Photo: The home of Kings once stood here Marker

Photographer: Barry Swackhamer
Taken: June 6, 2014
Caption: The home of Kings once stood here Marker
Additional Description: Captions: (top) This detail from the 1844 painting, “View of Bath” by H.A. Hillings, show the William and Ann King home, tucked into a crowded waterfront on the Kennebec River. Chosen when Shaw’s Point was still largely undeveloped in the late eighteenth century, the site was perfect in the following decades to keep an eye on both river activity and the bustling downtown. The King home is directly above the American flag at the back of steamboat.; (portraits on left) These two oil portraits of William King (1768-1852) and Ann Frazier King (1782-1857) were painted by Gilbert Stuart ca. 1806, not long after their 1802 marriage. Their married life, spent entirely in this home, included frequent entertaining for the first governor Maine and his wife. and many a history mentioned common games of whist, a card-game related to bridge. The extensive library of King, whose education was largely self-taught, was purchased by the Patten family after King’s death and given to the local library, associated with the Patten family of Bath.; (photographs on right) The mansion was moved south and west across Vine Street, where it was reused as a tavern for decades, averted in 1867 as a one-minute walk for the railroad depot, steamboat landing, Custom House, and telegraph office. Often the establishment’s name referred to the structure’s beginnings, the King’s Tavern, but at other times the building was known as the Leach House, Elmwood House or the Shannon House. The construction of the Carlton Bridge in 1927 meant the demise of the former King mansion, as once more it was in the way of a government project. The Elmwood House, to the left, shows the tavern in an earlier stage ca. 1891, closer to its appearance as the King home. The early 20th-century photograph of the King Tavern captured preparation for a public event, but also documented the relative placement of the tavern at Vine and Front Street and the Custom House on the extreme left side of the photograph.; (photo on bottom, left) The Custom House acted as a dignified backdrop for a number of politicians visiting Bath. Here in August of 1889 Benjamin Harrison, accompanied by Benjamin F. Trace, Secretary of the Navy, came to Bath as guests of Arthur Sewall, to view the city’s harbor and shipyards, in anticipation of a contract, resulting in the first steel vessels built in Maine.
Submitted: September 13, 2014, by Barry Swackhamer of Brentwood, California.
Database Locator Identification Number: p285614
File Size: 3.631 Megabytes

To see the metadata that may be embedded in this photo, sign in and then return to this page.