Christmas 1886, Portland Head Light

Maine By David D. Pearce

This painting is of the wreck of the bark Annie C. Maguire at Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine on Christmas Eve, 1886. Portland Head Light is one of Maine’s best-known landmarks, and I’ve been going there ever since I was a child. Several years ago I did a small-format watercolor/pen and ink painting of it. I wanted to do another, but not a conventional view. I had always seen the sign painted on the ledge about the wreck of the Annie C. Maguire but never knew the story. So I looked it up and then decided on the wreck of the Maguire as my subject. One reason is that it is one of the most famous episodes in the lighthouse’s history. But the other reason is because the wreck showcases the other protagonists in Portland Head Light’s long story: the ships and men who set out to sea, the rocky coast of Maine, and the ever-present, powerful and unpredictable force of Nature. This is how I imagined the scene in the days after the ship ran aground, based on historical photos, the reports of heavy seas, and the fact that the Maguire actually broke apart in a storm the week after it ran aground on the ledge at the light.