China Survey, 1903-1904 Sargentville mapmaker’s photographs on display at Maine Maritime Academy

When a 1903 geological expedition arrived in China, its leader, geologist Bailey Willis, realized he was without the services of a mapmaker.

He quickly called on R. Harvey Sargent, a native of Sargentville, a village in the Hancock County town of Sedgwick that was named for his family. Sargent was working for the U.S. Geological Survey at the time.

In a book, 40-plus years later, Willis explained his predicament.

“In China, officials either ride or are carried in a sedan chair. We would lose face and be liable to insult or worse if we walked. [However] on counting up the cost of horses and grooms, I find it equal to the salary and expense of a topographer. Being convinced that good maps are worth the expense and possible risk, I cabled Sargent to come.”

Sargent came quickly and brought to the expedition the “staunch reliance” of an experienced explorer, according to Willis. He also packed a camera. The result was not only an acclaimed collection of maps of the interior of China, but also numerous photographs, taken by Sargent during the two-year journey, which capture the culture of China of almost 100 years ago.

An exhibition culled from Sargent’s photographs, titled “China: Exploring the Interior 1903-1904,” is now on display at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. The photographs depict the young Maine man’s interest in the people, places and customs of the country. They include images of Buddhist icons carved into the face of a mountain, a team rowing a barge up a river, and a crowd of residents curious about the rare foreign visitors.

The expedition began in 1903, just two years after the Boxer Rebellion, during which the Boxers, a mystical group, attacked and killed foreigners in and around Peking (now Beijing), in an effort to rid the country of outside influences.

“In a way there was a bit of courage involved in going there,” said Bob Sargent, the photographer’s grandson, who lives in Sargentville and curated the exhibit, which has traveled around the country since it was developed in 1994.

Much of R.H. Sargent’s geological career was spent mapping remote areas of Alaska, but according to his grandson, he took few other pictures. Bob Sargent said he has no idea what prompted his grandfather to take a camera on the China trip.

“I wish I knew,” he said. “Grandfather kept a day-to-day journal and also wrote a memoir. I don’t recall any reference to the camera or taking pictures.”

R.H. Sargent created about 150 images during the two-year, 1,800-mile expedition, and created an album that has remained in the family. His son, Clyde, traveled to China as a missionary, and became a China scholar. Bob Sargent was born in China, but left when he was 5 years old and, though he has traveled widely as an American diplomat, he has never returned.

Near the end of his life, Clyde Sargent began to plan a project involving the photographs his father had left. That’s part of the reason Bob Sargent got involved with the exhibition.

“I think that finishing a project that my dad started has something to do with it,” he said. “I’m taking some satisfaction in that.”

He admits that, initially, he did not see the broader value of the photographs, beyond their link to his grandfather.

“Others had to help me see that they had value,” he said. “They had to tell me ‘Bob, you’ve got to do something with these.'”

That help came from a variety of individuals and institutions including the Maine Humanities Council; Craig Dietrich, a history professor at the University of Southern Maine; and J.K. Holloway Jr., a professor of Asian history in Newport, R.I.

Ken Woisard, a photographer in Blue Hill, worked with the antique, celluloid negatives to create the museum quality prints in the exhibit, and Imprint in Bangor designed the exhibit brochure and Web site.

He also had help from the Chinese Room Endowment Fund of the Newport (R.I.) Public Library. Clyde Sargent created the Chinese Room at the library with a gift of 900 books and other objects he had collected during his years in China.

Bob Sargent has developed a deeper affection and appreciation for the photographs and their importance in understanding the Chinese people.

“China is more important now than it has been in a long time,” he said. “Anything we can do to better understand China and what it has been about, is all to the good. I think the importance of all of these photographs helps to increase our understanding of China and its people.”

Sue Loomis, the chair of the Arts and Sciences Department at Maine Maritime Academy, agreed. Loomis arranged for the exhibit, which has traveled around the country since it was first shown in Blue Hill in 1994, and said the images “… make a significant contribution to our sense of history.”

Although an amateur photographer, R.H. Sargent was “instinctively gifted,” according to some critics, and had a fine sense of composition. His images create a pastiche of life in rural, pre-Revolution China almost a century ago. They include scenes from every-day life – cave dwellings cut into the soft soil of a hillside, ruins of a temple with an idol and an offering outside, a Mongol wearing a large fur hat, missionaries who had survived the attacks during the Boxer Rebellion, women washing clothes in the water of an irrigation ditch.

Most of the photographs are accompanied by R. H. Sargent’s own captions, which occasionally include his comments on his hosts, such as the image of a traffic jam involving two carts that meet on a narrow road carved deep into the loamy soil: “Two carts meet. Neither will yield. Vociferous argument ensues. This is a common occurrence. Often hours are spent untangling the confusion.”

The exhibit also includes a copy of R.H. Sargent’s journal and a copy of Willis’ book “Friendly China.” It will be open to the public on the MMA campus at the Bath Iron Works Center for Advanced Technology until Sunday, Feb. 24. The center is open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is no charge.