Catalog entry

Traditionally known as the Babson-Alling House, this two-and-a-half-story gambrel-roofed structure was constructed in 1740 for Joseph Allen, Jr., a successful merchant and land owner, and his family. It is located at what was once Gloucester’s Town Green, the center of civic and religious life during the Colonial era. The gable end of the house sits parallel to Washington Street and the front façade faces south.  By Lane’s time, the house was occupied by the Babson family; the fields surrounding it were given over to haying, gardens, and grazing of cows. Shortly before Nathaniel Babson's death in 1863, ownership of the Babson House was taken over by Maria and Emma's uncle, Gustavus Babson (1820–97). The house remains privately owned.

– Martha Oaks (May, 2015)

The David Low house appears in Lane's Babson and Ellery Houses, Gloucester, 1863 (inv. 10); it was located near the current corner of Washington Street and Cunningham Road. The roof and chimney peek up over the hill and field at the far left of canvas, above the man in the gundalow. It no longer exists, but it stood where Cunningham Road now leaves Washington Street, between Grant Circle and Addison Gilbert Hospital. 

David Low, the son of John Low Jr. and Sarah "Gee," was born in 1759.  He married Elizabeth Rogers in 1786 and they had fourteen children. By 1863, both David Low and Elizabeth were dead, but three of their daughters inhabited the house. It was these three sisters, Mary, Lucy and Sally/Sarah Low, about whom Lane's posthumous promoter, Alfred Mansfield Brooks, wrote, referring to them as the sisters of Captain Gorham Low:

"The Low house was a three-story Federal in which each sister occupied a floor wholly her own except for the parlor, which was reserved for callers, tea parties and funerals. A fine Copley portrait hung in this parlor, and Grandmother remembered how it was always rubbed over with a rind of fresh pork to make it shine when company was expected. I was taken in and shown as 'Abby's boy,' which I hated, and then expected to sit silent during each of the three visits, which I hated even more. Precisely the same length of time to the minute was exacted by the old ladies, else, as Great-Aunt Sarah said, they would never overlook the slight." 

In the early twentieth century, after the deaths of the sisters, the house left the Low family and was owned by Edith and then Florence Cunningham, but was eventually torn down to allow for the creation and development of Cunningham Road in the 1950s.

– Sarah Dunlap (September, 2013)

Technically not a river but a saltwater tidal estuary, the Annisquam (or "Squam") River almost cuts off Cape Ann from the rest of the world. Its constantly flowing tides, and the gleaming expanse of marshes surrounding it, inspired several of Lane's paintings. Marsh hay was harvested along its tidal inlets and provided subject matter for Lane's depiction of this ancient occupation, and the traditional craft associated with it, the gundalow. The Annisquam is connected to Gloucester Harbor by The Cut, also known as the Blynman Canal, which was first dug in the seventeenth century, filled in and opened again to complete the more direct inland passage between the harbor and open ocean.

Gloucester’s First Parish was started here in 1641 when Pastor Blynman and his dissident group left the Plymouth Colony to start anew on Cape Ann. They were focused on agriculture, not fishing, and chose this relatively flat area of Cape Ann for its soil, fresh water, and relative protection from the sea weather to start their colony and build their first church. It was another fifty years before fishing began in earnest and the population gradually moved to the harbor area. This left Meetinghouse Green as a quiet pocket of small farms and tidal mills seemingly worlds away from the bustling harbor.

The Green, as it was commonly called, was located between the Annisquam River at Done Fudging and the head of the tidal Mill River to the north. The first meetinghouse on Cape Ann was built there in the 1640s, replaced by a successor built in 1752 which lasted until the 1840s when it was taken down for lack of funds and parishioners. The southern side of the Green is now almost completely obliterated by the Grant Circle rotary just over the Route 128 bridge as it comes onto Cape Ann. The northern side of the Green was up Washington St. from the rotary and occupied the present site of Addison Gilbert Hospital and the neighborhoods around it. The only structure left from the days when The Green was the town center is the Ellery House, which is now on the east side of Washington Street. This house is now owned by the Cape Ann Museum.

