American School, 19th Century Portrait of the Steam Locomotive"Toppan Robie" of the Portland and Rochester Railroad.

Description:

American School, 19th Century

Portrait of the Steam Locomotive"Toppan Robie" of the Portland and Rochester
Railroad.
Unsigned. Oil on panel, 10 1/2 x 17 3/4 in., in a period molded giltwood frame. Condition: Small scratch on coal car c.l., surface grime, panel slightly bowed.

Note: The Portland and Rochester Railroad was a portion of a railroad line that linked the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, to the city of Portland, Maine, via the New Hampshire cities of Nashua and Rochester by merging several small railroads together. The York and Cumberland line was reorganized as the Portland and Rochester Railroad in 1867, with a connection to the Grand Trunk Railway in Portland, and was completed to Rochester in 1871.

The engine was named after Toppan Robie, a leading citizen and benefactor of the town of Gorham, Maine, and the surrounding countryside. He was born in 1782 in Candia, New Hampshire. At an early age he became a store clerk, and later opened his own business in Gorham, Maine, T. & T. S. Robie, with his brother Thomas S., which continued for sixty years, during which time Robie held nearly every office in town. He also was a Representative to the Massachusetts Legislature for six terms before Maine became a state, and was in the first two Legislatures of Maine.


Literature: The Rise and Fall of the York & Cumberland Rail Road, an article by William C. Pierce, a photocopy of the article accompanies the painting.
Estimate $6,000-8,000

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