New England on the rocks

“Rock Doxology’’ (oil on canvas), by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass. While Hartley lived in many places, including Europe, he was born in the Maine mill town of Lewiston (where he had an unhappy youth) and died in Ellsworth (near the resort town of Bar Harbor) and in his last decades called himself “The Painter of Maine.’’

Rocks sure are icons of New England!

Ellsworth’s Col. John Black House, built 1824–1827 after a pattern book design by Asher Benjamin; now part of Woodlawn Museum. Shipping, shipbuilding, fishing and manufacturing made many people rich on the Maine Coast in the early and mid 19th Century, and many of their gorgeous houses are still standing.