In Lane’s day there was a public landing on the Annisquam River at Done Fudging where the rotary now sits. Washington Street came north from the harbor and followed its present day route up the hill between the Babson house and Ellery house (moved to the east side of the street in 1953) and onto the Green. It was a quiet rural area in Lane’s time in contrast to the intense activity and swelling population of the harbor town.

Lane painted a number of pictures of this area, starting in the late 1840s with several self portraits of him painting in the landscape looking west from Done Fudging up the Annisquam River. Nowhere is the serene nature of this area better expressed than in two of Lane’s late views, Babson and Ellery Houses, Gloucester, 1863 (inv. 10) and The Babson Meadows at Riverdale, 1863 (inv. 11). The former shows the town landing at Done Fudging with a pole barge full of salt hay and the two prominent old houses flanking Washington Street. The view in Riverdale is taken from the north edge of The Green and looks up Mill River towards Riverdale in the distance. 

Riverdale is one of Gloucester’s many neighborhoods. Although its boundaries have never been formally set, it runs from the historic Town Green north around the shores of the Mill River. Dogtown is upland and Wheeler’s Point is to the west. Landmarks in the neighborhood over the years have included a dam built across the upper end of the Mill River; a corn mill which ran off tidal waters that flowed out of a pond created by the dam; Poles Hill, a huge granite outcropping at the intersection of what are now Wheeler and Washington Streets; a Methodist meeting house; and the original Town Green. A history of the neighborhood, privately printed in 1950 and available in the archives of the Cape Ann Museum, has this to say about the derivation of the name Riverdale:

"This section of the town (of Gloucester) has long borne the name 'Riverdale,' said to have been given it in 1859 by Lodowick H. Bradford, a Boston man who married into the Brown family which then owned the mills. The name does not appear in Babson’s History; he alludes to the section as the 'old town.' It kept its purely Yankee population and character longer than most other parts of the city."

– Martha Oaks (2015)

From Colonial times to the present, Gloucester and other shore-side communities have maintained certain tracts of land as public landings, assuring everyone the right of free access to and from tidal waters. Such ways are carefully delineated in deeds, are to be kept clear of encumbrances and be available for all to pass over. For communities like Gloucester whose economies were based solidly on maritime pursuits throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, allowing access to navigable waters was essential.

Public landings were designated across Cape Ann including at Folly Cove, the historic Town Green, Done Fudging, Lobster Cove, Cripple Cove and Stanwood Point in West Gloucester.  While public access to the water has gradually constricted in recent decades, even during Fitz Henry Lane’s lifetime, landowners guarded their property rights fiercely, making public landings all that more important.

Gloucester's first public landing was on the Annisquam River at the site of the old First Parish (now occupied by the Grant Circle rotary where Route 128 intersects Washington Street). Given the shallows of the river, most goods had to be landed in scows or gundalows—goods such as marsh hay, lumber, livestock, domestic needs, and business wares—in short, everything from the rest of the world.

As one of the earliest pockets of settlement in Gloucester, Fresh Water Cove was another logical and practical place for a public landing to be located and indeed one was laid out there by the town’s founders. It was over that tract of land that granite from the upland quarry, located in what is now Ravenswood, was transported to awaiting sloops in the Cove.  The landing was also how shore fishermen would access their boats and carry supplies to and from their homes.  

– Martha Oaks

The rivers of northern New England gave rise to a type of freighting scow called a "gundalow," having square ends, a flat bottom, shallow draft, and sturdy construction going beyond the usual standards for this hull type. The term “gundalow”—variously spelled and pronounced—was first used in the late seventeenth century in New England, and was derived from the Old World term “gondola”—also a flat-bottom vessel, but more varied in hull form and uses. (1)

The rivers and estuaries of Essex County, Massachusetts were subject to tidal variations and their surrounding lowlands were salt marshes which yielded prodigious quantities of grass. The more succulent varieties, called “marsh hay” were valued fodder for livestock, while “thatch,” which grew along the tidal creeks, was used for roofing of buildings, bedding for livestock, and compost for gardens. Grasses on higher elevations could be carted away after cutting, but at lower elevations, it was the job of gundalows to bring it to a landing for  distribution. Gundalows for these tasks were relatively small, less than 40 feet in length, propelled by long oars called “sweeps,” and by poles. Occasionally a single square sail was set from a short mast if the landing was distant and downwind. (2)

