Catalog entry

Commentary

Fresh Water Cove, located on the Western Shore of Gloucester Harbor, is closely associated with the early history of Cape Ann and with the Sawyer family. After the Dorchester Company had failed to establish a viable outpost at Gloucester in 1623, members of the fledgling colony moved to nearby Salem, Massachusetts. By the early 1650s, families began venturing back to Cape Ann, settling in various spots across the rugged landscape. Sites were selected if they offered some advantage to the settlers: fertile ground, access to navigable waters, or proximity to pathways and rudimentary roads.   

Fresh Water Cove had several attributes, including a spring that yielded potable water, access to a way that led back towards Salem, and an inlet sheltered from the open ocean by Dolliver’s Neck. Early in the history of Gloucester, a public right-of-way to the water was laid out at Fresh Water Cove, assuring that all would have the right to access Gloucester Harbor from that point.

The Sawyer family was amongst the earliest to settle in Gloucester and one of the first to take up residence at Fresh Water Cove. Samuel Sawyer (1815–1889), who spent his winters in Boston and his summers at the Cove, was one of Fitz Henry Lane’s patrons. He represented the fifth generation of the family to live at Fresh Water Cove in the ancestral home, Brookbank.

In this painting, Lane has shown Fresh Water Cove and Brookbank as seen from Dolliver’s Neck. The painting is invested with a wealth of narrative detail. To the far left, a sturdy wharf can be seen, with a tall slender derrick rising above it. This is where granite, harvested from a quarry upland from the Cove, was loaded aboard sloops like the one shown at the wharf. From there, the stone was transported to Boston and other ports. A second, more substantial derrick can be seen jutting out of the tree line above Sawyer’s Hill. This indicates the location of this quarry—one of the first to be opened up on Cape Ann.  

Brookbank is the yellow gambrel-roofed house with a widow’s walk on the roof. To the right, just visible through the trees, is a barn that belonged to the property, and in the foreground is a boathouse perched above the rocks on stone pilings. Lane included a parade of five other vessels in the painting in addition to the sloop secured to the wharf: a wherry being rowed by a lone man; a small sloop with its sail down being poled by two men (one of whom is wearing a red shirt); a larger sloop, perhaps a pleasure craft, with all its sails set heading away from the artist; a stone sloop with a topmast flying a red pennant; and on the far right, a small schooner just heading into Fresh Water Cove.  

As a whole, the scene is a peaceful yet productive one.

– Martha Oaks

Related Work in the Catalog

Supplementary Images

Viewpoint chart showing Lane's location when making this image