Luther Kilburn Haskell was a blacksmith.
Clara Belle was raised as a Catholic by an aunt. She joined a Nunnery.
The Weekly Packet
August 1, 1963
SUNSET--If activity is the key to happiness and longevity, Henry Haskell has it.
This alert gentleman of 89 canes chairs and does carpentry work in the little shop he has built for himself behind his home.
He taught himself caning after deciding that it looked kind of fascinating when he watched former Deer Isle Town Clerk Winslow Haskell at work some 15 or 20 years ago. He admits that his first attempts weren't perfect "... but I never made the same mistake twice."
Haskell now repairs and canes chairs for permanent and summer residents and help earn "our tax money." He's been doing it ever since he became unable to scramble around on rooftops and scaffolding as a carpenter. "He calls it his knitting work," says his handsome wife, Evelyn, with a twinkle in her eyes.
THE HASKELLS live in his birthplace, a 10-room house built by his father, which was once called "Grand View House," home for summer visitors at $5 a week, board and lodging. It does indeed have a grand view-Haskell and another island resident each grudgingly admit that the other has the "second" nicest view on the island. The Haskells often sit in their living room overlooking the island-studded panorama before them to enjoy the glorious sunsets.
Many years ago, says Haskell, when the new post office was built in his neighborhood, a summer resident wanted it named "Sunset" because the sunsets were so beautiful in that area. Apparently local residents agreed because Sunset it is. Before the Sunset post office was built, the mail delivered to the island by steamboat was taken to the Deer Isle Village post office. If someone from the present Sunset section were in the village, he would take all the neighborhood mail to Lufkin's Store, now "Sunset House," where everyone would pick up his own mail from the pile on the counter.
HASKELL RECALLS attending in ungraded school in his youth when the young people could go to school until they reach the age of 21. School was conducted in two terms during the year, beginning the first of June. Haskell says that many teenage boys and girls had a tendency to forgo school during the summer months in favor of fishing, then return to the classroom for the fall term.
Spelling bees were frequently held in school when Haskell attended, and he was one of the best; whenever spelling teams were set up, he was always the first one chosen. In 1882, Haskell won a photograph album for spelling down all his schoolmates on one word. The spelling lessons were conducted with youngsters standing in a line. If the first one in line missed the word, he would have to change places with the next person who is able to spell the word correctly. One day when Haskell was the last in line, "hyacinth" made him undisputed champion. TO SOME, school was no more popular than it is to reluctant students today.One neighborhood boy had a hankering to go skating one winter morning and devised a unique system for getting school closed for the day so he could. On his day to start the fire at school, he built a roaring fire, poured powdered pepper all over the top of the stove, closed the door, shouldered his skates, and set out for the nearest pond. "When the teacher arrived," Haskell said with a grin, "she couldn't get in the door."
Haskell attended school until he was thirteen. His father died at that time and an older brother took him to Saugus, Mass., where he taught the youngster to work in his blacksmith shop. His pay was $14 a week. Haskell worked with his brother for four years, then he ran the business alone for a year while his brother returned to sunset to build a house, across the road from the Haskell homestead. This home is currently owned by artist Norman MacLeish, brother of author Archibald MacLeish and father of foreign correspondent Rod MacLeish.
While in Massachusetts, Haskell met and married a young lady from Dorchester, who has grown to love the state of Maine, although she was lonesome here at first.
THE HASKELLS returned to Maine where he set up a blacksmith shop in Deer Isle Village opposite the post office. He ran the business for about 12 years; shoeing horses, repairing wagons and doing anything people needed done until "the automobiles drove me out of business."
Haskell set up shop in Sunset for a few years after he closed his Deer Isle Village shop, then returned to Saugus for 10 years. When automobiles antiquated the blacksmith's shop, Haskell turned to carpentry for his livelihood.
During World War II he took his carpentry skills to the Stonington boatyard and shortly thereafter began to cane chairs and work at ground level carpentry. A MAHOGANY table leaf discarded by a neighbor, is now a mantle in Haskell's living room. He makes end tables, picture frames and cribbage boards, but caning remains his chief interests.
The Haskells have three children, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. They have spent the last 15 winters with their daughter in Philadelphia, but they much prefer the state of Maine. In April, the Haskells celebrated their 67th anniversary but they still look at each other with the eyes of newlyweds.
Mrs. Haskell says that a neighbor once accused her of being a slave to her husband and children. "I've been happy doing it," she retorted.
WHEN HASKELL was asked if there was anything special, he attributed his long life to, he smiled, gestured toward his wife, and said, "good eating." His wife gives credit to "good living." Whatever the reason or reasons, the Haskells are a remarkably young couple for their years. He is the second oldest man in Deer Isle but neither looks nor acts it.
George E. Haskell was a blacksmith.
