Perhaps some things do not change that much in half a century, but many other things do. For us at the GHS it’s not just about collecting and conserving documents. It’s about capturing for posterity the threads of individual people’s lives – threads which over time become a tapestry that shows us our community, even our nation. And no matter where we may be going, it’s always good to remember where we came from.

When you hear the word history, what comes to mind?  Most of us imagine such major events as war, scientific discovery, and social change. There are also personal histories - events and memories that, woven together, create the fabric of community. We find a tapestry of Georgetown in the White Collection of photographs, films, and documents.

Clarence H. White, Jr., was the son of a famous photographer. He started taking pictures in 1920, when he was 13 years old, experimenting with light and composition. He saved some of them, and, later, around 1930, collected them in an album, which includes a panoramic view of Harmon’s Harbor from the Seguinland Hotel (now Grey Havens Inn), and pictures of the hotel and its owners, the Beane family. Also in the album, a picture of Lincoln Campbell and his two sons at the Field boathouse on Harmon’s Harbor; Elisha and Violetta Field at home with their dog, Rover; Walter Reid’s large schooner, moored at the hotel dock; boats from the Boston Yacht Club moored in Five Islands Harbor; and The Chalet, in a stunning panoramic view from the water. Other photographers represented in the album include family friend Paul Strand.1

Also in the collection are photos of the White family’s early years in Georgetown and New York. We see Clarence, Sr., and Jane in pictures taken before 1920, including the family gathering around the 1909 Thanksgiving table, and Clarence, Sr., probably in 1914, with a group who may be the first faculty of the White School.

In addition to photographs, the collection includes such documents as a 1925 letter to 18-year-old Clarence expressing condolence on his father’s death and a 1938 letter from photographer Edward Steichen announcing his intention to visit the White School of Photography, of which Clarence, Jr., had been director since 1931. Indeed Steichen did visit, as noted by his signature in a 1940 housewarming and alumni reunion guest book. By 1941 Steichen was listed as a member of the school’s Board of Directors, along with photographer Anton Bruehl and painter Max Weber. The reverse side of the Board list shows a course list for the 1941 Summer Session and describes the school as:

A professional institution, training men and women for the vocation of photography as a practical art, indispensable to modern commerce and industry, and as a fine art with an established technique. † 

It’s fascinating how small entries in unrelated documents can generate wonderful discoveries. A copy of a July 15, 1931, log from Clarence’s boat notes a trip from Five Islands to Bath with a “port plank landing at U.S.S. Constitution made at 1:37 PM.” Further research  confirmed that The Constitution (Old Ironsides) was indeed in Bath from July 14 to July 17, 1931, as an early stop in a three-year national tour. Unfortunately we have no White pictures of this adventure. If you have pictures or memories of the event, please get in touch with us at GHS, either at info@georgetownhistoricalsociety.org or (207) 371-9200.  We would love to hear any accounts and see any pictures of the visit.

Also in the White collection are 19 letters, from 1923 to 1932, from Elisha and Violetta Field, Georgetown natives who were friends of the Whites as well as caretakers of their Popple Beach home and their boat, Popple. One from Elisha, probably written about 1925 says:

 Five Islands Jan 24^th 1932

Dear Clarence,

I will write to you this evening and thank you for the picture of dear Elisha and his dog he loved so well. [Elisha had passed away, followed soon by their dog Rover] . . . that has been the most lonesome winter and the most lonesomest I ever went through every thing I do or see puts me in mind of Elisha.

…Now about your boat. Will  [the Fields’ son] is yet busy on some of the buildings The Seguinland Hotel or Reids or Mrs. Moulton so its uncertain about him getting the time to do the work on your boat Perhaps I could get Mr. Rittal . . . I will wait to hear from you . . . I have been getting the boat Marycliff ready for painting today.

Clarence and Ruth wrote to one another nearly every day between 1944 and 1958 when Clarence’s Navy duties kept them apart. Dozens of those letters are in the collection. In one, January 1944, Ruth writes about an article in the Bath Independent:

… there was a big fire in East Boothbay - Goudy-Stevens plant - and great damage done -- $25,000 at least. Worst of all - the [steamship] Virginia was destroyed!!!  She was being made into a fishing boat.  Isn’t that too bad?  I feel almost as though a personal friend had died.

In November 1948 Ruth writes from the Photographic Studio of Clarence H. White, which they operated in Bath from 1946 to 1949,and which she managed in his absence. She shares this local news:

I went to PTA last night . . . Dr. Jacob Smith’s talk was interesting . . . He talked on children’s contagious diseases, quarantine etc., and then introduced the subject of sex education which got no further than the introduction, as you could imagine!

Seguinland Hotel (now Grey Havens)

 

 

The Beanes, Owners of the Seguinland

 

 

Doris and Wills, managers of the Seguinland, with Snappy

Elisha Fields (r) with Lincoln Campbell and his sons

 

Elisha Fields and Rover

†  The Master of Photography Series book about Paul Strand (Aperture Foundation, Inc., 1987) states on page 89 that in 1927-28 Paul Strand “summered at Georgetown Island, Maine, near close friends sculptor Gaston Lachaise and Madame Lachaise.”   The archives can further substantiate this with pages from the Seguinland Hotel register, which tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Paul Strand were guests in July 1925, August1927, and July of 1928.