RSW's Diary Comments

"The Little Shop" as Woodward called it is an ear-
ly 19th century mill known locally as the old Boehmer
Mill. The view is partially that which RSW mentions. It
is looking at the rear SE corner, the fireplace side.
However, the painting is facing more to the left...

"Painted in fall of 1932. Made from beyond the Burnham cottage at my old place looking toward the fireplace and pond of my shop property. Brilliant October oaks and maples with a deep tense blue sky seen only in October. Sold to Grand Central Art Gallery (spring of 1947) for 'Founders Show'."

Editor's Note:

Woodward purchased the property adjacent to his first home, second studio, the Hiram Woodward Place, in 1931. We believe the intent was to use the old mill as a gallery of his work people could visit and shop for paintings instead of coming to his studio where he rather not be interrupted. He spent time and money restoring it to the condition you see in pictures. Restoring old places was a passion of his, but before it could be used for its intended purpose, lightning struck the Hiram home burning it to the ground in July of 1934.

His attention now turned to his new home and studio, the Southwick Place in the Buckland town center which took 9 months of considerable work to suit his needs. The "Little Shop" now became what he called, "Woodward's Folly," in the English tradition meaning a building with no specific use and largely just a decoration. As amusing as that is, he did find a future for the mill when Dr. Mark came into his life. Before becoming a medical doctor, Dr. Mark wanted to be a musician and open a music school and store and the mill was going to go to him for that purpose... instead, it ended up going to Woodward's cousin Florence who opened and ran an antique shop out of it for a couple of decades and Doc got Southwick where he proudly practices medicine as a simple country doctor for forty-four years.

Here is a map of the area. The darker shaded spots
represent to properties Woodward owned in 1932.
The blue represents "Clark Brook" which touches
both properties. The space between is town land.

⮜ The graphic to the left is taken from Google maps showing the area layout for this painting. We stated above that Hiram and the mill are adjacent properties but it is not entirely true. The land between them is the town's land and part of what was used for logging. The road named "Fox Road" today, was simply known as "town road" in Wood-ward's time. Note that Clark brook weaves its way through the western side of the Hiram property. The Burnham cottage if just to the right of the brook. There is a treeline not seen in this map that divides the Hiram property for the cottage. You can see the "S" of Clark Brook in the painting above but what is most interesting is that we think the brook is dam-med up and still set as the swimming hole Wood-ward loved so much. (The Burnham Cottage was not divided from the Hiram Farm until after the 1934 fire. It was sold separately to Reuben March in 1937.) ⮟

The abutment of the swimming hole in 2017. It
is modern and was installed when the new bridge was
installed. Still, you can see the old stones laid
to create steps for getting in and out of the pool.

Looking up (south) Clark Brook as it comes
down Johnson Hill and out of the woods. If you enlarge
the image a graphic will appear helping you see the
bowl shape of the area and the pool's large size.

⮝ Brian and Larch visited with Mr. March's daughter-in-law, Millie, in 2017 and she graciously gave us a tour of the property. We took pictures of the swimming hole (which Millie used to that day for her grandchildren) but we did not get a good picture of the perspective seen in the painting above.

This painting was sold on E-Bay in May, 2006. The current owner sent us the picture above in April 2009 and we are so very grateful.