Historical Materials: Fitz Henry Lane Biography

F.H. Lane & A. Wiggin only people listed under "artists" in the Gloucester Telegraph Business Directory. Ignatius Winter listed under Carpenters, at Burnham Bros.

The welcome-home parade for Company G, 8th Regiment. Mechanic Fire Company No. 1. The company carried a new banner presented them by Fitz H. Lane and F.H. Winter. A most appropriate design was painted upon it by the artist giver. Two figures were represented, a soldier and a fireman, with clasped hands: on the left a group of tents and on the right a fire scene. The banner was handsomely trimmed with oak leaves and inscribed as follows: "Organized Jan. 7, 1854"–"Union is Strength."

John James Babson wrote History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann in 1860. This is the source of much information about Lane, including the history of the family and the source of Lane's partial paralysis as being the seeds of the apple-peru. (Nicandra physalodes, a member of the nightshade family of plants).

As Dunlap and Buck note (1) , Babson knew Lane, and thanked him for furnishing “with characteristic kindness, sketches for the engravings in this work.” (2). That sentence implies that Lane made sketches for all of the illustrations, but that they were engraved by someone else. “SMITH” seemed to have actually engraved several of these, as his name appears on the prints. Lane’s name is not evident. 

The illustrations most likely to have been Lane’s are Mr. White’s house near Meetinghouse Green (page 230), Second Parish Meeting House, West Gloucester, taken down in 1846 (page 266), the house of William Card on Front Street (page 452), and First Parish Meeting House, 1738-1826 (page 498). There were also black-and-white reproductions of several Lane paintings.

(1) Sarah Dunlap and Stephanie Buck, Fitz Henry Lane: Family and Friends. (Gloucester, MA: Church & Mason Publishing; in association with the Cape Ann Historical Museum, 2007),120-121.

(2) John James Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester Cape Ann, Including the Town of Rockport. (Gloucester, MA: Procter Brothers, 1860), 258. 

(3) Dunlap and Buck, 504n. 

"After a time I left the shoe store, and through the influence of my friend Cooke, was admitted as an apprentice to Moore, successor to Pendleton, in the lithographic business. Here I was speedily worked in as a draughtsman for ordinary commercial work, the fine work, such as designs of figures and heads from life being done by Cooke. F.H. Lane, afterwards well-known as a marine painter, did most of the views, hotels, etc. He was very accurate in his drawing, understood perspective and naval architecture perfectly, as well as the handling of vessels, and was a good, all-round draughtsman." (1)

(1) John Wilmerding. Fitz Henry Lane (Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 2005). Reprint of Fitz Hugh Lane, by John Wilmerding. New York: Praeger, 1971.