles Cleaves photos in his collection. The Sandy Bay Historical Society also has a large collection of his photos and postcards, as well as his original glass-plate negatives.

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Off Topic: Roger McGuinn, Then and Now

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

The legendary Roger McGuinn, cofounder of The Byrds, is performing Friday night at Rockport Music. I am thrilled to have tickets to this sold-out show. I thought this would be the first time I’d see him live. Then, over the weekend, I was reading about him and realized that he had been a member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, a 1975 concert tour on which Dylan was accompanied by an all-star cast. Well, I was at one of those shows, and have the grainy, low-quality photos to prove it. So, I dug them out and, sure enough, there was McGuinn.

In 2007, McGuinn himself reminisced about the Rolling Thunder Revue on his own blog. Below is his picture that he posted of himself on that tour, on stage with Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez.

And here is one of my old photos. I had a strange seat, behind the stage, and the quality is not very good. But there’s McGuinn, just to the right of Arlo Guthrie. You can also see Ramblin’ Jack Ellitt (with the white hat) and Joan Baez (with the guitar).

And here’s one of Dylan and Baez.

To see more of my photos of this concert, click here.

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Watching the Launching, Rockport, Mass., circa 1920

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Robert Ambrogi

Here is a companion to the postcard published here earlier this week, The Inner Harbor after the Launching. This time, we see the scene during the launching. Onlookers line the pier beside Motif No. 1 to get a good view. The inset in the upper left shows the actual launch, with more onlookers standing to either side.

Like the earlier postcard, this one was published by Rockport Photo Bureau.

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