Rockport Art Association by Cooley

History Book Club

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

History of Art in America

Busy Harbor by William Lester Stephens (1888-1969)

(Courtesy of Skinner)

Cooley, John L., Rockport Sketch Book: Stories of Early Art and Artists; Rockport, MA: Rockport Art Association. 1965, Paperback, 122 pp.

            Since my wife and I came to Rockport to live in 1989, one very formidable woman has cast her shadow over our lives. 

            If you ever met Lura Hall Phillips, you’d remember her.  She was a smart and determined woman who enlisted Marty and me in working with Millbrook Meadow Committee, and we’ve been in it ever since, for 25 years.  Lura was the wife of Stanley N. Phillips, a noted artist.

            Now, just as I began to read John Cooley’s delightful Rockport Sketch Book, on the introduction page by the head of the Rockport Art Association back in 1965, it all starts when a woman visitor walks in the Rockport Art Association and asks the assistant curator if there is a brochure, booklet or other material about the early days of art in Rockport. 

            The assistant curator was Lura, and she knew of no such brochure, but added, “But there should be something.”  John Cooley overheard the conversation, and set about to write this book.  However, knowing Lura, if he had not volunteered, sooner or later he would find himself writing it.   Lura got things done, one way or another.

Rockport has achieved the status of one of the finest art colonies in the world. 

            John Cooley’s little book will explain that with a string of memories and vignettes about the early artists who came here, set up easels, painted, and then stayed, many for the rest of their lives.

Cooley begins with a lengthy list of artists, writers and sculptors who visited Cape Ann in the nineteenth century, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winslow Homer, Henry David Thoreau, Alexander Graham Bell, and Rudyard Kipling. 

Gilbert Tucker Margeson (1852-1949) operated the telegraph key in Gloucester for Western Union, ran a stationery story on Main Street in Rockport, and collected taxes for the Town.  Oh, and he was also an accomplished painter of the sea and ships. He opened his studio here in 1873.

Parker S. Perkins, (1862-1942) famed for his white suit with a flower in the lapel and a straw hat with red band. He kept at least 20 cats.  Other artists said, “Nobody painted the sea just as Parker Perkins painted it.” He came to town a little after Margeson. 

William Harrison Cady (1872-1933) came to Rockport before 1900, and worked closely with Margeson and admired Perkins.  He is most famous for the some 15,000 drawings he did for Thornton Burgess’ animal stories about Johnny Chuck, Reddy Fox and Peter Rabbit.

William Lester Stephens (1886-1969) was the first native son of Rockport. Parker Perkins recognized his talent, and gave him lessons. Stephens went away to study at the Boston Museum School, wrote for a Boston weekly newspaper and worked in an antique store.  Soon he returned to Rockport and built a studio in Holbrook Court.

Stephens spent a year in the Army in World War I, and was discharged in France.  Then he remained in Europe for a while, painting.  He painted enough for two shows back in Boston.

Hibbard at work, ca. 1938

Aldro T. Hibbard (1886-1972) came to town in 1920, a packet of paints in one hip pocket, and a baseball glove in the other.  He was pleased to see Stephens here; the two had attended art school together.  He set up work in an old harness shop and livery stable back of what is now Tom Nicholas’ Gallery. He organized the Rockport Summer School of Painting, and it operated until 1950. He was a major influence for artists who followed, such as Paul Strisik and Nicholas.

In 1921 local artists decided to hold their first local exhibition.  To plan it, and also to form an artists’ association, they met in Hibbard’s school.  By now there were about 50 artists—year-round and summer—painting in Rockport.  Harry Vincent was elected president, Hibbard secretary, and an executive committee included Stephens. The treasurer was Howard E. Smith, a nationally known portrait painter. The exhibition they planned soon took place, in the Congregational Church.

The Rockport Art Association (RAA) was born.

Rockport Motif No. 1 by Aldro T. Hibbard (1886-1972)

As soon as the artists formed their association, they began looking for a home.  Finally, in 1929 they were able to buy the old tavern on Main Street. The price was $6000. The house, built before 1878, was converted by Captain Josiah Haskell into a tavern, and then Caleb Norwood used it as an inn, and established a dance hall on the second floor.  This had been an inn, and a stage coach stop at various times. 