U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946
Name: Charles F Haskell
Birth Year: 1900
Race: White, citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: Maine
State of Residence: Massachusetts
County or City: Essex
Enlistment Date: 14 Sep 1942
Enlistment State: Massachusetts
Enlistment City: Boston
Branch: Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Grade: Private
Term of Enlistment: Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Component: Selectees (Enlisted Men)
Source: Enlisted Man, Regular Army, after 3 months of Discharge
Education: 1 year of high school
Civil Occupation: Carpenters
Marital status: Married
Height: 71
Weight: 161
____
U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010
Name: Charles Haskell
Gender: Male
Death Date: 20 Jun 1979
SSN: 034038547
Enlistment Date 1: 14 Sep 1942
Release Date 1: 11 Apr 1943
Ernest Haskell was a world-renowned artist, lithographer, print-maker, and watercolorist. He died in an automobile accident near Bath, Maine.
Haskell, Ernest (1876 - 1925) Watercolorist, illustrator, etcher. Born on June 30, 1876 in a tavern in Woodstock, CT. Haskell briefly studied art in Paris at Académie Julian at the turn of the century, but remained essentially self taught. He lived and worked in Florida, New York, Maine, and California. During the years 1914-19, he was active in Carmel and San Francisco. Best known in California for his etchings and dry points of the Monterey cypresses, he also painted a set of 50 watercolors of California. During the last quarter of his life he produced about 400 prints. Haskell died on Nov. 1, 1925 in an auto accident in Bath, ME. Information supplied by: www.askart.com/Biography.asp
Biography from Crocker Art Museum Store: Watercolorist, illustrator, etcher. Born on June 30, 1876 in a tavern in Woodstock, CT. Haskell briefly studied art in Paris at Académie Julian at the turn of the century, but remained essentially self taught. He lived and worked in Florida, New York, Maine, and California. During the years 1914-19, he was active in Carmel and San Francisco. Best known in California for his etchings and dry points of the Monterey cypresses, he also painted a set of 50 watercolors of California. During the last quarter of his life he produced about 400 prints. Haskell died on Nov. 1, 1925 in an auto accident in Bath, ME. Exh: PRE, 1915 (medal); Kennedy Gallery (NYC), 1916; AIC, 1916; Macbeth Galleries (NYC), 1926 (memorial). AAA 1919-25; Sam; Ben; Ernest Haskell: His Life & Work (Little & yes Co., 1931); SF Chronicle, 11-2-1925 (obits).
Biography from AskART: An illustrator, painter and etcher, Ernest Haskell was a well-known figure in New York and Paris during the early part of the 20th century. In 1976, a memorial centennial exhibition of his birth was held at the New York Public Library. Haskell was especially noted for his etchings, a skill he learned as a student of James McNeill Whistler. He also designed promotional posters in watercolor.
Haskell was born in Woodstock, Connecticut, and by age 19 was established in New York City where he turned out magazine covers and posters for "Scribner's", "The New York Sunday Journal" and "Truth" magazine. By age 21, he was living in Paris, a city where he spent much of his time in the future as well. He enrolled in the Academie Julian but spent most of his time studying privately around the Louvre and with Whistler from whom he learned special techniques, which he later combined with elegant poster designs that made his work highly unique. It was said that Haskell created the first real art posters in the United States.
When he returned to New York in the 1890s, he was popular as a celebrity portraitist whose subjects included Ethel Barrymore and Helen Hayes. He was a member of the Players Club, a social venue for actors and artists that included many of New Yorks prominent figures such as Mark Twain, Childe Hassam and John Barrymore.
In 1903, Haskell married Elizabeth Foley, a New York society girl, and they had two children and spent much time at their farm on the coast of Maine. They also traveled occasionally to California. In 1918, Elizabeth died in the flu epidemic, and two years later, Haskell married Emma Laumeister in San Francisco. The couple had twin girls. However, in 1925, Haskell was killed while driving close to his rural home in Maine in a Model T Ford. He was returning from New York City, where he had been arranging a show.
Source:
Abigail Aldridge, niece of the artist, in an article titled 'Flair for the Theatrics', "Art and Antiques", December 2004, p. 86.
U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes
Name: John H McGorrill
Birth Date: 2 May 1852
Birth Place: Ireland
Age at event: 28
Court District: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont
Date of Action: 25 Oct 1880
Julia Etta Haskell was a milliner.
Augustus Gross was a merchant.
Deer Isle newspaper
February 12, 1926The sad intelligence has been received of the death of Frank S. Haskell on the 29tth of January, at his home in Newton, Mass. He was born in Deer Isle, 58 years ago, and spent his boyhood days here. He was a son of the late George C. and Sarah E. Haskell. After his school days were over, he chose for his vocation a mariners life and followed the sea for a few years, then he went to Boston and found employment with the N.E. Tel. & Tel. Co., which position he held at the time of his death. Genial and congenial in his vocal activities and active and precise in his business dealing he was everywhere liked and held in the highest regard by all who knew him. He leaves to mourn his loss a widow, who was Miss Sarah A. Graves of Canada, and an only son, George, also a sister, Mrs. David S. Briggs of Dorchester, and a brother, Ernest C. of Everett, Mass.
26227. Ernest Courtney Haskell
Ernest C. Haskell was a yachtsman and fisherman.