Catalog entry

Blue Hill is a community east of Castine, across the water from Mount Desert, with a protected harbor. The hill which gives the town its name can also be seen from Castine. In 1850 the population was 1939 (Maine Register). Blue Hill had a fair amount of ship-building, but also quarrying and shipping of granite. According to the 1855 Maine Register, "There is shipped from Bluehill from twenty to fifty thousand dollars worth of rough and hewed granite, per annum." (1)

Awan-adjo, from "Awan," "fog and mist," and "-adjo, "lone hill of the sugar loaf type," perhaps of recent origin, or "K'chi-awan-adn-ock," "the big hazy mountain," was a landmark for the Wabenaki traveling to and fro along the "Minnewo'kun." Parson Jonathan Fisher called it Bluehill in his journal of April 1, 1809. The 934 foot "mountain" appears to be hazy or blue, depending upon your fancy, as you gaze upon its heights from the sea. Township 5, as it was designated in the survey of 1762, sits on Bluehill Bay, but it was not until 1788 that the citizens decided to rename the town Bluehill. The Act of Incorporation spelled the name Blue Hill, and this has led to a continual controversy over the name, as some still prefer Bluehill over Blue Hill.

"There is here a remarkable neat little village chiefly of farmers and the lands are good," so wrote Alexander Baring of London of his grand tour of North America, from the Hudson River to the St. Lawrence, and from the St. Lawrence and the St. John River to the Downeast Coast in 1797. This neat little village opened its own Bluehill Academy in 1803, providing an excellent education in science, mathematics, language, history, and literature for both young men and women, and published its own newspaper 1830-32. Joseph Wood and John Roundy arrived at Bluehill Bay on April 7, 1762, from Beverly, MA, and commenced getting out staves near Fore Falls. By 1768 lumber was being shipped to the West Indies. The Carleton brothers built a tide sawmill near the Salt Pond in 1770. As with every community Downeast, sawmills, fish houses, shipyards, and small, tidy farms were quickly established, and by the 1850s, Bluehill had blossomed into a neat, prosperous village of mariners, farmers, merchants, shipwrights, and millmen.

– Mark Honey

Reference:

1. George Adams. The Maine Register for the Year 1855, p.258

Also see:

Fannie Hardy Eckstrom, Indian Place-Names of the Penobscot Valley and the Maine Coast, University of Maine Studies, 2nd Series, #55, November 1941, reprinted 1960 by the University of Maine Press. DeLorme's Atlas, Frank G Speck's Penobscot Man, University Of Pennsylvania Press, 1940, and Eckstorm, among others, provide useful information on Minnewo'kun.

William Hinckley (1913–83), Bits of Local History, a compendium of re-published articles originally written for "The Weekly Packet" of Bluehill. As printed April 17, 1975 and August 11, 1977

Mark E. Honey, "Abigail & Sarah Hawes of Castine," in Navigators & Educators, with Lois Moore Cyr, 1996.

Mark E. Honey, "King Pine, Queen Spruce, Jack Tar," in An Intimate History of Lumbering on the Union River, vols. 1–5. This source, in its entirety, lays down the foundation of Downeast Maine's unique culture which was built upon pine lumber and timber, the cod fisheries, coasting, shipbuilding, and the interrelationships of family and community.

Castine is a town located on a sheltered harbor in Maine's Penobscot Bay. According to the Maine Register of 1850 it had a population of 1260.

Castine, as the seat of customs, registered 31.4% of Maine's sea fisheries tonnage in 1850. Castine's merchants serviced the needs of Penobscot Bay's fishermen, fitting up supplies and salt, and offering both employment and opportunities for investment in the cod fisheries. Beginning about 1824 Castine fitted out at least 300 vessels with more than two thousand men in a year. (1) Castine's shipyards built both fishing schooners and large ships, ships which carried cotton from New Orleans to the cotton mills of Great Britain, and returned with salt from Liverpool and Cadiz. Castine was at the height of its economic power in the 1850s, the commercial hub for the broader community of Penobscot Bay. (2)

In Gloucester, some aspects of the fishing industry were changing. The fishing vessels of Penobscot Bay tended to be smaller in size, more democratic in ownership, and more intimate with regard to crew, who were more often than not members of an extended family or from the same communities.

The steamboat lines began connecting Maine to Boston in 1824. In 1845 Captain Sanford's Independent Line tried his "Penobscot I" on the route that would become standard, an overnight route to Boston. He also initiated in 1846 "the Blue Hill line" which used the 130-foot "T. F.Secor" to connect with the Boston boat at Belfast and run up to Bangor and as far east as Blue Hill with landings both ways. During the 1850s steamers became larger and more luxurious, with competing steamer lines, and steamships also used in the lumber trade. (3)

References:

1.W.H. Bunting, A Day's Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs (Portland, ME: Maine Preservation), p.56.

2. Roger F. Duncan, "Coastal Maine, A Maritime History," WW Norton & Company, New York, 1992. Mark Honey, "King Pine, Queen Spruce, Jack Tar," An Intimate History of Lumbering on the Union River, Volumes 1-5. This source, in its entirety, lays down the foundation of Downeast Maine's unique culture which was built upon pine lumber and timber, the cod fisheries, coasting, shipbuilding, and the interrelationships of family and community.

3. Allie Ryan, Penobscot Bay Mount Desert, and Eastport Steamboat Album (Camden, ME: Downeast Magazine, 1972).

Honey, Mark E, "Abigail & Sarah Hawes of Castine," Navigators & Educators, with Lois Moore Cyr, 1996.

