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We have no views of Augusta or Hallowell as they looked during Martha Ballard's lifetime, but this sketch probably was made only eleven years after her death.

"Cyril Searle, a teacher of music temporarily residing in the town, had a happy faculty of delineating in pencil. He boarded with Theophilus Hamlen at the Kennebec tavern, and during his stay sketched a view of Augusta from the east side of the river, standing in the field near the northwest corner of Judge William's house on Myter street. Thge sketch, which was well known and thought to be very accurate at the time it was taken, was lost sight of until it was recently found with the papers of the late Edward Rowse, with some of the lines in a somewhat obliterated condition. These were retouched and the sketch engraved. It was made after the separation from Massachusetts, for it is lettered "a view of Augusta, in the county of Kennebec, in the state of Maine," and before november 8, 1923, for William Branch's wooden building which was destroyed by fire at that time is on it. There is other evidence from the sketch which leads to the belief that it was made in 1823..."