High & Church St. Primrose Hill

High & Church St. Primrose Hill

High & Church Streets as viewed from Primrose Hill This view is looking down Primrose hill toward the Belfast business district. The street forks with Church Street going straight and High Street bearing to the left. The building in the fork is the long-time home of the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Co. In 1909, R. Herman Cassens, a young entrepreneur, started the postcard company in the mid-coast town of Belfast, Maine. Postcards have always been a popular item, especially for travelers, but at the turn of the century they were the absolute rage. At a time when the telephone was not an integral part of the American household and email was still nearly a century away, postcards provided both a visual and written link, whether from across town or across the country. Cassens saw a niche between personal/amateur postcards and the mass-produced postcards available in the bigger cities. He had a dream of "Photographing the Transcontinental Trail-Maine to California," focusing on small rural towns and villages. He and his small crew of photographers traveled through rural New England and New York focusing their lenses on locally known landmarks, street scenes, country stores and businesses, events and people. The exposed glass plate negatives were sent back to the "factory" in Belfast where they were processed, printed and sent back to the general stores for sale at "2 for 5 cents." Unlike the mass produced variety, EIP's postcards were the type known as "real photo postcards" meaning they were actual photographic prints, products of the chemical reaction caused by light onto a light-sensitive surface. Cassens sold his business in 1947 and died in 1948. Though his dream of photographing all 48 states was not realized, his company did manage to make over 40,000 glass plate negatives of New England and New York between 1909 and 1947. To the left a glimpse of the Zacheus Porter house can be seen. The Porter house is two stories and of the Federal Style. It is of wood construction with clapboard siding, two porticos with Doric columns. Mr. Porter grew up in Peterborough, N.H. and pursued the study of law for the required term in the office of the Hon. James Wilson, of Keene, N.H. He entered into partnership at Belfast, in 1813, with his former fellow-townsman, the Hon. John Wilson, and continued in this connection until his decease, Nov. 9, 1824. To the extreme right is the Capt. Hutson Bishop house. Constructed in 1824 the house is of the Federal style; brick construction, with entrances on two sides, eight fireplaces. Bishop was an early trader in Belfast and built the ship ALFRED of 320 tons in 1823, the first copper-fastened vessel launched here. The fire engine "Vigilance" was purchased by subscription in the spring of 1821, for five hundred dollars but the engine does not appear to have been under the charge of any regular organization until April 7, 1823, when a group of prominent men including Hutson Bishop formed an association called the Belfast Fire Engine Company. Governor Hugh J. Anderson, a later owner, was a merchant, Representative in Congress, and Governor of Maine in 1843. He was the first of two governors to come from Belfast.