Photographs the Irelands and friends at Goose Rocks Beach Maine around 1900

Donny Ireland received a bureau from Marie Ulmer after she died. In it he found some great photographs taken at Goosenecks more than 100 years ago. I have selected a few publish here. Thanks Donny!  I can't see any women in the picture at the party above. All the men seem to be having a good time nonetheless.

Here are Ken’s comments about the pictures:

This picture of a picnic at Gooserocks shows my father, Lawrence Stone Ireland, at about the turn of the last century. It also shows 4 or five of the Ulmer family chomping on sandwiches. All the girls wore such stylish straw hats. The girl directly behind your grandfather was the eldest, Marie, about 5 years older than Grandpa, and the girl without a hat was called Babe. She was the youngest. She had a crush for your grandfather. When she came to your grandmother’s funeral at Saco, Maine, she hugged Pa at every opportunity.

The picture must have been taken in the vicinity of Shore Rocks, which is about one quarter the distance to Batson's river from Elen's right of way to the beach (in the direction of Boston, not in the direction of the North Pole). Last year Donnie and I spent a whole day trying to line up Timber Island (a small dot on extreme top of the picture which barely shows Timber Island and Curtis Point with the rock bar joining the two).

Donnie and I are going to hire a rowboat so that we can take pictures which we hope will give the exact spot of this picnic. The land on which this picture was taken is now water instead of the dry meadow of one hundred years ago. We expect to take pictures from the boat as the tide comes in. In this way we hope to match up the rocks in the foreground with Timber Island and Curtis point in the background. I will send you the picture which will do the job.

Cars played such a major role in those early years, at least as far as my father was concerned, I had to include this shot of the Ulmer’s car.

The sign says: MOTOR VEHICLES DRIVE CAREFULLY THROUGH VILLAGE PAST CORNERS AND CARS.


The one has lots of Ulmer’s and Ireland’s standing around the old big automobile:

Aunt Mary is not there. She was probably teaching Katharine Hepburn in grade school in Hartford at that time. Her older sister Marion Kellaway is the one with the pagoda hat and she had a motor mouth. The shorter dapper man beside Grandpa is her husband Chas Kellaway who was also a house builder, but your grandfather says he never saw him swing a hammer. You can always pick out your grandfather because you can pick out his large ears according to Elen. Pa's future wife, Gertrude Banks is about as far from grandpa as she can get in this picture, and I infer from this that the year this picture was taken was 1908 or 1909 because they were married in 1910, and I came along in 1913.

This brings us to the large power cruiser named Yvonne which my father built single handedly just a few years before I was born. This picture including Frank Fuller and my father is included on your hard disc from Donnie. Pa must have had mixed feelings when I came along, and he had to give up his membership at the South Boston Yacht club, as well as his necessity to sell Yvonne.

Notice the square-rigged tall ship on the horizon in right side of blown up portion. (I am afraid that it is barely visible. Take my word, it is there. I will ask Ken Jr. to make a larger and more distinct image).