A125 - Plan from Ogunkett river to Cape Elizabeth
A beautiful plan which depicts the stretch of the New Hampshire coastlines above Portsmouth and below Cape Elizabeth in Maine. It is just one of a sequence of surveys completed by James Grant, Thomas Wheeler, Charles Blaskowitz of the Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts coastline between 1773 and 1774.
c1773
- Thomas Wheeler or Charles Blaskowitz
- h18.6" x w21.2"
- L
The full title of this survey is 'A Plan of the Sea Coast from Ogunkett (now Ogunquit) River to Cape Elizabeth Including the bays of Wells, Saco and Black Point, also Wells and Winter Harbors. The survey carries the Number 1 in the top left corner which places it as the first in a known sequence of 3 surveys of this coastline (going south), all completed by the same survey team (see A110 & A125). It was likely made about 1773 and it uses a scale of 30,000 feet to an inch which was standard for the General Survey.
The Surveyor is identified as James Grant which would indicate that the draughtsman was Thomas Wheeler, not just for the 'style' adopted but also because Wheeler and Grant had long been paired as a team on surveys from of the St. Lawrence waterway down through Maine since 1764. although Charles Blaskowitz remains a possibility a contender as he is attributed on plan #3 (Heritage Charts A124) in the sequence and the styles are similar.
It is a little known fact that Charles Blaskowitz, Thomas Wheeler and James Grant were all members of the Masonic tradition. Indeed Blaskowitz alone can be traced as a lodge member in Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, Boston and New York and likely attended lodge meetings wherever he traveled in the course of his work.
Virtually all of the surveys made by these three men a flowering Lily as part of the compass rose. This is almost certainly a 'signature' used by Blaskowitz, Wheeler and James Grant throughout their work which relates to the Masonic tradition.
The survey is made using pen and ink with watercolour added to enhance features. The survey, typically (for this team) includes; meeting houses, houses marked in red, roads, rough pasture and marsh-land along with sandbanks, rocks and islands identified on the coastline. No soundings (depths) along the coast are included. Interestingly, settlements, villages or towns are not labelled rather that Meeting houses are named instead.
Masonic and Craft lodges of the day would utilise both private houses and town meeting houses to gather. It may be no coincidence that all surveys associated with Blaskowitz, Grant and Wheeler recorded their locations. Lodges and meeting houses were also, likely 'hot-spots' for local information and intelligence about politics.
- Plan from Ogunkett river to Cape Elizabeth