Larger gundalows, of more elaborate construction, were to be found on the Merrimac and Piscataqua Rivers of Northern Massachusetts and the Maine–New Hampshire boundary, respectively. The Merrimac gundalows probably reached 45–50 feet in length, had long overhangs with a stem post, a skeg with rudder and tiller, heavy framing, and a mast stepped well forward from which a square sail could be set when going downwind. (3)

Not just confined to the Merrimac River, many of these vessels found their ways to the Ipswich marshes via a canal on the mainland side of Plum Island. Smaller and simpler versions of this type were built to work in the salt marshes of Essex and West Gloucester, dispensing with sails and propelled much of the time by poling through narrow tidal creeks. (4)

Lane took notice of a gundalow in his painting Babson and Ellery Houses, Gloucester, 1863 (inv. 10) and the remains of another in his Looking up Squam River from Done Fudging, 1850s (inv. 26). In both cases, the hulls are small and simple in detail, but the latter shows part of its heavy inboard construction. Gundalows of this variety survived in Cape Ann estuaries long enough to be photographed.

Piscataqua River gundalows were the largest and most highly developed of this vessel type, measuring 65 feet or more and rigged with a lateen sail set on a very short mast. When sailing under a bridge, the sail could be dipped without lowering and quickly reset once clear. The hull was modeled with a rounded bow and finely shaped stern; many were fitted with a leeboard so the vessel could sail upwind on the broader reaches of the Piscataqua. (5)

Lane’s depiction of a gundalow in Boston Harbor in the mid-1840s is of the type associated with the Piscataqua River, but having features of both earlier and later examples, together with a rig not known to be used on these craft. The “spoon bow” has generally been regarded as a post-1860 feature, yet Lane’s example has one. The stern has a finely modeled transom which is clearly seen in the underdrawing revealed by infrared scanning. Rudders were supposed to be fitted by the early 1800s, but Lane’s example is steered with an oar. The graceful sheer is another feature considered to post-date Lane’s painting. Finally, the rig consists of a gaff- headed sail set from a very short mast. Short fixed masts setting large lateen sails were common to late gundalows, but the gaff rig depicted is so small that its usefulness is limited if not questionable (6).

Close examination of the infrared scans of this image shows careful drafting of the hull and re-drawing of the crew, sweeps, and steering oar. The cargo of casks is also extensively redrawn to show correct stowage. Whether the changes were due to criticisms from others or the artist’s own evaluation is probably lost to history.

– Erik Ronnberg

References:

1. M.H. Parry et al., Aak to Zumbra: The World's Watercraft, (Newport News, VA: The Mariners' Museum, 2000), 264.

2. Ibid.; and Nancy V. Weare, Plum Island: The Way It Was, 2nd ed. (Newbury, MA: Newburyport Press, Inc., 1996), 43–48.

3. D. Foster Taylor, "The Piscataqua River Gundalow," The American Neptune II, no. 2 (April 1942): 127–39.

4. Weare, 43–48.

5. Taylor, 127–39.

6. Ibid.; and author's observations.

From the days of the earliest English settlements on Cape Ann through Fitz Henry Lane’s lifetime, subsistence farmers harvested hay during the summer and autumn months and stored it away to feed livestock during the winter. They also sold it to others in the community for cash or bartered it for other goods and services. Two types of hay were harvested: English hay, meaning hay that was cultivated, and salt marsh hay which was cut from tidal areas where it grew naturally. Many farmers dealt in both. Hay was transported either in wagons drawn by horses or oxen, or by gundalows, flat bottom work boats which could easily maneuver in shallow marsh areas. One example of a family who engaged in haying was the Ellerys who lived at Gloucester’s old Town Green. An account book which Benjamin Ellery (1744–1825) kept is preserved in the archives of the Cape Ann Museum. It reveals that Ellery dealt in both cultivated and natural hay as well as other commodities. He also owned a gundilow, oxen and wagons, all of which he used for his own purposes and made available to others on a barter basis. The practice of haying died out on Cape Ann as automobiles and trucks came into use during the first quarter of the twentieth century and livestock disappeared from the area.

