Important Americana
Important Americana
Property from the Collection of Leslie and Peter Warwick, Middletown, New Jersey
A Fine and Rare Paint-Decorated Sign Celebrating Maine's Inauguration into Statehood, Vassalboro, Maine, 1818
No reserve
Live auction begins on:
January 25, 03:00 PM GMT
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
white pine
dated 1818
height 47 ¾ in. by width 23 ¾ in. by depth 2 in.
double-sided and inscribed E. HOWLAND above a painted eagle and the date 1818; accompanied by a salt print photograph showing the sign in Lewiston, Maine at the turn of the century.
Ebenezer Howland, Vassalboro, Maine;
Robert E. Kinnaman and Brian Ramaekers, Winter Antiques Show, 1987.
Magazine Antiques (May 1984), 948;
Remi Spriggs, “Living with antiques: An Americana collection in New Jersey,” Magazine Antiques (April 2005), 94-105.
The only E. Howland in the Maine Census is Ebenezer Howland of Vassalboro, Maine. Ebenezer was the seventh child of ten children of William Howland (1741-1824) and Dorothy Wing (1740-1814) from Pembroke, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, who were Mayflower descendants. Ebenezer was born in Pembroke in 1777 but the entire family relocated to Vassalboro, Maine, which was part of Massachusetts at that time. Ebenezer is recorded in the town clerk records of Vassalboro as a tithingman and was entitled to vote in 1801. He was surveyor of highways and collector of highway taxes at various times between 1809 and 1826. Ebenezer was not listed in Vassalboro town records as an innkeeper. It is possible that the sign was used as a patriotic symbol at the entrance to his farm showing he supported statehood for Maine. This was a very controversial issue in Vassalboro and Maine in general but Maine became a free state to balance Missouri which was a slave state under the Missouri Compromise in 1820.