Here is a view of what is now called Granite Pier when it was still in active use by the Rockport Granite Company, which operated from 1865 to 1933. This postcard is not dated. It appears to come from the same publisher as this postcard of Main Street. It has the exact same back side, the same style of caption and the same coloring. Since I pinned that one at around 1920, I’m guessing this is from around the same time.
Apart from identifying this as a lighthouse, the caption of this postcard gets none of its facts straight. This, of course, is one of the famous Twin Lights, located on Thacher Island, not “Thatchers.” It is generally referred to as the south tower, not the eastern tower, and it is in Rockport, not Gloucester.
Thacher Island is about a mile off the coast of Rockport. Its two lighthouses are identical in construction and both were completed in 1861, according to the website of the Thacher Island Association. “They are each 124 feet high and stand about 164 feet above the waterline. They are constructed of solid granite on the outside and a two foot thick inner wall of brick,” the website says.
The island gets its name from Anthony and Elizabeth Thacher, who were shipwrecked there in 1635 while sailing from Ipswich to Marblehead. The ship’s 21 other passengers, including the Thacher’s four children, all drowned. Two months after the shipwreck, the Massachusetts legislature gave Thacher ownership of the island “as his inheritance.”
The first lighthouses were built on Thacher in 1771, two 45-foot tall structures. Ninety years later, the Twin Lights were completed. In 2001, the Twin Lights were designated a National Historic Landmark.
The south tower pictured here is now owned by the town of Rockport. The north tower is owned by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and managed by the town as a wildlife refuge.
The Thacher Island Association website has information on visiting the island and on its history. A book published last year, Twin Lights of Thacher Island, Cape Ann, by Rockport resident Paul St. Germain, tells the history of the island through old photographs. It is a fascinating book. You can buy it through the association’s website by clicking on “store.”
This postcard is published by the Hugh C. Leighton Company, Portland, Maine, and printed in Germany. It is postmarked Aug. 29, 1910.
The Turk’s Head Inn was once Rockport’s grandest getaway. As I noted in an earlier post, when the U.S. Navy fleet and visiting dignitaries came to town, this is where they came to be feted.
The 2007 book, Summer by the Seaside: The Architecture of New England Coastal Resort Hotels, 1820-1950, says that Rockport in the early 1900s had only one resort worthy of inclusion in the book, the Turk’s Head Inn. It provides this description:
“Once situated at Land’s End on South Street, with ocean views to Thatcher’s and Milk islands, was the Turk’s Head Inn, the initial portion erected from 1889 to 1990 (sic, 1890 perhaps?) by builder J.M. Wetherill of Rockport based on plans by architect H.M. Stephenson of Boston. Impressively sited on a 150-foot elevation, this rambling, E-shaped Colonial Revival structure possessed a seaboard frontage of two hundred feet and wraparound verandas over three hundred feet in length. Proving vertical sight lines to what was otherwise a flat, horizontal edifice were tall brick chimneys and an octagonal tower with spire roof cap. The main entrance opened into a large hall with a massive fireplace of Rockport granite, accessing parlors, a music room, a spacious, L-shaped dining room, and other public spaces.
Over the years, the Turk’s Head Inn suffered a number of fires, and its central and southeast wings were rebuilt, the latter in 1905 by then owner C.B. Martin. With a peak capacity of 200, the hotel, uncharacteristic of the regional hospitality industry, remained in operation for eighty years before it was closed down, partially destroyed by fire, and the remains removed in 1970 to make way for the present Turk’s Head Motor Inn. The original inn was the last survivor of Cape Ann’s distinguished collection of large resort hotels originating prior to 1950, and a representative example of the last phase of the Gilded Age hotel era along Boston’s North Shore.
This postcard, published by The Rotograph Co., bears a 1905 postmark, which would have been the year described above in which two wings were rebuilt after a fire. Note the horse-drawn carriage parked in front — perhaps the 1905 equivalent of a taxi.
This 1905 picture shows the life saving station that remains at Gap Cove to this day. According to a U.S. Coast Guard history, the station was built in 1889 to replace a station built at Davis Neck in 1874. It was originally called Gap Head Station and then, in 1902, became known as Straitsmouth Station.
The station remained active until July 1964. It is now a private home.
This postcard, published by The Rotograph Company in New York City, has no date or postmark. According to a website devoted to the history of The Rotograph Company, it actively produced postcards only from 1904 to 1908. The postcard has a divided back. U.S. postal laws did not allow divided back postcards until 1907. Thus, this postcard was likely to have been produced in either 1907 or 1908.
Note the woman in a long dress on the beach with children. Also notable is the scrubbiness of the brush covering the Headlands and the sparsity of cottages.
Update: I realized that I have another copy of this same card. It bears a dated postmark of July 21, 1913. So I am revising my estimate of the photograph’s date back a couple years, to 1912 (at the latest).