– Martha Oaks (April, 2015)

Emmeline (Emma) Rogers Babson (1839–1905) was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the eldest of the two daughters of Nathaniel Babson and Emmeline Davis (Rogers) Babson.

Her mother died when Emma was five and her father, who was a house painter by profession, a selectman, and active in the abolitionist movement, never remarried.

Emma attended the Oread Institute of higher education for women in Worcester, Massachusetts, for one year (her sister Maria attended for one term), before returning to Gloucester, where she brought income into the house as a dressmaker. She married William Hovey Friend (1840–1914) in 1869, and immediately moved to San Francisco, California, where her husband had been residing since 1863.  He was a bookkeeper for several firms, and at one time represented the California branch of the Gloucester wholesale fish business of John E. Pew & Sons. In 1896, he became the postmaster of Oakland, California, where he was also trustee and deacon of the First Presbyterian Church for many years. He and Emma had two sons, William Nathaniel Friend, born in 1870 and Roger Berry Friend, born in 1873.

Emma was one of the original organizers of the Ebell Society in 1876 (formed to promote and advance the study by women of literature, science and art), and although suffering from ill health, continued an interest in its affairs until her death. She also helped to organize the Oakland Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was a member of the General Society of the Mayflower Descendants, and a life member of the YWCA. She was active in the first campaign for woman's suffrage in 1896, and when the Spanish war broke out she was instrumental in organizing the Oakland Red Cross Society, whose first meeting was held at her home. She was also an avid collector of china and wrote authoritatively about it. She wrote many other articles on a variety of subjects, including art. She died in Oakland, California, in 1905.

Lane made paintings for Emma and her sister Maria from three sketches.

Maria Rogers Babson (1840–1913) was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the youngest of the two daughters of Nathaniel Babson and Emmeline Davis (Rogers) Babson. She died unmarried in California at the age of seventy-three.

Her mother died when Maria was four and her father, who was a house painter by profession, a selectman, and active in the abolitionist movement, never remarried. Maria and her older sister Emma both briefly attended the Oread Institute of higher education for women in Worcester, Massachusetts—Maria for one term and Emma for one year.

Maria moved to California in 1870, following her sister who had married and moved there the previous year. In California, both sisters became active in a variety of charitable, social and religious organizations. Maria was a charter member of the Ebell Society and Club (formed to promote and advance the study by women of literature, science and art), its General Curator, and indefatigable promoter for many years. She also was prominent in the Oakland Red Cross Society and helped found the Convalescent Home during the Spanish war. She was treasurer of the fund for the children's room in the Carnegie Library and involved in the organization and perpetuation of the Oakland Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She took a significant interest in the activities, especially the missionary work, of the First Presbyterian Church, being an honorary member of the American Board and an active member of the Occidental Board of Foreign Missions. She died at the home of her nephew in San Francisco on May 1, 1914. (1)

Lane made paintings for Maria and her sister Emma from three sketches.

(1) Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
  (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1914)
, 472-475.

Nathaniel Babson was a Gloucester merchant and a town selectman from 1847 to 1850, and again in 1860.  He was a strong supporter of abolition and brought speakers into town to lecture on the subject. He was part owner of two schooners, the "Dianna" in 1855 and the "Flying Cloud" from 1855 to 1859.

According to notes on his drawings, Lane made a painting for Nathaniel Babson of Stage Rocks, and three paintings for his two daughters of their family home.

Nathaniel Babson (1810–63) married Emmeline Davis Rogers (1816–44) on January 16, 1838. He was the son of Capt. Nathaniel Babson and Eliza Gorham Low and a cousin of Edward and John James Babson, his father and their father being brothers. Emmeline was the daughter of Shubael Gorham Rogers and Mary (Davis) Rogers. They had three children: Emmeline Rogers (1839–1903) who married William Hovey Friend; Maria Rogers (1840–1913), who did not marry, and an unnamed daughter who died in the year of her birth, 1844. In the 1860 census, after his wife’s death, Nathaniel Babson was described as a [house] painter and their daughter Emmeline as a dressmaker.

Shortly before his death, ownership of Nathaniel Babson's home went to Maria and Emma's uncle, Gustavus Babson (1820-1897)

.