Colonel Trumbull has endorsed this letter: “Browere. Poor man! too much vanity hath made him mad.”

However, from a letter written three years later to the Directors of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, and “Favored by Col. Trumbull,” it would appear that the two artists had healed their differences; but Browere’s feeling of resentment toward the National Academy of Design knew no abatement. He was kept out of the National Academy by Dunlap, who also ignored him in his malevolent and unreliable “History of the Arts of Design in the United States.” The cause for this, as stated by Browere’s son, was that before Browere had ever met Dunlap he was asked his opinion of Dunlap’s painting of “Death on the Pale Horse,” then on public exhibition. He replied: “It’s a strong work, but looks as if it were painted by a man with but one eye.” This remark was reported to Dunlap, who actually had but one eye. He was mortally offended at the sculptor’s insight, and became his undying enemy. Browere wrote to the Academy as follows:

No formal action is known to have been taken upon this communication; but the antagonism plainly evident as existing between the new Academy of Design and the old Academy of the Fine Arts, forms a lively chapter in the history of American art. Full particulars of the strife are given in Dunlap’s book and in Cummings’s “Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design.” But these accounts are from biased adherents of the new institution and bitter opponents of the old, so that, for a brief but philosophical and judicial consideration of the subject, one must turn to John Durand’s sketch of Colonel Trumbull in the “American Art Review” for 1880.

Browere died, after only a few hours’ illness, of cholera; and it is pathetic to picture the disappointed sculptor, on his deathbed, directing, as he did, that the heads should be sawed off the most important busts, and boxed up for forty years, at the end of which period he hoped their exhibition would elicit recognition for their merit and value as historical portraits from life. This directed mutilation was not made; but the busts never saw the light of day until the Centennial year, when a few of them were placed on exhibition in Philadelphia. But not being connected with the national celebration, they were a mere side-show, and were not in a position to attract attention. Indeed, the fact of their exhibition was unheralded, and has only recently become known.

Call Browere’s work what one will,—process, art, or mechanical,—the result gives the most faithful portrait possible, down to the minutest detail, the very living features of the breathing man, a likeness of the greatest historical significance and importance. A single glance will show the marked difference between Browere’s work and the ordinary life cast by the sculptor or modeller, no matter how skilful he may be. Browere’s work is real, human, lifelike, inspiring in its truthfulness, while other life masks, even the celebrated ones by Clark Mills, who made so many, are dead and heavy, almost repulsive in their lifelessness. It seems next to marvelous how he was able to preserve so wonderfully the naturalness of expression. His busts are imbued with animation; the individual character is there, so simple and direct that, next to the living man, he has preserved for us the best that we can have—a perfect facsimile. One experiences a satisfaction in contemplating these busts similar to that afforded by the reflected image of the daguerreotype. Both may be “inartistic” in the sense that the artist’s conception is wanting; but for historical human documents they outweigh all the portraits ever limned or modelled.

Browere left a wife and eight children, his second child and eldest son, Alburtis D. O. Browere, inheriting the artistic temperament of the father. He was born at Tarrytown, March 17, 1814, and died at Catskill, February 17, 1887. After his father’s death, he entered the schools of the National Academy of Design, and, in 1841, gained the first prize of $100, in competition with twenty-four others, for his picture of “Canonicus Treating with the English,” as detailed in Thatcher’s “Lives of the Indians.” Previous to this, when only eighteen years old, he was awarded a silver medal, by the American Institute in New York, “for the best original oil painting,” the title of which has been forgotten. He painted several pictures with Rip Van Winkle as the subject, and among his contemporaries and friends was highly appreciated as an artist and as a man. He went to California soon after the opening to the east of that El Dorado, where he remained several years, painting many pictures of mining scenes. It was he who added the draperies to the busts made from his father’s life masks—an addition much to be regretted; but, on the other hand, it was his filial reverence that preserved these invaluable human documents, and has permitted us to see and know how many of the great characters who have gone before really appeared in the flesh, how they actually looked when they lived and moved and had their being.

