Last summer while doing research for a painting of the Linekin Bay Ferry at the Boothbay Harbor Historical Society, Southport artist Ed Parker came across several old photographs of a very curious19th century vessel that once sailed on the Damariscotta River and the surrounding area. Further research revealed the curious story of the small steamboat named Anodyne and inspired Parker to create a representative, and whimsical painting of the "Anodyne" on her maiden voyage around the Boothbay region.

Commissioned by the Johnson Patent Medicine Company, in 1894 an odd ball craft started to take shape at the Gamage Brothers boatyard in South Bristol, Maine.
Captained by Elliot Gamage, at 36 feet long and nine and three-quarters in the beam, the little eight-ton steamer Anodyne, was launched in 1895 as perhaps Maine's first floating billboard. She was plastered with advertising for Anodyne Liniment whose slogan was "Every Mother Should Have It in the Home"; and thousands did for it contained 18 percent alcohol in a State where the sale of liquor was banned. This "cure-all" was hawked from the deck in every town up and down the coast of Maine where Anodyne could dock. 

In addition to the advertising on the vessel Parker chose to paint her as a full blown floating "Patent Medicine Show," offering music and hawking "medicinal" comfort to Maine's coastal communities in the late 1890's.

For the past 30 years Parker’s unique paintings have appeared in national galleries, museums and many publications from Yankee, Offshore and Country Home magazines to The Washington Post, and used in promotional materials by the National Football League, PBS TV and National Public Radio. Parker’s art combines real and imagined historic events, people and places with a sense of humor, elegant design, and sophisticated color sense, to create paintings with a special charm all their own.

The Nation’s Leading Authority on Contemporary Marine Art J. Russell Jinishian says of Parker’s paintings, “Ed brings an unbridled imagination and a wicked sense of humor to the traditional marine art world in a way that can’t help but put a smile on your face. In Ed’s paintings you get the best of every moment all simplified and idealized. It’s a refined naïveté and romanticized innocent view that in today’s world has a special appeal.”

The painting of the "Steamer Anodyne" is now on display at Gleason Fine Art, 31 Townsend Ave., Boothbay Harbor, where she can be seen sailing by in all her 19th Century Patent Medicine glory.