Maine Memory Network

Physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes invented the hand-held stereopticon in 1859.

Holmes wrote articles for the Atlantic Monthly magazine promoting the educational value of the stereopticon, which was the prototype for the View Master educational toy developed in the 1940s.

Local stereograph publisher Frank Crockett was the son of Enos Crockett, one of the first photographers in East Thomaston.

Enos Crockett had begun making daguerreotypes in his saloon in the Spofford Block on Main Street in 1849.

His oldest son, Frank, joined the business in the 1860s and began publishing stereo views of Rockland.

To promote Rockland as a tourist destination Frank Crockett photographed the three major hotels, each a great place to stay.

George Lynde built the beautiful Second Empire Lynde Hotel at the foot of Park Street in 1870.

It became the St. Nicholas Hotel in the 1880s, and later the Hotel Rockland.

It burned to the ground in 1952.

Crockett photographed the Thorndike Hotel at the corner of Main Street and Sea Street (now Tillson Avenue).

Captain William H. Thorndike built the first class, Italianate Thorndike Hotel in 1855.

A large number of steamboat travelers patronized it because of its "splendid dining saloon" and "large, convenient stable."

George Lindsey built the third hotel, the well-established Greek revival Lindsey House Hotel in 1835.

There were a number of boarding houses and inns in Rockland, but Crockett wanted to promote the major hotels, all on Main Street in the center of town.

Crockett showed off Rockland's beautiful architecture in his photograph of the four-story, Second Empire Pillsbury Block, built by Samuel Pillsbury in 1859.

In 1875, it housed J. Shaw & Co. Dry Goods on the first story and the Knox County government offices on the second story.

The corner of the William Farnsworth Block appears on the left, with Gould & Perry Boots, Shoes & Clothing on the first floor and the offices of the Rockland Water Company on the second floor.

To indicate commercial success, Crockett photographed the Berry Block on the corner of Main Street and Limerock Street.

The stereograph shows Ephraim Barrett Dry Goods and E. R. Spear & Co. Booksellers & Stationers.

The building also contained a clothing store, two telegraph offices, and E.H. & G.W. Cochran General Insurance. Some of the Rockland city offices were on the second floor.

Originally, the Berry Block was the Commercial House Hotel, built by Jeremiah Berry, but it burned in the great fire of 1853, and Berry’s sons re-built the building to contain three stores on the south in 1853, and added a similar building with three stores to the north in 1854.

Julia S. Freeman & Co. Millinery occupied the wooden Spofford Block on the left.

Rockland's magnificent row of commercial buildings on the east side of Main Street is featured on Crockett's stereograph card No. 1.

The center building, the neoclassical Berry & Cobb Block, contained Cobb, Wight & Norton Ship Stores & Groceries, A. Ross Weeks Crockery & Glassware, and the Eastern Express Co. on the first floor.

The Berry & Cobb Block was often called the Masonic Block because the Masons met in the hall on the third floor.

At least eight of the buildings on Main Street had large halls on their top floors for meetings, lectures, performances, or dances.

The building on the left is the Italianate Customs House Block with the Grand Army of the Republic Hall on its top floor; the building on the right is the Italianate Wilson & White Block with Phoenix Hall on the top floor.

The classical revival Crockett Block, at the foot of Warren Street, was built on the site where Deacon George Thomas built his famous clipper ships, including the fast and beautiful Red Jacket.

The Crockett Block contained Ephraim Perry's Dye House, the Union Store, and the North Bank.

Granite Hall, on the top floor, was the site of many temperance meetings and banquets.

Frank Crockett's distant cousin Charles Crockett built the block in 1854.

Crockett photographed the 3 1/2-story, Greek revival Rankin Block, at the bustling intersection of Main Street and North Main.

Constant Rankin built the block in 1853. It contained Farrand & Spear, Grocers and Lime Burners; and George W. Brown & Co., Groceries and Ship Stores, on the first floor.