IV

The Captors of André

It required more than a generation for any voice to let itself be heard questioning the sincerity and patriotism of the three

lads who brought André to justice. And then it was the voice of only one man, Colonel Tallmadge, who had come under André’s winsome fascinations, while acting as officer of the guard over the unfortunate spy from his capture to his execution. The occasion for the unworthy onslaught of Tallmadge, was a resolution offered in the House of Representatives, at Washington, to increase the beggarly pension of $200 per annum, awarded, with a silver medal, by the Continental Congress, to each of the three,—Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart. Tallmadge opposed it, not upon the ground that these men had not done the deed history accords to them and thereby possibly saved the new nation, but because André, the captured spy, while in captivity, had told his keeper that they deceived him into believing they were British soldiers, and when he found they were not, but were American militiamen and he their prisoner, he could have bought his freedom if he had been weighted down with gold. Suppose this story of André, as retailed by Tallmadge, thirty-seven years after the happening of the event, is accepted at its fullest value—what does it signify? At best it is a mere surmise, hardly even the expression of an opinion; and that it was baseless is shown most emphatically by the express denial of each one of the captors, under oath, when Tallmadge made his ill-judged and unpatriotic charge. British gold was ever present during the Revolution to debauch patriots and make them traitors, acting upon the doctrine of Sir Robert Walpole, that every man has his price; therefore André surmised that three ragged, unpaid, militiamen would easily have yielded could they have seen the yellow glitter; but subsequent events clearly disprove that the prisoner could have bought his freedom.

The fact is, such a halo of romance and supposed chivalry has garlanded itself over André, owing to his youth and charming personality, that the best judgments are warped and influenced, in his favor, when they take up a consideration of his unhappy fate. Yet his case was an aggravated one. He entered upon the errand of a spy with his eyes wide open to its dangers and its consequences. He was taken red-handed, and suffered the penalty of his daring, after a trial, not by his peers, but by his superiors. His suppliant plea that he was unwittingly betrayed within our lines by the very man with whom he knew he was holding unlawful communication, and that he should be protected by the word and passes of the traitor Arnold, are pathetic in their puerility; yet his cause has not failed of advocates upon this plea. After all, it is merely the settling of a sentimental point in history, and the consensus of opinion is that André suffered justly and that posterity should “repeat with reverence the names of Van Wart, Paulding, and Williams.”

The truth is, there is too much unnecessary iconoclasm abroad in regard to historic characters. Where false reputations have been built upon foundations laid by others, or impinge upon the honor due to another, it is meet and right that they should be exposed and honor be given to whom honor is due. But there is no such condition here; it is a mere attempt to tarnish one of the most important acts of the American Revolution in its far-reaching consequences, so that it shall be deprived of some of its brilliancy. On the present question we can do no better than accept the judgment of Washington—a man never carried away by his feelings, but always calm, judicial, and just. He wrote to Congress: “I do not know the party that took Major André, but it is said that it consisted only of a few militia, who acted in such a manner upon the occasion as does them the highest honor and proves them to be men of great virtue. As soon as I know their names I shall take pleasure in transmitting them to Congress.” And later, in forwarding the proceedings of the Board of War, to Congress, he writes: “I have now the pleasure to communicate the names of the three persons who captured Major André and who refused to release him notwithstanding the most earnest importunities and assurances of a liberal reward on his part. Their names are John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart.”

The master spirit of the three captors seems to have been John Paulding, who was the first of them to die, as also the first to have his mask taken by Browere. Indeed, his bust is from the earliest mask we have that Browere made, and is inscribed by the sculptor: “Made 1821 from the mould made in 1817.” The latter was the year of the Tallmadge episode, and Paulding, when in New York in connection with that affair, was taken, by Alderman Percy Van Wyck, to Browere’s house at No. 315 Broadway, where the life mask was made.

The attempt has also been made to throw discredit upon the service of the captors of André by underestimating their social position in the community in which they lived. This absurd but too common practice in a democracy like ours, where all men are supposed to be equal, can cut no figure here; for whatever may have been the station in life of Williams and Van Wart, who were kinsmen (the latter’s mother and the former’s father having been brother and sister), Paulding belonged to a family of consideration in his native State.

John Paulding was born in New York city in 1758, and died in Staatsburg, Dutchess county, New York, February 18, 1818. His brother, William Paulding, represented Suffolk county in the first provincial congress that met in New York city, May 23, 1775; was a member of the New York Committee of Safety, and commissary-general of the State troops. He, himself, served throughout the war of the Revolution, and was three times taken prisoner by the British, having escaped from his second capture only a few days before the adventure with André. His unswerving patriotism is therefore

established by his personal service. Paulding was the one who actually made the arrest by seizing the bridle of André’s horse, and he was the leader and spokesman on the occasion. Nearly a decade after his death, the corporation of the city of New York caused a monument to be erected over his grave, at Peekskill, when his nephew, William Paulding, then Mayor of New York, made the dedicatory address. Rear-Admiral Hiram Paulding—who, at the time of his death, October 20, 1878, was senior officer in the United States navy—was his son, and Commander Leonard Paulding, who commanded the St. Louis, the first ironclad vessel in the United States navy, in the war of the rebellion, was his grandson; while James Kirke Paulding, the collaborateur of Washington Irving, in the Salmagundi papers, and Secretary of the Navy under President Van Buren, was his nephew. Surely this brief family history is sufficient to set at rest any ridiculous squabbling as to his respectability and position in the community. He very possibly wore the stigma of poverty, in which case his refusal to release André, “notwithstanding the most earnest importunities and assurances of a liberal reward,” only emphasizes him to have been, in the words of Washington, a man of “great virtue.”

