Catalogue Entry

Essay to come.

Long Wharf was built in the eighteenth century from the shore of Town Cove, one thousand feet into the harbor. Eventually it was joined by Central Wharf and a new Custom House was built between the two in the 1830s. In the 1850s the State Street Block was built on more of the dock. In 1808 to the south of Long Wharf, India Wharf was incorporated as part of the development of Town Cove. The wharf was designed by Charles Bulfinch. Construction was difficult and foundation stones had to be placed by men working in wooden diving bells. (1)

(1) W.H. Bunting. Portrait of a Port, Boston: 1852-1914. Cambridge: Harvard University Belknap Press, 1971, p. 48.

The "Harvest Moon" was a side-wheel steamer, 546 tons displacement and 193 feet in length, beam 29 feet and 8 feet draft. She was commissioned on February 12,1864 at Boston by Charles Spear, and launched in 1863 at Portland, Maine. She was acquired by Commodore Montgomery November 16, 1863. She sank in Winyah Bay, South Carolina February 29, 1865 and was abandoned on 21 April of that year.

There appears to have been a Lane painting of 1863: "Oil painting of the Harvest Moon." The present location of the original is unknown.

"Engine-powered vessel" is a collective term used by nautical historians to include all vessel types using engine power of any type for propulsion, whether assisted by sails, oars, or other motive power. In Lane's time, steam reciprocating engines fueled by wood or coal were the only practical source of this power for ships using paddle-wheels or screw propellers to convert heat energy into motion.

For most of the nineteenth century, steamships had sails for auxiliary power; indeed the earliest examples relied principally on sails, using engine power in calm weather to shorten the voyage time or keep to a schedule. As engines became more efficient, powerful, and reliable, sail plans were reduced, to be used only to steady a vessel's motion in a seaway (for the sake of seasick passengers), or to maintain headway if the engine broke down. Only harbor craft, ferry boats, and coastwise passenger steamers relied solely on engine power.

Among Lane's depictions of steamships, the auxiliary steam packet Auxiliary Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts, n.d. (inv. 442) is a good example of primary reliance on sails, while the steam demi-bark The "Britannia" Entering Boston Harbor, 1848 (inv. 49) and the Cunard Liner "Britannia", 1842 (inv. 259) have relegated sails to secondary (or simply emergency) motive power.

– Erik Ronnberg