Sketches Depict Island In Late 19th Century
Capturing Bermuda’s history in a truly unique way, a series of sketches by Henry Finn serve as a reminder of the island as it existed in the late nineteenth century, some 121 years after they were published in Harpers Weekly in April 1895.
Fenn, known as one of the most prominent landscape illustrator of that time, was born in Richmond, England in 1845 and died in Montclair, New Jersey in 1911, according to the Smithsonian Institution website.
Located on the back of the sketch print is an in-depth article entitled ‘Answers to Questions about Bermuda,’ with the article saying that the illustrations include depictions of “the entrance to Soncy, in the Governor’s Grounds, a road near Hamilton, view of Hamilton and its harbor, and Cedar Avenue, Hamilton, a favorite promenade.”
I wasn’t around in 1895, but that fourth picture is not a drawing or sketch of Hamilton.
It is a sketch of the town of St George from the perspective of an artist standing somewhere on Fort George Hill.
The island in the centre of the sketch is Ordnance Island, with the Customs and Pilot houses as they are now. The road leading up to that collection of long houses is the road leading up to the military barracks and those long houses are the barracks themselves. The Town Cut channel is in the correct situation.
Not Hamilton. St George.