Isaac Van Wart, who next followed Paulding to the grave, died at Mount Pleasant, New York, on May 23, 1828, having been born, in Greenburg, sixty-eight years before. He was the youngest of the three captors. Van Wart was a West Chester farmer, and a staunch adherent to the cause of his country; and there is no more reason to throw doubt upon the purity of his motives in the great affair of his life than upon the motives of Paulding, which are beyond questioning. His social position also seems to be established by the fact, that he was a brother of Abraham Van Wart, Adjutant in the Continental line, whose son Henry married the youngest sister of Washington Irving. Van Wart’s mask was made by Browere at Tarrytown in 1826, and until its discovery by the writer there was no likeness of him known to be in existence.

David Williams, the eldest and the last survivor of the three, was born in Tarrytown, October 21, 1754, dying near Livingstonville, August 2, 1831. He served under Montgomery in the expedition to Canada, and remained actively in the service until disabled by frozen feet. Many of the details of the capture of André that we have, are from Williams’s sworn statement, made on the day following, when everything was perfectly fresh in his mind. He passed the closing years of his life on a farm in the Catskills, that had belonged to the leader of Shays’s rebellion, and it is still in the occupancy of Williams’s descendants. A monument has been erected to his memory, by the State of New York, near Schoharie Court House.

Browere had great trouble in securing Williams’s mask.

Twice he went by sloop and on foot for this purpose to the latter’s home at Schoharie, only to find the veteran absent. Finally, in 1829, Williams visited General Delavan, at Peekskill, and sent Browere word, whereupon the artist went thither and took the mask, the only portrait extant of the sturdy patriot.

Therefore to Browere’s art,—or “process,” whichever one pleases,—we owe, among other causes for congratulation, the possession of the only authenticated likenesses of Paulding, Williams and Van Wart, the three pure and unyielding patriots who captured the unfortunate André, and who, “leaning only on their virtue and an honest sense of their duty, could not be tempted by gold.” Thereby they saved Washington and his army from capture, and possibly preserved the infant nation from a return to servitude. Each one of them received the thanks of Congress, and from the State of New York a two-hundred-acre farm. “Vincit amor patriæ.”

V

Discovery of the Life Mask of Jefferson

I HAD been familiar, for years, with the tragic story told by Henry S. Randall, in his ponderous life of President Jefferson,[2] of how the venerated sage of Monticello, within a year of his decease, was nearly suffocated, by “an artist from New York,” by name Browere, who had attempted to take a mask of his living features; and how, in fear of bodily harm from the ex-President’s irate black body-servant, “the artist shattered his cast in an instant,” and was glad to depart quickly with the fragments which he was permitted to pick up.

This unvarnished tale, copied word for word, was put into the mouth of Clark Mills, the sculptor, by Ben Perley Poore, and published by him, some years later, under the caption of “Jefferson’s Danger.” With these statements fixed in my mind, I came across, while searching for information anent my article on the “Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson,”[3] a letter from James Madison to Henry D. Gilpin, written October 25, 1827, in which Madison writes, respecting Jefferson’s appearance, “Browere’s bust in plaster, from his mode of taking it, will probably show a perfect likeness.”[4]

I was struck by the utter inconsistency of Randall’s circumstantial account of the shattered cast, picked up in fragments, with Madison’s pointed observations upon “Browere’s bust,” as being in existence fifteen months after Jefferson’s death.

The latter directly negatived the former.

This made it both interesting and important to ascertain the exact status of the subject, by tracing it to and from the fountain source, a task I found comparatively easy through the calendars of Jefferson and Madison Papers, in the State Department, at Washington. From an examination of these manuscripts, together with the newspapers of the time, it was clearly to be seen that Mr. Randall’s method of writing history, was to accept and repeat irresponsible country gossip, rather than to turn to documents at his hand, that would explain and refute the gossip.