Honey, Mark E, "Before the Mast," Volume IV, articles 7-9, Holbrook Island and the Holbrook family, and in particular, Robert Applebee, "Vessels of the Penobscot Customs District," Stephan Phillips Memorial Library, Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, which source also has the diaries of Capt. Jonathan Holbrook and the genealogy of the Holbrook family in the Priscilla Jones collection. The "Before the Mass" series can be found in the collections of the Castine Historical Society and the Wilson Museum, both in Castine.

McLane, Charles B, and McLane, Carol Evarts, "Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast," Penobscot Bay, Volume 1, Revised Edition, Tilbury House, Publishers, Gardiner, Maine, and the Island Institute, Rockland, Maine.

McLane, Charles B, and McLane, Carol Evarts, "Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast," Mount Desert to Machias Bay, Volume 2, The Kennebec River club Press, Incorporated, Falmouth, 1989. 

O'Leary, Wayne M, "Maine Sea Fisheries," The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830-1890, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1996, pages 350-351, for the percentage of sea fisheries in 1850.

John Dresser built a ropewalk in Castine; by 1826 the family had two ropewalks (one in Thomaston run by his brother Israel, and one in Castine run by John). Ropewalks were long wooden structures built so that men could walk the length and weave hemp into the line. They were apt to burn. 

J. W. Dresser was John's son and born in 1826. He later operated the Castine rope walk, which remained in the family until 1900 despite having burned twice and having to be rebuilt. "The foreman was a pleasant and capable Italian who was called 'Mr.Surry' (which was not his name but easy to pronounce). He devised an improvement in the process which kept the line from kinking or snarling easily and the 'Castine line' was famous from the Maritime provinces to at least Boston" (Sargent MS letter at Wilson Museum as in Doudiet p. 65).

Among the collection of Stevens papers at the Wilson Museum is a receipt received by Joseph L. Stevens, Sr. from John Dresser in 1838 for rope purchased (A00778).

At 88 Court Street, Castine, was the church built between 1790–96 as First Parish Church and greatly remodeled in 1831. It served as the First Parish (Congregational) Church from 1796–1866, after which it became a Unitarian parish. It is noteworthy for its distinctive belfry and spire. Part of the 1831 reconstruction was this new tower, as well as the sending back of the original Revere bell to Boston in exchange for a larger one. Dr. Joseph Stevens was listed as a pew holder in this church in 1832. (2) During the 1840s the congregation at this church dwindled, but the church was still used for town events such as the 4th of July during the Civil War. (2)

References:

1. Lynn Hudson Parsons, Missions and Meeting Houses, Chapels and Churches: Fuor Centuries of Faith in Castine, Maine (Castine, ME: Historical Society, 2012), 60.

2. Ibid., 75.

The term "ship," as used by nineteenth-century merchants and seamen, referred to a large three-masted sailing vessel which was square-rigged on all three masts. (1) In that same period, sailing warships of the largest classes were also called ships, or more formally, ships of the line, their size qualifying them to engage the enemy in a line of battle. (2) In the second half of the nineteenth century, as sailing vessels were replaced by engine-powered vessels, the term ship was applied to any large vessel, regardless of propulsion or use. (3)

Ships were often further defined by their specialized uses or modifications, clipper ships and packet ships being the most noted examples. Built for speed, clipper ships were employed in carrying high-value or perishable goods over long distances. (4) Lane painted formal portraits of clipper ships for their owners, as well as generic examples for his port paintings. (5)

Packet ships were designed for carrying capacity which required some sacrifice in speed while still being able to make scheduled passages within a reasonable time frame between regular destinations. In the packet trade with European ports, mail, passengers, and bulk cargos such as cotton, textiles, and farm produce made the eastward passages. Mail, passengers (usually in much larger numbers), and finished wares were the usual cargos for return trips. (6) Lane depicted these vessels in portraits for their owners, and in his port scenes of Boston and New York Harbors.

Ships in specific trades were often identified by their cargos: salt ships which brought salt to Gloucester for curing dried fish; tea clippers in the China Trade; coffee ships in the West Indies and South American trades, and  cotton ships bringing cotton to mills in New England or to European ports.  Some trades were identified by the special destination of a ship’s regular voyages; hence Gloucester vessels in the trade with Surinam were identified as Surinam ships (or barks, or brigs, depending on their rigs). In Lane’s Gloucester Harbor scenes, there are likely (though not identifiable) examples of Surinam ships, but only the ship "California" in his depiction of the Burnham marine railway in Gloucester (see Three Master on the Gloucester Railways, 1857 (inv. 29)) is so identified. (7)

– Erik Ronnberg

References:

1. R[ichard)] H[enry] Dana, Jr., The Seaman’s Friend, 13th ed. (Boston: Thomas Groom & Co., 1873), p. 121 and Plate IV with captions.

2. A Naval Encyclopaedia (Philadelphia: L. R. Hamersly & Co., 1884), 739, 741.

3.  M.H. Parry, et al., Aak to Zumbra: A Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft (Newport News, VA: The Mariners’ Museum, 2000), 536.

4. Howard I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1935), 281–87.

5. Ibid.

6. Howard I. Chapelle, The National Watercraft Collection (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1960), 26–30.

7. Alfred Mansfield Brooks, Gloucester Recollected: A Familiar History (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1974), 67–69.