Rockport Art Association, 1973

Cooley writes happily about the vibrant social life of these artists.  It was simple, but they seem to have kept themselves entertained with teas, games of charades, and chowder parties at each other’s homes.  There were Saturday night suppers and dances at Murray Hall and Haskins Hall.  There were scavenger hunts in Dogtown and in the South Woods, and some enjoyed sailing. Hibbard, of course, was thoroughly involved with baseball at Evans Field. Each year they held a costume ball as a major fund raiser, working to pay off the mortgage on the RAA’s Old Tavern.

Rockport was becoming better known to anyone who looked at the thousands of paintings that made their way across America and the world, and also articles in magazines about this quaint village with the granite quarries, the fishermen and the beautiful scenery.

About 1940 Hibbard noted that the expanding art colony “realized the necessity of appealing to the townspeople to preserve as far as possible the quaintness and antiquity of the town.” Rockport, he said, “still had enough of its original character to be worth saving,” and he quoted one artist: “’the town’s all right; leave it alone.’”

Hibbard’s advice still holds.  While towns all around have filled up with fast-food chain stores, and other efforts toward homogeneity and so-called modernity, Rockport has resisted the temptation to “look like every other town”. 

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We in the History Book Club of Rockport are indebted to Dr. Janos Posfai for recommending this topic for the month of October, 2014. 

The short, sad life of Midshipman Elder

Five Deadly Shots

The short, sad life of Ned Elder

Midshipman E.A. Elder, Class of 1893

            Frederick Sullivan was playing golf at the Bass Rocks golf course in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1974 when he came across a gold ring in the grass.  It was the 1893 Naval Academy class ring of Edwin Avery Elder of Newton, Massachusetts.  

Class ring, USNA 1893

            Sullivan showed it to his wife, Drue, and they put it in a safe place.  Sullivan died in 1984, and the ring stayed in the back of his chest of drawers.  Then, one day in 1999 Drue pulled the ring out and began a search to find out about Mr. Elder.  What ever became of him? How did his ring end up in a golf course in Gloucester?

            

            Through friends, she obtained information from the Naval Academy, and found an article in the New York Times which told this story:

            Elder was born in Newton, MA, the son of a bank teller. He went through the Newton schools with honor. He was appointed to Annapolis by Congressman John W. Candler of Boston.  He passed the Academy entrance exams with ease, entering in 1889. He completed four years at the Academy, graduating fourth of the 44 men in his class in 1893. 

Midshipman Elder

US Bennington ca. 1890

            Shortly after graduation he joined USS Bennington (PG-4), a 17,000-ton steam-powered gunboat. The ship was still new when Naval Cadet Elder boarded her, commissioned in 1891. The ship sailed from New York on August 6, 1893. Elder and his shipmates visited many ports and operated all over the Mediterranean Sea until July 18, 1894 when Bennington sailed past the Rock of Gibraltar headed west. They began a long cruise on their way to the Pacific Station.  They visited various ports along the Atlantic coast of South America, then rounded Cape Horn. Bennington then visited Valparaiso, Chile in April, 1895, then on to at Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco Bay, arriving on April 30, 1895.

After arrival at the shipyard, Elder was given a physical examination for commissioning in the Navy, and found to have a heart irregularity, which was cause for discharge. He was discharged in June, 1895 and returned home to Boston.  He was apparently quite distressed by not being able to continue in the Navy, but he enrolled in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Five Deadly Shots.  A New York Times dispatch datelined Portland, ME on December 4, 1895 reported that Elder had apparently committed suicide in that city.

On Saturday, November 30 Elder left home in East Newton, taking the train to Boston.  He later boarded the Boston & Maine train in North Station headed for Portland.  

The Times article related: This young man, neatly dressed, smooth shaven and of good appearance, arrived at Hotel Preble early Sunday, December 1, and registered as “John H. Vose, of New York.” He arrived without baggage.  By Tuesday, since he had made no payment, the proprietor asked the clerk to notify him that his bill needed to be paid. The clerk notified Elder.