This scene of a still and quiet harbor, showing Motif No. 1, is not postmarked or dated. No publisher is listed, but the back of the card bears the imprint, “The Royal Blue Card.” I’ve found only a few other cards with this imprint, most of which were published by a Boston company, Putnam Art Co. Of those, the only ones with postmarks were dated from 1915 to 1918. That being the best evidence I have, I’m estimating this picture to be from about 1915.
If so, then that famous fishing shack in the center of the photo would not yet have been dubbed Motif No. 1. I say that, even though I cannot find any reference to the year in which it did first take that name.
Almost every source gives the same story for how it got that name. You can find the story recited on RockportUSA.com, which attributes it to the 1965 book by artist John Cooley, Rockport Sketch Book. A quick Google search will bring up several other references that tell the same story.
They all attribute it to artist Lester Hornby, who taught in Paris in the winter and in Rockport in the summer. Hornby’s French students drew certain standard subjects, or motifs. In a similar way, many of his Rockport students were drawn to sketch the old shed in the harbor. Perhaps exasperated when one too many students chose the same subject to sketch, he reportedly exclaimed, “What-Motif No 1 again!”
A different version of the naming is told by Eleanor C. Parsons in her 1998 book, Rockport: The Making of a Tourist Treasure. She attributes the name to the artist who actually lived in the shack for a period of time, John Buckley, although she says he was inspired by having heard Hornby discuss motifs in Paris. Here is her version:
More and more visitors began to reconstruct the primitive beauty on their canvasses until, one day, an artist who had actually taken up residence in the building, along with the fishing gear, realized his shelter had become the most popular subject of all for his fellow artists to paint. Repeating, half in jest, the words brought from France by his contemporary artist, Lester Hornby, the tenant-owner uttered the name that was to remain for posterity: “It’s the Number One Motif!”
One thing for certain: The shack in this postcard is not the shack we see today. The original shack was destroyed in the blizzard of 1978 and a replica was built to replace it.
[Update: I first posted this as circa 1923. I then found a reference to this vessel in 1921. Thus, I have changed my estimate of the date to 1920.]
Shipbuilding was a common enterprise on Bearskin Neck in the early 1900s. In another postcard I posted here earlier, you can see a ship under construction. Here, you see the finished hull being launched, with crowds of onlookers watching.
This postcard is not dated but is from the early 1920s. Another similar picture is dated 1923.
Tragically, in 1924, the Evelyn and Ralph was shipwrecked in fierce storm off the south shore of Nantucket.
With a nod to this week’s snow and cold, here is a snowy scene from the past. It shows people riding a horse-drawn sled near The Old Castle, near the intersection of Curtis Street and Granite Street. The Old Castle, the saltbox house in the background, is now maintained by the Sandy Bay Historical Society, which estimates its date of construction as 1712.
As for the date of this postcard, I am estimating it was around 1930. The card was published by the Rockport Photo Bureau, which was established in 1907 by Charles Cleaves. Cleaves died in 1937. The Rockport Photo Bureau continued to operate until 1945 under the management of Cleaves’ daughter, Virginia Cleaves Little. Even so, Little imprinted the cards she produced with her name, not that of the Photo Bureau. So that suggests this card was published before Cleaves’ death.
Another clue is the card’s backing. Cards produced by the same publisher often changed in the design of their backsides over the years. The back of this postcard is consistent with others I have from this publisher that are postmarked in the early 1930s.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, warships from the U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Squadron were regular visitors to Sandy Bay. News reports from the time suggest the squadron’s arrival was always a notable event. For example, a July 9, 1899, New York Times article reported:
The fleet was met by a Reception Committee of Rockport citizens, who formally extended a welcome to the town. …
This evening a dance was given at Turk’s Head Inn in honor of the officers of the squadron, which was attended by a large and brilliant assemblage. Bonfires and fireworks also lighted up the shores, although the display was greatly interfered with by the heavy fog.
Sounds like the Fourth of July, only with multiple bonfires along the shoreline. Similarly, a July 17, 1906, New York Times report on the squadron’s arrival in Rockport told of the dignitaries who would arrive to greet it:
A feature of the visit of the fleet will be a banquet by the members of the North Shore Summer colony at Turk’s Head Inn, on July 20. Admiral Dewey, Rear Admiral Evans, and fifty of the line officers; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and Attorney General William H. Moody have been invited to be present.
This German-made card is postmarked 1909. Obviously, the photograph would have been taken earlier than that. I’m guessing that the photo is from the squadron’s 1906 visit, based on other photos that I’ve seen.
Postmarked in 1911, surely no one could have imagined then that, 100 years later, the building at the center would become the site for the Shalin Liu Performance Center.
Note the horses and buggies, the trolley tracks, and the women’s long dresses and men’s bowler hats. Compare this view to a similar one from about 10 years later.
This postcard was produced by The Rotograph Company in New York City and printed in Germany.
Vintage Rockport 