Juni Van Dyke’s show at Jane Deering Gallery 19 Pleasant Street Gloucester MA opens Saturday October 29 5-7PM and continues through December 2017. I think Juni’s art transposes her passions and delights into works of sumptuous color and significance. They are beautiful, moving and resonant with her life experiences.
Jane Deering Gallery is located within the 1842 home built for Capt. Harvey Coffin MacKay and Sally (Somes) MacKay. They were married in 1816. The building is one of many distinctive assets within Gloucester’s Central Historic District. There aren’t many wood structures dating from this time because of fires.
McKay’s name is on the 1821 First Fire Club list, established in 1766, appointed to Engine No. Two. Members agreed to 14 Articles: “to be helpful to each other in case of fire; 2, each member to provide two good leather buckets and two strong bags of not less than three bushels capacity, the fine for non-compliance being 12-1/2 cents; 3, to meet annually, also quarterly, with a fine of 12-1/2 cents for non-attendance; 4, a committee of two to inspect each other’s premises and inspect all fire apparatus quarterly; 5, a moderator and clerk to be elected; 6, prescribe the duties of the clerk; 7, to expel members absent from four quarterly meetings and refusing to pay the fines and assessments; 8, to pay for buckets or bags lost at any fire; 9, each member to pay 50 cents for a printed copy of the articles; 10, a secret watch-word for the society, the fine for divulging the same being 40 cents; 11, a fine of 12-1/2 cents for buckets or bags being out of their proper places; 12, fines and assessments to be paid to the Clerk; 12, a three-fourths vote necessary for admission, etc.; 14, a quarterly assessment of 25 cents to meet ordinary expenses.” See The Gloucester Fire Department: its history and work from 1793 to 1893 by John J Somes, ©1892
Capt. MacKay was born Joshua Gee Whittemore, Jr; records indicate that on February 13, 1813 he was “allowed
to take the name of Harvey C. Mackay,…and be called and known by the said name; and the said name shall forever hereafter be considered as his only proper and legal name, to all intents and purposes.” At one time MacKay was Fitz Henry Lane’s landlord. Fitz Hugh Lane changed his name to Fitz Henry Lane in 1832. You can learn more about Lane at the Cape Ann Museum, right next door to the Jane Deering Gallery. The MacKay house jogged my memory about something else I learned from the Cape Ann Museum in a brief article by Stephanie Buck. In 1879, Sarah Johnson, a MacKay lodger, was the first woman to vote in Gloucester for a public official.
Buck’s article reveals who was second, third and fourth in line! I thought about that when I peeked through the window at Juni’s show. Here’s a solo exhibition by a woman, at a gallery owned by a woman, next to a museum run by Ronda Faloon, with nearby exhibits featuring other solo shows by women, galleries and businesses owned by women, and Mayor Romeo Theken at City Hall. I hope we can raise money to commission original portraits of Mayor Kirk and Mayor Romeo Theken to add to City Hall. They are the only Mayors that aren’t represented.
A fishing schooner built in Essex in 1866 was named for ‘intrepid Capt Harvey C Mackay (1786-1869). From Out of Gloucester, http://www.downtosea.com: On December 24, 1879: The Sch. ‘Harvey C. Mackay’ Given Up as Lost: The Schooner Harvey C. Mackay, for whose safety fears have been entertained, and for whose coming back to port anxious ears have long been waiting, has been given up as lost by her owners, and she must be added, with her crew of hardy men, to the list of lost fishermen. She left port…
New Jane Deering Gallery opens in Gloucester
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