Carrie Cook Sanborn, Artist.
Courtesy, Point Pleasant Historical Society

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Carrie Cook Sanborn, late nineteenth century Quaker artist, was head of the Cedars Art Colony, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. In 1831, the Cook family decided to supplement their income from farming by turning their homestead into a boarding house. Summer guests paid between $12 and $15 a week. They could swim and fish in the Manasquan River, Cooks Pond (now Lake Louise) and the Atlantic Ocean, and enjoy picnics in the Cedars, a grove of trees in the center of the property. 

Carrie Cook Sanborn presided over an art colony based in the homestead and gave lessons in the Cedars. Many prominent artists and writers came to the Cedars, including the author Robert Louis Stevenson. Today the G. Harold Antrim School is on the site of the homestead and the Point Pleasant Beach High School athletic field is on the site of the Cedars.  Sanborn depicted herself in a painting (left) and is shown teaching a class (far right).