Essex Buoy Shack

Buoy Shack, originally uploaded by BostonLightCatcher.

©2007 Sarah White

Essex is an historic shipbuilding center dating back to Colonial times. After the British army destroyed the New England fishing fleet during the American Revolution, the Essex ship yard played a pivotal role in rebuilding the fleet.


©2007 Sarah White

Essex supplied the schooners used by traders up and down the Atlantic coast in New England and as far South as the Chessapeake. For a long time, the schooner was the most efficient mode of transporting goods along the coastal trade routes. Technology brought about the decline and eventual disappearence of the Essex schooner. As more goods transported across land by rail and later on the improved roadways and more efficient trucking after WWII, demand for these ships fell off. In addition, the shipbuilding industry in Essex failed to adapt from the wooden built, sailed powered schooner to the mettal built, propeller driven ships.


©2007 Sarah White

The Essex shipbuilding tradition has been preserved and is seeing a modest comeback through the efforts of the Essex Shipbuilding Museum and local boat yards. The boat yard handed down by generations of the Burnham Family still constructs and launches classic wooden ships built in the Essex tradition.

©2007 Sarah White

Temple in the mist...

Temple in the mist...
Originally uploaded by BostonLightCatcher

© 2007 Sarah White BROOKLINE, MA: October 17, 2007

This image is of the Temple of Love in the Larz Anderson Park in city of Brookline just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. The park was established on the former 64 acre estate of Larz & Isabel Anderson. Larz served in the Foreign Service in Europe and later as the American ambassador to Japan. Isabel came from a prominent Boston family that had made its fortune from the venerable Black Horse Flag fleet of clipper ships. The park includes playgrounds for sports, a skating rink, an outdoor theatre and the oldest privately owned auto museum in the US.

Cultural Work

©2007 Sarah White
CONCORD, MA: August, 2005. A historic re-enactor recreates a colonial kitchen at the Minute Man National Battle Park. This would have been the center of a home based industry that made colonial life possible. The Minuteman National Park is located just outside Concord. It is open year round but access to the buildings and educational programs is only available from April to October. Volunteers recreate colonial modes of dress and work.