The existence at one time of the bust of Jefferson, from Browere’s life mask, being thus established, the next and more difficult quest was to discover its whereabouts, if still extant. I instituted a systematic search, that gained for me among my friends the sobriquet of Sherlock Holmes, and my persistency was finally rewarded not only by the discovery of this bust of Jefferson, but also of all the other busts that had remained in Browere’s possession at the time of his death. They were in the custody of a granddaughter of the artist, on a farm near Rome, New York.

The positive statement of Randall, frequently repeated by others, the last time unequivocally by Mr. Laurence Hutton, in his “Portraits in Plaster,” that Browere’s mask from Jefferson’s face was destroyed, and the indisputable fact that the bust from the perfect mask exists and is here reproduced, cause the incidents connected with the taking of this original life mask, to have an importance that justifies recording them at length, so that there may remain no possibility for further question or doubt on the subject. My authorities are Jefferson, Madison and Browere, as preserved in their own autographs, in the State Department, at Washington.

Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 and died in 1826, on the semi-centennial of the adoption of the immortal instrument of which he is the recognized father. Through the intercession of President Madison, his friend, neighbor and successor in the chair of state, Jefferson consented, in Browere’s words, “to submit to the ordeal of my new and perfect mode of taking the human features and form.” For this purpose Browere visited Monticello, on the fifteenth of October, 1825. At this time Jefferson was eighty-two years of age and was suffering the infirmities incident to his advanced years. During the operation, he was attended by his faithful man-servant Burwell, who prepared him for “the ordeal,” by removing all of his clothing to the waist, excepting his undershirt, from which the sleeves were cut. He was then placed on his back, and the material applied down to the waist, including both arms folded across the body. The entire procedure lasted ninety minutes, with rests every ten or fifteen minutes, during which rests Jefferson got up and walked about. The material was on Jefferson’s face for eighteen minutes, and the whole of the mould of his features was removed therefrom in three minutes. This was accomplished before the alarmed entrance of his granddaughters, the Misses Randolph, into the room. They were brought there by their brother, who had been peeping in at the window, and begging for admission, which was denied him. It was the exaggerated report of what young Randolph thought he saw, that induced the sudden entrance of his sisters, and this report found its way subsequently into the local newspapers of Virginia, with the remarkable result indicated.

The intrusion of the Randolphs into the room caused delay in removing other parts of the mould, and this did cause the venerable subject to feel a little faint and to experience some other discomforts. But Browere remained at Monticello overnight, dining with Jefferson and the Randolphs, and chatting with his host through the evening until bed-time, which would scarcely have been the case had the artist nearly suffocated and otherwise maltreated his subject, so that for his safety, the cast had to be shattered to pieces. But we do not have to speculate and surmise. We have direct and unimpeachable proof to the contrary.

The very day on which, according to Randall and his followers, the “suffocation” and “shattering” took place, Jefferson wrote:

Four days later President Madison, who, with his wife, was Browere’s next subject, writes: “A bust of Mr. Jefferson, taken by Mr. Browere from the person of Mr. Jefferson, has been submitted to our inspection and appears to be a faithful likeness.” That Jefferson did suffer some inconvenience, from the application of the wet material, is undeniable. Three

days after the taking of the mould he wrote to Madison: “I was taken in by Mr. Browere. He said his operation would be of about twenty minutes and less unpleasant than Houdon’s method. I submitted without enquiry. But it was a bold experiment, on his part, on the health of an octogenary worn down by sickness as well as age. Successive coats of thin grout plastered on the naked head and kept there an hour, would have been a severe trial of a young and hale man.”

But the newspapers had gotten hold of the “suffocation” and “shattering” story, and any one familiar with the newspapers of that day knows what a scarcity of news there was. Therefore the press over the land laid the Virginia papers tribute for this bit of sensationalism. Richmond, Boston and New York vied with each other in keeping the ball moving. But “those teachers of disjointed thinking,” as Dr. Rush called the public press, were getting too rabid for Browere, so he published, in the Boston “Daily Advertiser” of November 30, 1825, a two-column letter, in which he calls the attack by the “Richmond Enquirer,” the most virulent of his assailants, “a libel false in almost all its parts and which I am now determined to prove so by laying before the public every circumstance relating to that operation on our revered ex-president, Thomas Jefferson.”

A copy of this published letter Browere sent to Jefferson under cover of the following important but effusive epistle:

This communication Jefferson acknowledged, within a month of his decease, in a letter of such ruling importance in this connection, as it settles the question forever, that I am glad of the opportunity to publish it in full.

