Yachts at Smith Estate, Sound View
Date1917
MediumPhotography; nitrate negatives
DimensionsPrimary Dimensions (overall height x width): 3 × 5in. (7.6 × 12.7cm)
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineBequest from the Estate of Elizabeth Beattie
DescriptionBlack and white photographic negative, two yachts, one small and one large, in front of a sea wall in Sound View, near Stamford, Connecticut. The larger yacht, KEMAH, and the smaller unnamed vessel, were owned by a Mr. Smith of New York City, for whom the Beattie Quarry built the granite sea wall. The yachts are pictured before the U. S. Navy used the boats for harbor patrol due to World War One.
Object number2023.17.58
CopyrightPublic Domain
Inscribed(.51-.58) Typed on envelope: “QUARRY PICTURES / Cut stone wall and gate posts, with / 4 polished granite spheres for Smith / Estate [error overtyped with capital Xs] at Sound View, near Stamford / 1917 / 2, The two yachts, KEMAH they larger and / un named smaller one were owned by / a Mr. Smith of NYC, for whom we built / the granite sea wall. Picture shows them / just before the Navy took them for use / as harbor patrol boats in 1917 / Mr. Smith had a large waterfrontage at / Sound View but a lot of it was bog and / sedge grass meadow, with mud flats in / front of it. He engaged a Mr. Parsons as / architict [sic] to design a usable front area / with a granite wall and boathouse and a / pier, channel and deepwater yacht basin. / “Sid.” Lynch of West Haven was the Civil / Engineer on the job and Peter Beattie / furnished the cut granite and the granite / for the seawall and built both the entr– / ance wall and the seawall. Schr. JOHN S. / GILMORE was used at the job to excavate / for the seawall footings, dribe [sic] wood / piles and build the walls.”NotesSubject Note: John Beattie's granite quarry, situated in Guilford on the Long Island Sound, was well-positioned to distribute granite via a fleet of schooners to locations in Connecticut and New York. Notably, granite from Beattie's quarry was used in the pedestal at the base of the Statue of Liberty.The quarry operated from 1869, when Scottish immigrant Beattie purchased 400 acres of land on Leetes Island, until about 1918, when Beattie's sons closed up shop 20 years after his death. At its height, the quarry employed 700 people, many of them immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, England, Finland, Sweden, and Italy.
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