Photos tell history of Ellsworth, Blue Hill> Pictures chronicle the people, events and landmarks of an earlier time

IMAGES OF AMERICA, Around Ellsworth and Blue Hill, by Richard R. Shaw, Arcadia Publishing of Dover, N.H., 128 pages, $16.99.

Picture a man in suit and hat calmly strumming a harp while sitting in a chair in the middle of Ellsworth’s Main Street, unmolested by traffic, and accompanied by his two sober-eyed sons on violin.

Street musicians have gone the way of the stagecoach in Ellsworth, but the sepia-toned 1890s scene is preserved in “Around Ellsworth and Blue Hill,” the newest photographic collection in the “Images of America” book series by Arcadia Publishing of Dover, N.H.

The 128-page pictorial ode to nostalgia was compiled by Richard R. Shaw, history buff, and longtime editorial page assistant at the Bangor Daily News. The lifelong Bangor resident also put together the series’ well-received volume on Bangor, which took wing from store shelves after its publication last year.

“People came to the book signings with tears in their eyes,” Shaw recalls of the Bangor book publication’s aftermath. “There is quite an affection for the way the town was before it was `malled over.’ ”

It’s too early to tell whether denizens of coastal Blue Hill and Ellsworth will have similar reactions to the new book on their area. But Shaw, an avid researcher, clearly became taken with his own topic, as he met with dozens of area people who helped acquaint him with their communities through photographs, memorabilia, and reminiscences.

“The area became more interesting the more I got to know people. They started to make it live,” he says, recalling that the wife of one such source was more than ready to boot him out after he had spent nearly seven hours chatting with the woman’s husband.

The book in no way purports to provide an in-depth history of the area spanning Sedgwick to Sullivan, but rather a cursory glimpse of its past through scores of captioned photographs, many previously unpublished.

Culled from among hundreds offered by sources such as libraries, historical societies, and collectors, the pool of available photographs dictated the book’s content and character. The images Shaw chose loosely chronicle the people, events and landmarks of earlier days when coastal communities were tied together by steamboat, train and stagecoach.

Having turned down the opportunity to compile books on Augusta, Lewiston and Waterville, Shaw relished the assignment to Blue Hill and Ellsworth, places he has more feeling for from the many trips he has made to the coast throughout his 43 years.

And Blue Hill and Ellsworth represented relatively uncharted territory in terms of published histories.

“I was really able to feel comfortable with Ellsworth, which seemed like a smaller version of Bangor,” in that each was a lumbering port grown up around a river, Shaw says. As an outsider, he entered Blue Hill with some trepidation, but was pleasantly surprised to find that everyone he asked was willing to help.

“It’s a beautiful storybook town,” he says of Blue Hill, whose Main Street looks remarkably like it did in a 1930s photo included in the book.

One of Shaw’s most startling revelations was the broad array of cultural institutions and activities available in the area today, particularly considering the communities’ small size relative to his hometown.

“We couldn’t sustain the Bangor Opera House, whereas you’ve sustained the Grand Auditorium for years,” he says, noting that Blue Hill’s scenic shores in particular have always attracted progressive and artistic-minded types, from Renaissance man Rev. Jonathan Fisher, to Rowantrees Pottery founder Adelaide Pearson, a friend of Gandhi.

Asked to name the most compelling characters he learned about, Shaw lists too many. One was Sen. Eugene Hale (1836-1918) of Ellsworth, a conservative Republican whom Shaw calls a “little firepot,” echoing a source’s characterization of the politician as small of stature but extremely energetic.

Luminaries the book depicts include several women, such as Cordelia Stanwood, an Ellsworth sea captain’s daughter who taught school in other states before returning home to make her living from writing and nature photography. Each year, visitors to the area tour her homestead at the Birdsacre Sanctuary just south of the hubbub of Ellsworth’s High Street.

Although the book presents a cavalcade of local celebrities, such as Blue Hill educator Esther Wood, many of its photographs honor ordinary people, such as George Stevens Academy and Ellsworth High School athletes posing for team pictures.

A section on transportation features shots of early locomotives, automobiles, historic boats, and assorted oddities. A four-passenger sedan designed circa 1930 by Ellsworth bank teller Harry Parker could reach speeds of 103, got 23 miles to the gallon, and could sleep two people. The unlikely contraption incorporated parts from 17 different cars.

While familiar scenes — from the steaming boilers at Lunt’s Lobster Pound to the Blue Hill Fair — are here, the stuff of local legend is, too.

A stern-faced Neva Ethel Austin stares at the camera from the grounds of her family’s 40-room “castle” in North Hancock. Also from Hancock, 17-year-old Harvard Hodgkins is seen visiting Babe Ruth in a New York City apartment, apparently his reward for contributing to the capture of two Nazi spies who put ashore at Hancock Point in 1944.

Several shots show the damage left by the Ellsworth flood of 1923, and the fire of 1933, which Shaw says started behind what is now the Grasshopper Shop on Main Street.

“I found that big events like that tend to galvanize people,” commented Shaw. “They like to get together and retell those stories.”

Shaw hopes the new book will inspire a retelling or two.