I had always wondered where Mother Ann rock was located and looked for her whenever I walked along the backshore, assuming that was where it was. While photographing the waves crashing over the breakwater and on the rocks behind Eastern Point Light the other day, I took this shot. It wasn’t until I was viewing the photos on my computer that I saw her, since I was more focused on the waves than the rocks.
Mother Ann is a rock formation located near the Eastern Point Lighthouse in Gloucester, Massachusetts. When viewed at the correct angle, the formation appears to be the silhouette of a reclining Puritan woman. It is also believed locally that the formation represents the royal mother of King Charles I, Anne of Denmark, after whom Cape Ann is named.
The formation may have been named by Captain William Thompson of Salem in 1891, and has since been compared to New Hampshire’s Old Man in the Mountain.[3] A nearby whistling buoy is known as “Mother Ann’s Cow”.
The Mother Ann formation inspired several local writers, including Providence author H.P. Lovecraft and poet Clarence Manning Falt. Lovecraft may have used the Mother Ann formation as the basis for the setting of his short story The Strange High House in the Mist.
From Wikipedia
E.J. Lefavour
Good Morning Gloucester 
Isn’t that a funny discovery! Just when you least expect it. I must have been around 7 or 8 yrs. old when my great uncle, Rob, took me here with his little girl, Ronnie, to show us Mother Ann. I had forgotten all about her! Thanks for the memory.
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I posted on old postcard of it a few weeks on GMG. I guess it used to be very famous!
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That was how I became aware of its existence, from seeing a picture of it on an old postcard. I think its location makes it not very accessible, since you have to go through the yard of Mother Ann’s cottage to see it. In season, I would never think of doing so, and the only reason I did was because the windows were boarded up (for the storm) and I thought it was vacant.
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While going thru some of my stepmothers paperwork I came across some old post cards from the 20’s and 30’s and foud a bunch of post cards with pictures taken by Richard C Tarr who ran the Cape Ann Ticket and Label co in Gloucester ma. There are 2 of Mother Ann, 1 of the scooner columbia winning the first race in 1926, 2 of a fire along some railroad tracks along the water 1925 or 1926,1 of the waterfront, 1 of thatcher island, 1 of rocky neck, 1 of the breakwater, 1 of the man at the wheel, 1 of stage fort park and several others of unkown location’s in Gloucester. Also 1 of Good Harbor Beach Inn
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