1887-88 SORRENTO BIRD'S-EYE

1887-88 SORRENTO BIRD'S-EYE

Courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission

In the Fall of 1887, Charles H. Lewis was concluding a busy first season of construction at his new resort, owned by The Frenchman's Bay and Mt. Desert Land and Water Co.  As part of his efforts to market Sorrento, he hired Frank K. Smith, a printer and publisher from Bangor, to create a bird's-eye view of the Waukeag peninsula.  Panoramic views of cities and towns had become popular in America after the Civil War as a way to promote interest in an area and encourage land sales.

The visit to Sorrento by the artist who would create the piece, Joseph Jones, was highlighted in several articles including one in the Mount Desert Herald which reported:

"Mr. Frank K. Smith of Bangor, is making a fine lithograph of Sorrento for the proprietors of that resort. Mr. Joseph Jones, the artist connected with Mr. Smith’s establishment, is at Sorrento making sketches for the view."

A high-definition black and white version of this lithograph is featured in a new electronic collection of historic bird's-eye views of Maine recently published by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. This version of the Sorrento lithograph, and the others in the commission's archives, is remarkable. The TIF file is scanned from the original artwork and allows you to zoom in on the many details the artist captured in the 1880s.

The views are a snapshot of Sorrento in the late Summer of 1887 after just a few of the original cottages were built.  It is unclear if the construction of all of the buildings shown was even complete when Joseph Jones visited Sorrento to make his sketches in 1887.  Some of the scenes he drew may only be depictions of what the developer was planning to build and asked the artist to include.

The company's steamship "Sorrento" is featured prominently at the center of the border. The sidewheeler had been busy that Summer ferrying potential land investors from Bar Harbor.

The bird's-eye depicts the wharf constructed for the steamer at the harbor and the "cafe" that opened in late July 1887.  The 70-room Hotel Sorrento, which later accompanied the cafe, was not built for another year and opened in the Summer of 1889.

This photo of the steamer Sorrento and the new company wharf from the collection of the Penobscot Marine Museum likely dates to around 1889 and also shows two cottages built after the artwork for the lithograph was completed.

Some accounts indicate that the hotel was built on what had been the Bean family farm homestead.  A structure shown to the right of the cafe could possibly be part of the original Bean family house or barn.  Between the wharf and the cafe is another cottage which we know as Harbor Lights and today houses Sorrento Dental Associates.  Harbor Lights was one of the first cottages built by the land company and originally sold to a woman from Ellsworth named Hannah G. S. Smith.

The two cottages designed and built on spec by Frank Hill Smith are seen adjacent to the cafe.  Shortly after the lithograph was released, the Cochrans and Lamonts would each purchase a cottage and name them Tassletop and Blueberry Lodge respectively.

It took the publisher several more months to complete the plates and the lithograph was printed in early 1888.  By the time the work was published, Charles H. Lewis had ceded control of the resort and brought in a new group of company directors.  These new investors included Frank Jones of Portsmouth, NH, and James P. Cook, a partner of Jones in the various brewing companies.  Cook would later construct his own imposing cottage directly behind Harbor Lights.

Looking at the artist's depiction of Bean Point, a service pier is seen near where Sea Level is today.  Also depicted are the cottages that would be built for Admiral Greely (West View), as well as one for the new investor in the land company, Frank Jones (Ledgemere), and another for his son-in-law Charles Sinclair.  The Jones cottage was not built and occupied for another year, so this may have been one of the homes the artist inserted from plans.

On the Eastern side of town, a few features on Doane's Point include what may be either the Doane farmstead or another family's farm (possibly Captain Arey's who sold his acreage to the company earlier in 1887).  Also depicted is a new pier on the point, and on the hill above, the turreted cottage that Charles H. Lewis was building for his family and which he would first occupy in the Summer of 1888.

I had been aware of this bird's-eye view for many years from two other sources.  A lower-quality version is found in the collection of the NE Harbor Library.  The library indicates that this version appeared in The New England Coast, Long Island and the Jersey Shore, An Illustrated Guide and Souvenir, an 1895 book published by the Continental Printing Co., in  Providence, RI.

The black-and-white lithograph was evidently hand-colored at some point, and a reproduction of this edition of the artwork has been reprinted by a company on Cape Cod.  Copies of this high-quality modern edition are available for purchase from Maps of Antiquities.  While there may be period versions of either the black-and-white or color lithograph in collections elsewhere, I am not aware of any original lithographs other than the one with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.