When Elder finished his supper, instead of going out through the office he went through the ladies’ parlor and then up to his room.  The door had been locked so he called a chambermaid, who let him in.  A few minutes later a bellboy went to the room with the message that the proprietor wished to see him. Starting to leave the room, Elder said to the bellboy, “I’ve forgotten something – I’ll be down in a moment.”

Ten minutes elapsed and when Elder did not come down, the proprietor went up to the room.  He found the door bolted, and heard groans.  He returned to the office and called the police. Then the hotel clerk went up to the room and climbed on a chair and looked over the transom.  He saw the body of a man, half on the bed and half on the floor.  He climbed through the transom and, once inside, discovered a man with a pistol in his hand, lying there, groaning and bleeding, and breathing heavily.  He had several bullet holes in his head, at the back of his ear.

Elder had planned to deaden the sound of the gun by wrapping bed clothes tightly around his head.  Two domestics sitting in the room next door had heard no sound. The ambulance came and took the man to Maine General Hospital where he soon died.

In Elder’s clothing police found a note, written in pencil:

“Dear Father,

If you ever get this, I suppose it will find you much mystified as to what has become of me, but don’t let it trouble you.  You have done without me for six years, and you’ll get used to it again. Don’t any of you think anything you have said or done has to do with my going.  My mind was made up some time ago. What money I had and the traveling expenses will partly square my account. I appreciate all you have done for me and I am sorry to make so poor a return for it.  I enclose a pawn ticket.

Love to all,

Ned”

Did the pawn ticket belong to the gold Naval Academy ring?  How did the ring get from the family in Newton to a golf course in Gloucester? 

Drue (who is my neighbor in Rockport) brought all the information she had gathered and showed me, since I had also graduated from the Naval Academy, 64 years after Ned.  I could imagine his life at the Academy, because there are so many things at that place that change very slowly. 

The white jumper with name stenciled across the front chest was the same.  The “Dixie cup” hat had gotten smaller, though. Midshipmen still marched to class.  Plebes (freshmen) marched in the corridors of Bancroft Hall, squaring corners, clicking heels, saluting at officers.  At meals, plebes ate a “square meal” bringing their fork or spoon up vertically to mouth level, then bringing it mouthward, like a steam shovel (excavating machine). 

Even in 2014 at the Academy, 121 years after Ned graduated, many things are still the same.  Of course, when Ned was studying naval boilers they were fired with coal, and now we use gas turbines and nuclear power.  By the way, on USS Bennington, the ship Ned sailed in for two years, blew up with a tremendous boiler explosion in 1905.  Sixty-two men died then.

Ned studied how to fire the big guns being built onto warships in the 1890s, and 64 years later we were still learning how to operate and fire the 16-inch guns aboard our battleships.  Today, Midshipmen, male and female, learn about laser-guided bombs, Tomahawk missiles, directed energy weapons, and all manner of sophisticated detection, communication and warfighting equipment.

If Ned would have been able to stay in the Navy, he would probably have fought Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, either in the Philippine Islands or in Cuba. 

            It’s not known if Ned had a girlfriend, but when he graduated in 1893 he would not have been allowed to marry.  Naval leaders in those days wisely prevented young men from marrying before the long cruises they took.  Only after he had returned from his two-year cruise to the Mediterranean and around South America to California would he have been able to marry.  Had he passed that physical, he would then have received his commission as an Ensign.

But that was not to happen.  It’s hard to understand any time a young person takes his or her life.  Then, or today.

Ned had obtained a magnificent education, and he’d topped it off with two years at sea on a Navy gunboat, covering a lot of land and water. 

Of course it is discouraging when the medics tell you that you won’t be able to continue in the naval service, but it does not appear that his disability was life-threatening.  Whatever they detected meant that he should not be subjected to the harsh life at sea.  At any rate, those around Ned related that he was very depressed. 

Perhaps if Ned had lived in this century, he might have found a way to a new life.

                                                                                    ---Samuel W. Coulbourn

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