Homer, Winslow

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Charlene Fenlason

People Who Called Scarborough Home

By Charlene Fenlason

Winslow Homer – Artist

Winslow Homer and Frank Coolbroth, Prouts Neck, ca. 1900

Winslow Homer and Frank Coolbroth, Prouts Neck, ca. 1900

Winslow Homer, landscape painter best known for his marine subjects, was born in Boston 24 February 1836 to Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer. His mother, an amateur watercolorist, was Homer’s first teacher. After Homer’s graduation from high school, his father arranged an apprenticeship for him with a commercial lithographer in Boston.

 

“Rocky Cliff, Coast of Maine” by Winslow Homer

By 1857, Homer had left the lithographer and his freelance career as an illustrator was underway, a period that lasted nearly twenty years. In 1861, Harper’s Weekly sent Homer to the front lines of the Civil War with General McClellan’s army where he sketched battle scenes and camp life. Back in his studio after this assignment, Homer worked on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches. After the war, he spent time in Europe and began painting landscapes as he continued to work for Harper’s. By 1875, Homer stopped working as a commercial lithographer and focused on his painting. Following two years in England (1881-1882), Homer returned to the United States and moved to his family’s estate at Prouts Neck, where the sea and the cliffs in front of his studio became the subject matter of his great marine paintings. A lifelong bachelor, Homer was married to his work. He died in 1910, aged 74, in his Prouts Neck studio and is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Source

Beam, Philip. Winslow Homer at Prouts Neck. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1966

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Haigis, Dr. Philip

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Charlene Fenlason

People Who Called Scarborough Home

By Charlene Fenlason

Dr. Philip Haigis

Dr. Philip Haigis, Scarborough, ca. 1960

Dr. Philip Haigis, Scarborough, ca. 1960

Dr. Philip Haigis, son of Peter Haigis and Ruth Hodges Haigis, was born 29 April 1916 at Foxboro, Massachusetts. After medical school at Kirksville (Missouri) College of Osteopathy, he completed his residency at the Osteopathic Hospital of Maine in Portland. He arrived in Scarborough in 1944 and opened his first office in the Marshview Restaurant while it was closed for the winter, as it was the only place that could be found at the time. Dr. Haigis then moved to a home at Route 1 and Scottow Hill Road where he also had his practice. He was on call seven days a week: house calls were $5.00 and office visits were $3.00. In the early years of his practice, Dr. Haigis was the only doctor in Scarborough. He served thirty-one years as the school physician and health officer for Scarborough. During this time, Dr. Haigis was also a member of the Masons, a member of the Lions Club and an amateur radio operator.

In 1951 following a terrible accident at Scottow Hill, Dr. Haigis and several men, some of whom were fellow members of the Lions Club, raised funds to convert an old bread truck into an ambulance. All of the equipment was donated and Dr. Haigis trained the personnel. Scarborough was the first town in Maine to have a rescue service, and later the group helped set up units in Standish and Cape Elizabeth. For many years, Dr. Haigis was the Maine State Director for the International Rescue First Aid Association. Another “first” attributed to Dr. Haigis was the creation of the mobile canteen unit that accompanied firemen on major fires.

Somehow, Dr. Haigis also found time to play occasionally with the Don Doane Band, a local jazz band. Just before he passed away, Dr. Haigis donated his musical instruments to Scarborough High School. In 1975, Dr. Haigis left Scarborough for Puerto Rico, where he became a civilian medical officer for the U.S. Navy. After fifty years of marriage, Faith died in 1990 and Dr. Haigis later married Helen Sluder of Naples, Florida. At age 78, he died of cancer in Naples, Florida, and is buried in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

Sources

Killelea, Elaine. “Case History of Dr. Haigis Lists Many Firsts”. Portland Press Herald and Sunday Telegram, 1975.

Matson, Jess. Final Project: Dr. Philip Haigis, high school term paper, 1999.

