As we wrap-up the week before the week of Thanksgiving, appreciation burbles on the back burner like a slow cooked crock of beans wafting autumn aromas through the house. Comforting. It would be appropriate to jumpstart gratitude-giving with especial emphasis on Pam, Tony, Glen, Aaron, Calvin, and Steve for juggling carpentry and tree work and stonework and a dozen more weather sensitive punch list projects. Also to the Town of Essex crew for transforming Rosslyn’s sidewalks into a 21st century pedestrian paradise. It would be appropriate. It would right and just and timely. But instead I’m going to defer the thanks for a little longer — like the slow cooked beans, patience and anticipation are beneficial — in order to showcase an Essex memento medley currently vying for bidders on eBay.
Let’s start at the beginning. This is the Essex memento medley that grabbed my attention, three timeworn representations of Essex past.
Whereas eBay auction descriptions, especially vintage postcards and other artifacts, usually fall short, lacking the sort of depth and detail I’m searching for when auction shopping, this little blurb is black and white gold. Quite a bit of knowledge packed into it. It makes me wonder whether or not this may have been listed by one of my neighbors?
Fresh from a recent estate sale! A great trio of ephemera from Essex, New York including two postcards and a vintage glass advertising paperweight. One of the postcards shows a mill or factory, as seen from a Lake Champlain steamer. The other shows an early view of the ferry and dockyard. This card was mailed from Essex and is postmark dated 1940 (although the image itself appears to be earlier judging by the ferry). Also included is a wonderful vintage glass paperweight, containing a sepia photograph of the “Essex Inn.” Some wear to the original felt bottom, but the heavy glass itself is in very nice condition… A great grouping of pieces to add to your collection!
(Source: eBay)
Do you recognize the industrial waterfront captured in the color retouched postcard above? It appears to include the Essex steamboat landing and possibly the Lyon and Palmer blind and sash factory or the Essex Horse Nail Company.
19th century industry on Beggs Point included Essex’s only factory building, first occupied by the Essex Manufacturing Company to 1877, then by Lyon and Palmer blind and sash manufactory until 1879, followed by the Essex Horse Nail Company Limited from 1880 to 1918, which in 1885 employed 60 or 70 hands.”
— David C. Hislop, Essex on Lake Champlain, pg. 55 (Source: Rosslyn Redux)
In the second postcard, the photographer is looking Northwest from present day Beggs Park, approximately where Nail Collector’s House stands today. The Essex-Charlotte ferry is visible to the south of the man-made pier/peninsula where the Old Dock House restaurant is now located. This was for many years the Essex ferry dock, before the current landing was built just south of Library, Brook and the Belden Noble Library.
Rosslyn’s boathouse is also visible near the right side of the photograph. The Kestrel does not appear to be docked in front of Rosslyn when this image was made, but the longer pier north of the boathouse does appear to be present if you squint and focus on the blurry waterline line the right edge of the postcard.
The third item in today’s Essex memento medley appears to be a souvenir paperweight with an Essex Inn postcard visible through the glass. I actually thought it might be a glass ashtray at first, but the auction description is obviously more accurate. A quirky souvenir likely purchased during a family’s visit to Essex 3/4 of a century ago.
I’ve never seen a similar paperweight, and my curiosity was briefly piqued. But I’ve confirmed that all three of these vintage postcards are already in my collection, so I’ll [probably] resist the temptation to bid this Essex memento medley up into the stratosphere as happens with increasing frequency.
It’s not really accurate to say that these artifacts were exhumed or excavated, though I love the alliteration. Instead, I would say that Essex artifacts have a way of finding me. Like homing pigeons. I’m freshly surprised each time, but I’ve come to understand that there’s a mysterious force of nature that helps things find their way back home. Eventually. Slowly. Adventurously. But home. At last. As if the entropic forces of nature are somehow balanced with a coalescing force that draws like to like. Perhaps a bit like affection?
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