Catalog entry

Commentary

As indicated to the lower left of the image, Lane designed this image and drew it on the stone. It was then printed at Pendleton's Lithography.

Commentary and a Visual Guide

This work is Lane’s first lithographic view of Gloucester and has aspects not repeated in his two later views. Most noticeable is the high vantage point, offering a downward view of the foreground and raising the horizon to the image’s vertical midpoint. The result of the higher vantage point was a more intimate foreground view of East Gloucester, but a very distant view of Gloucester’s harbor community in the background. Since most of Lane’s potential customers for paintings were businessmen working and living in the latter, it must have made sense (perhaps at the suggestion of the publisher) for his second lithograph, View of Gloucester, (From Rocky Neck), 1846 (inv. 92), to focus more closely on Harbor Cove and its neighborhood.

The horizontal angle of view in this image is ninety-two degrees, the widest in the three Gloucester lithographs, whose angles diminish progressively. This narrowing brought sharper focus on vessels and harbor infrastructure, which was further magnified by a larger format in each succeeding view. Whatever its commercial faults, this charming picture offers many details of interest and importance in Gloucester Harbor that are absent in its succeeding views.

 The foreground offers a rare view of the oldest part of the East Gloucester community (1), which was clustered adjacent to Smith’s Cove (2). The importance of fishing to this village is evident in the wharves, sheds, and flake yard (3) belonging to the Wonson family. The wharves were of the cob wharf type (4), which was typical for Gloucester in the first half of the nineteenth century. Grounded out alongside the cob wharf is a fishing schooner type called a pinky (5), the term referring to the “pink” (pinched) stern whose name and design has Dutch origins. (See key below.)

Anchored in Smith’s Cove is a New England boat of the double-ended type (6). These boats were descendants of colonial craft called shallops whose design and construction influenced many New England workboat types. This specific type became a motif for many of Lane’s later depictions of Gloucester Harbor.

The finger of land enclosing Smith’s Cove at left is Rocky Neck (7). True to its name, it offered hostile ground to early efforts at farming and gardening, hence there were few settlers. It did make itself useful to Lane when he chose it as his viewing point for two subsequent lithographs of Gloucester Harbor as well as a few paintings, including Gloucester Harbor from Rocky Neck, 1844 (inv. 14) and Three Master on the Gloucester Railways, 1857 (inv. 29).

Once unfit for anything but sheep pounds, Five Pound Island (8) outgrew this use to serve the fishing industry as a flake yard for drying salt cod. Three shacks were also built on it for stowage of fishing gear.

The  schooner was the vessel of choice for fishing on distant grounds, and it is safe to say that most of the vessels rigged like the chosen example (9) were used for this work. One exception (10) is a topsail schooner, so named for the square sail she sets on the foremast. This vessel was in the coastal trade, going between coastal ports with cargoes of various trade goods, and often taking passengers to ports too distant or isolated to reach by stagecoach. Square topsails made longer passages more comfortable, steadying the vessel’s motion and making steering easier.

Vessels entering Gloucester often had to anchor in The Stream (11)—a wide channel at the entrance to the Inner Harbor—while waiting to unload cargo at a busy wharf or to wait for high tide in order to get to that wharf. The Stream was often used for “lightering”—partially unloading deeply loaded vessels so they could clear Harbor Cove’s bottom and reach a wharf for final unloading. The anchored ship (12) is a good example of a large vessel that had to deal with this situation.

The most important part of Gloucester’s Inner Harbor was Harbor Cove (13). Enclosed by Fort Point (14) on its west side and by Duncan’s Point (15) on its east side, it offered the deepest water for loading and unloading at the wharves. Even so, much of it was so shallow at low tide that vessels would be grounded out and have to wait for high tide to be moved. Strange to say, this problem was not solved by dredging until early in the twentieth century.

Another cove adjacent to Duncan’s Point was Vincent’s Cove (16), which was mostly bare ground at low tide. Its inner shoreline was suitable for shipbuilding, and large vessels could be launched at high tide. Little is known about this activity prior to the Civil War.

Prominent on the Gloucester skyline were its churches, which helped to guide vessels entering Gloucester Harbor to safe anchorage. Most prominent was the Universalist Church (17), whose tall steeple and lantern were the first to be seen on entering. The First Parish Congregational Church (18) had a very tall spire later in the century, but its domed belfry was still easily seen on reaching Ten Pound Island. The Unitarian Church (19) was distinguished by its tall, flat-roofed bell tower with four slender spires at the corners.

Beyond this skyline rose the rocky post-glacial terrain of Cape Ann, shorn of its precolonial woodlands and reduced to hardscrabble farming and early efforts to extract granite of high quality from quarries. The harshness of this landscape was the prime mover in turning Gloucester’s people to make their living from the sea.

– Erik Ronnberg

Viewpoint map showing Lane's location when creating the lithograph