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Jocelyn, Henry

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Charlene Fenlason

People Who Called Scarborough Home

By Charlene Fenlason

Henry Jocelyn

Map - Black Point, Scarborough, c. 1741

Map – Black Point, Scarborough, c. 1741

Henry Jocelyn, son of Sir Thomas Jocelyn and his second wife Theodora Cooke, was born in England in 1606. He was educated at Cambridge, receiving his degree in 1623; and by 1630, he was living in New England. Probably at the request of Gorges, Jocelyn joined his friend Cammock and wife Margaret at Black Point in 1635. Cammock and Jocelyn had known each other at Piscataqua where Cammock had been an agent of Gorges and Mason until he assumed proprietorship of his 1500-acre Black Point Patent in 1633. On a voyage to the West Indies in 1643, Cammock died, leaving his estate to his wife for her lifetime and then to his friend Jocelyn. In the same year, Jocelyn married the widow Margaret and came into possession of Cammock’s property. For nearly forty years Jocelyn was a prominent leader in the area. By 1671 Jocelyn found his business interests less profitable than in the early days of his proprietorship and he mortgaged his holdings to Joshua Scottow. Jocelyn remained at Black Point as a manager and supervised the construction of a garrison on the west side of Black Point. In 1676 Mogg Heigon and his men led an unsuccessful attack on the Black Point garrison. Mogg suggested to Jocelyn that the settlers in the garrison could safely leave the garrison if it were surrendered to him. When Jocelyn returned to the garrison, all had left but his family. Jocelyn then surrendered the garrison and was briefly held captive, but he never returned to Black Point. He died before May 1683.

Sources

Moulton, Augustus. Grandfather Tales of Scarborough. Portland, ME: Katahdin Publishing Co., 1925.

Moulton, Augustus. Old Prouts Neck. Portland, ME: Marks Printing House, 1924.

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Southgate, Dr. Robert

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Charlene Fenlason

People Who Called Scarborough Home

By Charlene Fenlason

Dr. Robert Southgate – Doctor, Lawyer, Judge

Dr. Robert Southgate, ca. 1830

Dr. Robert Southgate, ca. 1830

Robert Southgate: doctor, lawyer, judge, gentleman farmer, and businessman. According to family tradition, in 1771 Dr. Robert Southgate rode into Dunstan on horseback with all his worldly goods packed in his saddlebags. He had come from Leicester, Massachusetts where he was born 26 October 1741. In 1773, Southgate married Mary King, daughter of Richard King, a successful merchant, landholder, farmer and shipbuilder. The Southgate’s first home was at Dunstan Landing. They later built a large brick home on what is now Route 1. Eleven of their twelve children died before reaching middle age.

One of the first doctors in the area, Southgate gave up his medical practice after becoming interested in the law and being appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was a justice of the peace for 40 years and no case decided by him went to a higher court. As a gentleman farmer, he sold surplus marsh hay and leased marsh lots to farmers to raise hay for winter fodder. To increase marsh salt hay production, he initiated one of the first diking experiments in Maine. His experiments attracted the attention of farmer Seth Scamman who introduced large-scale diking to the marsh in the 1800s. As a businessman, along with William and Cyrus King, he headed the Scarborough Turnpike Corporation, which built the Cumberland Turnpike. A toll road across the marsh between Dunstan and Oak Hill, the Cumberland Turnpike was the first turnpike in New England. Dr. Southgate passed away 2 November 1833 at the age of 92.

Sources

Chapman, Leonard. Monograph on the Southgate Family of Scarborough, Maine. Portland, ME: Hubbard W. Bryant, 1907.

Libbey, Dorothy Shaw. Scarborough Becomes a Town. Freeport, ME: The Bond Wheelwright Co, 1955.

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Uphannum – “Indian Jane”

Posted on October 19, 2016 by Charlene Fenlason

People Who Called Scarborough Home

By Charlene Fenlason

Indian Jane – Jane Hannup

Wackwarreska, Scarborough, ca. 1651

Mural depicting Wackwarreska, c. 1651 by Roger Deering, c. 1920

Uphannum was the daughter of Wackwarreska, Sagamore of Owascoag, and his wife Nagasqua. To early settlers she was familiarly known as Indian Jane, Jane the Indian or Jane Hannup. In 1651, Jane and her brother, as heirs of Wackwarreska, sold about 1,000 acres of land in what is now the Dunstan area of Scarborough to brothers Andrew and Arthur Alger. The purchase price of the land was traditionally believed to be a bushel of beans down and a bushel of corn yearly. One of the conditions of the sale was that Jane and her mother be allowed to live on the land for the remainder of their lives. Jane and her mother settled on the north side of Blue Point near the mouth of Mill Creek. Jane’s fireplace with its blackened hearthstone could be seen for many years until it was purchased and built into the chimney of a cottage at Prouts Neck. Her unmarked grave is near where her cottage was and further beyond is Jane’s Spring, a never-failing spring of pure water. Jane survived her family; and even through the Indian hostilities, she quietly remained in her lonely home until she died there at the age of more than 100 years.

Sources

Libbey, Dorothy Shaw. Scarborough Becomes a Town. Freeport, ME: The Bond Wheelwright Co., 1955.

Moulton, Augustus. Grandfather Tales of Scarborough. Portland, ME: Katahdin Publishing Co., 1925.

Southgate, William. The History of Scarborough from 1633-1783. Portland, ME, 1853.

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