The apartments above were home to a ship carpenter, a sail maker, a blacksmith, a cooper, and a laborer.

Soon after W. H. Glover built the Italianate Knox County Courthouse in 1875, Crockett was careful to photograph its full front, with its Palladian window in the projecting center tower.

He showed horse-drawn sleds pulled up on the snowy lawn, as men entered the building to attend a trial.

On the right, in the distance, is the large shoe factory on Limerock Street. The shoe factory, including its entire building, moved to Warren in 1882.

Crockett's streetscape of fine Greek revival houses on the north side of Park Street shows the steeples of St. Peter's Episcopal Church and St. David's Catholic Church in the distance.

St. Peter's was built in 1854 and moved to White Street in 1884.

St. David's was built in 1858 and burned in 1889. It was rebuilt as St. Bernard's Catholic Church in 1890.

In the early 1870s, an itinerant photographer named James P. Armbrust began photographing stereo views of Rockland for Frank Crockett to publish.

Armbrust was from Pennsylvania and had served as a musician during the Civil War along with his father who was also a photographer.

J.P. Armbrust came to Maine to photograph railroads and machinery soon after the Knox and Lincoln Railroad was built in 1871.

In the 1880s, he became involved in the granite industry on Vinalhaven, establishing quarries that sold paving blocks to pave the streets of Philadelphia. His quarries were located on what is now called Armbrust Hill on Vinalhaven.

But in the 1870s he captured a record of Rockland, just as it was on a summer day.

Armbrust was a master of streetscapes. Here he photographed Main Street from the roof of the Wise & Kimball Block.

Looking north, the Farwell Opera House is on the left with H.H. Crie & Co., Ship Chandlery, Hardware, Iron & Steel on the first floor.

Next to it stands the Savoy Hotel and Orin Shepherd's Restaurant in the old Tate house. Then come three small shops, including a bakery and Horatio Keene Boots & Shoes.

The brick Lindsey House Hotel is set back from the street, and then the white steeple of the First Baptist Church pierces the sky.

When Armbrust photographed Main Street looking south from School Street, he captured the office of The Rockland Opinion, a pro-labor newspaper established in 1875, in the Wilson & White Block on the left.

On the right is the Pillsbury Block, containing Eben B. Mayo, Dry Goods; and then the William A. Farnsworth building; the three-story Hewett Block; and across Spring street, the three-story Moffit Block.

Armbrust's streetscape looking down Union Street shows the Kimball & Abbott apartments on the left, the double house of James R. Hanley and William B. Morse on the corner of Grove on the right, and in the distance, the Knox County Courthouse and the steeples of Immanuel Universalist Church and Pratt Memorial Methodist Church beyond.

Armbrust persuaded all the students of the Gay School to assemble in front of the school for a photograph.

Gay School was an early graded school for primary and intermediate students, with two teachers. It was located on the east side of North Main Street, between Gay and Rockland streets.

A sense of humor is reflected in Armbrust's photograph of the young men attending the new Rockland High School on Lincoln Street.

W.H. Glover built the Second Empire High School in 1868.

Armbrust's street vistas captured horse-drawn lime wagons making deep ruts in the road as they hauled heavy loads of limestone down Limerock Street toward the courthouse on their way to the kilns along the shore.

The steeple of the Methodist Church on Union Street is visible on the right.

Armbrust photographed a cut in the Williams Quarry to illustrate the scale of the quarries that made Rockland famous.

This stereograph shows Timothy Williams's house on the top edge of his quarry on Old County Road.

Twenty years after this stereo photo was taken the Williams Quarry was four times deeper, one of the deepest in the world.

Armbrust's stereo view of the Limerock Street Bridge over the tunnel between two large quarries along Old County Road shows an amazing feat of engineering accomplished by the quarrymen of Rockland and also how the men worked, loading limestone onto horse-drawn wagons.

