Thanks to all. There are some inetresting leads and ideas here. A few further remarks on why I think these are actual places, even if somewhat idealized. Many of the White Mtn School painters, who, by the way, later painted the Hudson River whether or not they were bona fide members of the Hudson River School, were resident hotel painters in the summer. Their clients were often hotel guests, the kind who summered here, hiked, or tramped, and knew the vistas well. To wit, Frank Shapleigh was the resident painter for the Crawford House; you may have slept in his former studio, now an AMC bunkhouse at Crawford Depot. He has done a number of recognizable local scenes of the Crawford area as well as some Saco paintings.These client-guests wanted paintings of scenes they knew, hence the "actuality" of some of these paintings. Photographs, postcards, curios with mountain scenes and features, etc., all served the same purpose. In the western Whites, Artist's Bluff at the top of Franconia Notch, and Artist's View, down on Rt. 3 at the bottom of the Notch in Woodstock, were frequesnt vantage points from which painters produced likenesses of Franconia Notch, however romanticized. I am thinking that the Saco vantage point may be a similar artist's perch, so to speak, in the eastern Whites for hotel painters on that side. I have some leads now on where it might be. Thanks.
