Boston: Long Wharf by Moonlight in 1865

Very few American ports have preserved their past as well as Boston, and part of Long Wharf exists today much as it was in 1865, and as I have depicted it in this painting. Several of the original buildings still survive on Long Wharf. The granite structure in the distance with the cupola is the old Customs House, built in 1846. Here were located immigration offices and the appraisers who were forever sharpening their pencils and presenting their bills for port dues and customs collections.

Toward the middle ground of the painting is the Salt House, a tavern where Boston artists and writers would gather for a friendly cup. At the time of this painting much of the long-haul traffic on the North Atlantic had switched to steam, but on Long Wharf the sailing trade continued. The two vessels loading are probably taking on ice and salt, two bulk exports out of Boston that still could be carried at a small profit under sail. The vessels were short-crewed, and they had earned back their construction costs many years before.

The signs on the various buildings represent friends of mine. My main objective with this canvas was to lead the eye out to sea; in this case, via the shaft of moonlight. The shadows on the cobbles and the high splashes of artificial light then tend to draw the eye back to the buildings.

When Boston shipping reached one of its low points, there always seemed to be another trade about to be discovered: finding it was the rare talent of the Boston merchants. One of the traders, facing a financial down slide, noticed the abundance of ice on the ponds around the city. Realizing that it cost nothing except for the cutting and hauling of the blocks to the wharves, he hired teams of men with saws. The ice was loaded aboard the idled ships, and they set sail with bellies of block ice. The silvery cubes, a bit melted, sold quickly at a good profit at almost any warm-water port in the world. Around the best hotels, such as the Raffles in Singapore, the word was “Bombay Gin and quinine over Boston ice, please.”

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