Edward Seager

Providence, RI shows a fenced pasture surrounded by trees that could be the Jeremiah Dexter Farm, near present day Camp Street and Rochambeau, the French army camp during the Revolutionary War and a popular spot for 19th-century tourists. Smithfield shows the Butterfly Mill, a textile-printing mill built in 1811. The building still stands in altered form today on Great Road in Lincoln. Visible is a “stone ender,” an early form of architecture unique to Rhode Island, consisting of a large stone chimney making up one wall. In the foreground is the mill’s water source, Butterfly Pond.

The first drawing instructor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and later a resident of Boston, Edward Seager traveled extensively throughout the eastern states on sketching campaigns. His picturesque views of New England show the area before the extensive industrialization that occurred in the second half of the 19th century.