The limestone was hauled to one of the 136 kilns along the shore. There it was burned in a wood-burning kiln to remove the water and loaded into barrels to be shipped to ports along the east coast.

Armbrust's view of the renowned Five Kilns at the foot of Scott Street shows the extensive sheds and the huge chimneys of the Cobb Lime Co.'s largest kilns.

It also shows wood waiting to be burned and barrels waiting to be filled with lime and shipped.

The kilns required much wood to keep them burning day and night.

This early stereograph, taken by Frank Crockett, shows lumber unloaded at Gay's Wharf to fire Gay's kiln at the foot of North Main Street.

David Gay was the first resident of the Rockland area to ship lime to New York.

There were 44 wharves along the three-mile coastline of Rockland.

Frank Crockett photographed the Commercial Wharf, projecting southeast from the end of Crockett's Point. It was one of the oldest wharves along the shore, and its name implies that any vessel could tie up there for a fee.

The sign reads: "Driving faster than a walk on this wharf is positively forbidden."

Armbrust photographed the Atlantic Wharf on Atlantic Street at the foot of Marine Street in the South End.

He wanted to show where the Boston steamboats landed and from where the Fourth Maine Regiment departed to fight in the Civil War.

Next Armbrust photographed the Atlantic House, a well-known boarding house for shipyard workers and sailors, across from Atlantic Wharf on the corner of Atlantic Street and South Street.

Shipbuilder Francis W. Rhoades, whose shipyard was on Atlantic Street, built the Atlantic House.

Rhoades died in 1854 while he was building the clipper ship Young Mechanic, which his 18-year-old son, William designed. William completed the vessel, launching it in 1855.

Edward Hopper painted a picture of Atlantic House in 1926, titled "Haunted House," because it was badly in need of paint. Atlantic House was torn down in 1929.

Up over the hill behind Atlantic House, Pacific Street runs north and south across the crest of the hill in Rockland's South End.

Armbrust's photograph of the houses on Pacific Street shows, in the distance, Fuller's Market, a grocery store that remained in business for 127 years, and Dodge's Mountain beyond.

Turning around, Armbrust photographed Pacific Street looking south. Tall masts of the ships being repaired at the Snow Shipyard are visible at the bottom of the hill.

Armbrust got a better view of the ships and bustle of the busy Snow Shipyard from across the harbor, looking north from on top of Ingraham's Hill.

Armbrust and Crockett wanted to show the beautiful homes in other parts of Rockland, so Armbrust photographed the homes of Ido Kimball and Davis Tillson on the north side of Middle Street, near the corner of Main Street.

Middle Street later became Talbot Avenue.

When Armbrust turned and photographed the south side of Middle Street, the large H-shaped Greek revival house of Hezekiah Wight appeared to be two houses.

Wight was a partner of Francis Cobb in Cobb, Wight & Norton, Groceries, and he was the treasurer of the Cobb Lime Co.

The white picket fences, stretching as far as the eye can see, brought order and beauty to the boardwalks along the muddy street.

Farther up Middle Street, Armbrust photographed the two, elaborate, Second Empire houses soon after W.H. Glover built them.

Glover built many fine homes in Rockland. He built the house in the foreground for Captain A.F. Ames in 1874, and he built the house in the background for himself in 1873.

The houses are so extraordinary that when Edward Hopper lived in Rockland during the summer of 1926, he painted a picture of Glover's house.

Crockett and Armbrust wanted to show some of the farmland at Blackington's Corner and the Highlands, so Armbrust photographed Tolman's Mill and the millpond on West Meadow Road.

After 1850, the Rockland Water Company owned the mill and used it as a pumping station.

Finally, Crockett and Armbrust published a photograph of a Decoration Day parade on Main Street, as members of the veterans group, Grand Army of the Republic, led the way to the Achorn and Seaview cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of those who had died in the Civil War.

This view shows off the impressive architecture of, from right, the Berry & Cobb Block, the Custom House Block, the Kimball Block, and the Wise & Kimball Block.