| Squam Lookout Articles Ozias Dodge, 1868 - 1925? by Daphne Mowatt Ozias Dodge was an artist known internationally, especially for his etchings. He perfected the two-color method of printing etchings and complete sets of his etchings were acquired by the Congressional Library in Washington and the New York Public Library. Ozias was born and grew up on a Vermont farm near Mt. Mansfield. It was a very remote place in the early 1800’s - - his grandfather had been killed by a boar. One of his early mentors was an Indian who taught him to make canoes. He attended Groton and Yale on scholarship, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale. He also attended the New York Art Students League and studied in Paris. Having little money for sightseeing in Europe, he made himself a canoe in which he and two friends went down the Rhine from Basle to the North Sea. He married Hannah Sprague, who had posed for Charkes Dibe Gibson as one of the original “Gibson Girls.” Her family, the Spragues, came every summer to Squam from Flushing, New York. They had a camp in Moultonborough, between Nichols Cove and Brown Point, which consisted of several small buildings (they slept mostly in trunks) and was most charming and artistic. Ozias’ studio still exists, though now in Bean Cove. While on Squam, Ozias painted and etched, and also fished, canoed, did a bit of carpentry and hiking. He was quite a woodsman as well, and could fell a tree exactly where he wanted it and then sit and sketch a bit of scenery. In 1905 he became ill at the lake and was taken by canoe to the Davis’ beach, by wagon to Center Harbor, by steam launch to Lakeport, and wagon again to the Laconia Hospital. He survived not only typhoid but also the trip! Ozias’ monuments to nature extended well beyond his etchings. During World War I, he was personally responsible for saving Mohegan Park in Connecticut when a blight struck the beautiful chestnut trees for which the park was famous. Under his direction, the expendable trees were converted into lumber and sold to the U.S. government, then badly in need of wood for shipbuilding, and Norwich was able to finance the cost of replanting the park at no cost to the local treasury. For many years he was director of the Norwich Art School in Norwich, Connecticut, and after his death his wife became Director of the Slater Memorial Museum of Norwich Free Academy. She continued to summer on Squam for many years. (See related article “The Eating House,” or refer to Vol. VIII., No. 2 (Fall 1999), page 6 of Squam Lookout.) |
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