SOLD
9x12
Oil on Linen Board
On Display as part of the
St. Mary's School Head of School Artist Series
Dec.14-Jan 30
On Display as part of the
St. Mary's School Head of School Artist Series
Dec.14-Jan 30
The other day I was talking with artist Munroe Bell (http://tracybell.blogspot.com), and he told that now is the time of year to really take advantage of the early morning and late afternoon sun to get some really warm and pretty light. I walked down to this old boat shack in the Middle of the Cashie River in downtown Windsor as it is seen in its renovated state at the South end of King St. There are buildings behind it now that line the causeway to the other side of the river on old Highway 17 heading Northeast toward Edenton, but I wanted to just paint it by itself as it was a long time ago.
When Windsor was a young colonial town there was no causeway, but just a ferry to get across and later a draw bridge. This once wide open area of river where the shack sits now was used by merchant ships and schooners to turnaround and unload goods imported from the North and Caribbean and then reload with tar and cotton to export to England. This port was named Gray's Landing. Travel to Windsor by land back in those days was nearly impossible, so shipping by water was the only vehicle for trade as trading docks, such as Gray's, dotted the banks of the Cashie and Roanoke Rivers. In fact, this is how my oldest known paternal ancestor in America, Peter Rascoe from Coastal Virginia, met his future wife, Clarry Smithwick, at Blanchard's Landing further down river as he was captaining his 41 ton schooner - ironically named Miss Nancy.
Gray's Landing was still a functioning port by the Civil War, and this is where Union forces sailing from Plymouth launched an amphibious assault on Windsor to disrupt Confederate recruiting efforts, gather intelligence on recent "guerrilla" activity on Union outposts along the Albemarle and take prominent townspeople hostage to negotiate prisoner of war trades up in Richmond.
Later in the 20th Century, railroad expansion and road construction replaced water trade as the ideal vehicle for goods transportation and landings such as Gray's slowly disappeared.
