From the old country to the new world, and from the mill towns of the northeast to the farmlands of the American south.
[This article originally appeared in the Boston Tab newspaper in May 1999] Contemporary Boston is a city of many great museums. The history of museum keeping in Boston had its modest beginnings in 1791, with the arrival from Philadelphia of one Daniel Bowen, age thirty-one, a close friend of the patriot-painter Charles Willson Peale of …
Continue reading Daniel Bowen: Boston’s Pioneer Museum Keeper
This interesting and profusely illustrated book traces the history of the four Sandonatese families from which author James Gantilucci descends (the Gentillucis, Cuginis, Quintilianis, and Cedrones).
We next turn to John Trumbull, the third and last of our “Patriot Painters. Trumbull became America’s first great history painter.
Gilbert Stuart, Self Portrait In the case of Gilbert Stuart, the second of our painters, we are dealing with a more talented artist, one of the greatest portrait painters of all time, but a much less intellectually-engaged or public-spirited figure than Charles Willson Paine. Like Peale, Stuart grew up in relative poverty. His father, Gilbert …
Continue reading The Patriot Painters, Part 2: Gilbert Stuart, 1755-1828
The three artists of the Revolutionary Era and Early National Period’s that I call The Patriot Painters--- Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Trumbull, created works that became American icons.
Marietta Daily Journal, March 6, 2017, Page 1 During the past year a committee of volunteers, working under the auspices of the Smyrna Arts & Cultural Council’s History Committee, met on a regular basis at the Smyrna Public Library to examine the back issues of the old Smyrna Herald and Smyrna Neighbor newspapers, published between …
Continue reading An Expansion of Smyrna’s Photographic Resources
Smyrna War Hero: Max Parnell.
On October 7, 1873 the voters of the independent towns of Brookline and Brighton made sharply contrasting decisions on the question of annexation to the City of Boston. While two-thirds of Brookline’s electors rejected merger with the metropolis, fully 81 percent of Brighton’s electors eagerly embraced the opportunity to join the city. Why did …
Continue reading Annexation Embraced: Brighton’s 1873 Acceptance of Boston
[31] The Mount Zion Baptist Church and Adjacent African-American Cemetery Site (1877). The Mt. Zion Baptist Church was organized to serve the growing African-American community of Davenport Town, a small community situated on the eastern edge of Smyrna. In 1877, the Rev. George Lloyd and others organized this church. The first pastor was the Rev. …
When completed visitors will be able to bring up historical narratives and related images on their cell phones and other electronic devices, enabling them to conduct self-guided tours of the historical heart of Smyrna.
Local Historian North & South 