Tag: island

Categories
New Print Releases The American Northeast

152 Years and Counting

Randall Crossing at Lyndon (Randall Covered Bridge over the East Branch of the Passumpsic River, Lyndon, Vermont)
“Randall Crossing at Lyndon”
Randall Covered Bridge (a.ka. Old Burrington Bridge) over the East Branch Passumpsic River, Lyndon, Vermont
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Having spent more than a century and a half amidst the countryside of northeastern Vermont, the time-worn Randall Covered Bridge feels almost as natural a part of the scenery as the surrounding woodlands or the rushing waters of the Passumpsic’s East Branch below.

Randall Covered Bridge is truly a relic from a different era, its rough-hewn timbers assembled the same year that the Civil War came to a close at Appomattox some 600 miles to the south. Records don’t identify whoever was contracted to build the bridge, but the especially wide roof and open sides follow a distinctive pattern endemic to the township and surrounding area.

When the rigors of time and the unforgiving heft of automobiles finally rendered old Randall Bridge obsolete in the 1960s, the people of Lyndon had the foresight to keep the aged timber bridge intact. So, despite having been bypassed decades ago by a modern concrete crossing just 20 feet upstream, Randall Bridge quietly enjoys its 152nd anniversary this year. And with much care and a smidgeon of luck, it’ll be there for generations to come.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Randall Crossing at Lyndon” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of my work from the Randall Covered Bridge.

Categories
All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

The Clarks and The Creek

Clark Creek flits about in riffles and cascades as it snakes through old Tylerville en route to the Connecticut River. Springtime woodlands immerse the falls in shadow as soothing murmurs of tumbling water rise into the canopy.

Clark's Stairway (Clark Creek Falls on Clark Creek, Haddam, Connecticut)
“Clark’s Stairway”
Clark Creek Falls on Clark Creek, Haddam, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Sometimes a simple babbling brook can, through tangential association, lead us unexpectedly into topics of great historical importance. For example, one historian recalled in 1900 that “the Clarks of… Clark’s Creek in Tylverville are descended from Major John Clark… who is named as one of the patentees in the Charter of Charles II to Connecticut in 1662.” Sure, at face value that may seem to be an obscure reference, but it’s difficult to overstate the importance of that founding document to which the name of Clark Creek can be circuitously traced.

Tylerville Cascades (Clark Creek Falls on Clark Creek, Haddam, Connecticut)
“Tylerville Cascades”
Clark Creek Falls on Clark Creek, Haddam, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

The Charter of 1662 gave legal blessing to the Connecticut Colony in the eyes of the English monarchy, ensuring an impressive measure of self-governance for what had previously amounted to little more than a loosely-associated series of Puritan settlements south of Massachusetts. Upon granting that early charter, it’s likely that Charles II couldn’t have imagined that Connecticut and its sibling colonies would be back just about a century later, demanding a far greater degree of self-governance that would change everything.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Clark’s Stairway” or “Tylerville Cascades” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing either of these images.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of my work from Clark Creek Falls.

Categories
New Print Releases

Citadel

Citadel (Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California)
“Citadel”
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California
© 2017 J. G. Coleman

Alcatraz Island rises from the fog-laden waters of San Francisco Bay, its sundry array of towers and buildings illumined against the hazy silhouette of distant, coastal hills.

Hollywood films over the years have ensured that visions of a bleak and notorious federal prison are conjured in our imagination whenever we think of Alcatraz. But despite the vast amount of space that impression occupies in our memory, it actually comprises a fairly narrow slice of the island’s long and varied history. After all, Alcatraz Island was used as a federal penitentiary for less than three decades.

Relatively few recall that Alcatraz Island was the site of the first lighthouse on the West Coast or that as many as a hundred cannons were mounted on the island during the Civil War. Perhaps a more peculiar story though surrounds the origin of the island’s name. “Alcatraz” comes down from an old Spanish term for pelicans and was assigned to the island when early Spanish explorers found massive flocks of the seabirds roosting upon its cliffs in the late 1700s.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Citadel” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of my work from places beyond New England.

Categories
All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Lakewood Shimmering

Lakewood Shimmering (Great Brook Reservoir at Lakewood Park, Waterbury, Connecticut)
“Lakewood Shimmering”
Great Brook Reservoir at Lakewood Park, Waterbury, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

With over 3,800 people per square mile, the crowded city of Waterbury in Western Connecticut is among the last places you might expect to find natural beauty. Don’t count it out entirely, though: the calm waters and wooded hills of Great Brook Reservoir on the east side of the city, seen here in my piece “Lakewood Shimmering”, are a welcome escape from the concrete, brick and asphalt.

It’s hard to imagine that when Waterbury was settled by Europeans in the late 1600s, the Central Naugatuck Valley was still a vast frontier of wooded hills. In fact, townspeople referred to the settlement by its Native American name, “Mattatuck”, for the first decade of its existence.

Waterbury’s rocky landscape made for terrible farmland and the town’s growth stagnated for a century. When brass manufacturing took off in the 1800s, though, Waterbury became an industrial powerhouse —the “Brass City”— and began to grow rapidly.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Lakewood Shimmering” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of my work from Great Brook Reservoir and Lakewood Park, including the photograph seen above.