Notwithstanding this “very kind and consolatory letter,” as Browere had good reason to call it, the report that the venerable Jefferson had been nearly suffocated and otherwise maltreated by the artist, was so widely circulated that Browere’s career was seriously affected by it; and so much easier is it to disseminate error than truth, that his hopes were not fulfilled that the publication of Jefferson’s letter would, as he wrote to Madison, “in some manner turn the current of popular prejudice, which at present is great against my modus operandi.”

In acknowledging Jefferson’s letter of the 6th, Browere writes concerning the statue: “On the very day of the receipt of yours, the 13th inst., I had completed your full length statue (nudity) and to-morrow I intend, if spared, to commence dressing it in the costume you wore at the time of your delivery of the Declaration of American Independence. Understanding that your dress corresponded with that of Mr. Laurens, President of Congress in 1778, I have commenced the suit. But if Mr. Jefferson would condescend to give a full and explicit account of the form and colour of his dress, at that very interesting period, he will be conferring a particular favor on me and on the whole American Nation. Dispatch in forwarding the same will be pleasing to the Honorable the Common Council of New York, for whom I am preparing your statue for the 4th of July, 1826.”

An examination of such of the New York newspapers of the period as could be found, fails to reveal any mention of this remarkable, colored and habited, statue of Jefferson, our whole knowledge of which is derived from the letters of the artist. It would seem to have belonged to the Eden Musée variety of freaks, from Browere’s own description of it. Here is what he writes to Madison from New York, July 17, 1826: “You are aware that two months ago I tendered to the Common Council of New York, my services and those of my son to complete a full length figure or statue of Jefferson. The memorial was unanimously accepted and referred to the Committee on Arts and Sciences, who would superintend its being placed in the Banqueting Room of the Common Council, on the approaching anniversary or jubilee. Without money and without power I was enabled in five weeks of unremitting exertions, to finish and place it in the Hall, exactly at the hour of the dissolution of Mr. Jefferson.” It may not be unamusing to read a description of his statue in the City Hall banqueting-room.

“His lofty and majestic figure standing erect; his mild blue and expressive eyes beaming with intelligence and good will to his fellow men. The scroll of the Declaration, which gave freedom to millions, clutched in his extended right hand, strongly contrasted with the decrepitude of his elder associate, the venerable John Adams, gave an effect to the whole which will not ever be forgotten here. His left hand resting on the hip, gave a carelessness yet dignified ease that pleased thousands. On his right hand was the portrait bust of the venerable Charles Carroll of Carrollton, like that of Adams, clothed with white drapery. Beside and behind these figures were placed various flowers and shrubbery. Immediately over the head of the author of the Declaration of American Independence hovered the American Eagle; a civic crown suspending from his beak was ready to drop on the temples and crown with immortal honors the wisest and best of men. His likeness is perfect. If the congratulations of Governor De Witt Clinton, His Honor the Mayor, the City authorities of New York and the general mass of reputable lives, can affix the seal of truth in likeness, rest assured the beloved features will not soon be forgotten.

“Now should the University of Virginia desire to erect in marble or bronze a statue to the memory of its founder be pleased, Sir, to note that I will be ready at all times to complete such a work. Moreover that, should appropriate funds at this period be lacking, it matters not: I will furnish one and await the pleasure of the institution for pecuniary emolument. All that would be required at first, would be a sufficiency to defray actual expenditures for materials and the indispensable requisites to the support of my young family. Should this proposition meet the approval of the visitors of the Virginia University and the citizens at large, a satisfactory answer will meet with my cordial thanks.”

Evidently the University of Virginia did not accept Browere’s proposition, as the only statue of its founder and architect, now to be seen there is an extremely bad one by a sculptor named Galt; and no trace of Browere’s curious work has up to the present time been found. Save for the truth of history, silence concerning it would seem to have been most expedient for Browere’s reputation as a serious artist.

Surely this story is as interesting as a romance, and but for fiction it might never have been told. How dare any man assume to write history and set down on his pages such statements, as did Randall about Browere’s mask of the living Jefferson, without first exhausting every channel of inquiry and every means of search and research to ascertain the truth? The material that I have drawn from was as accessible to Mr. Randall as it has been to me; in fact, he claims to have used the Jefferson papers in his compilation. It is true we have acquired more exact and scientific methods of writing history than were in vogue when Randall wrote, a generation or more ago. Yet this will not excuse his positive misstatements and false assumptions. The existence of an opportunity for such severe criticism only serves to emphasize the great necessity of observing the inflexible rule: take nothing for granted and nothing at second hand, without the most careful investigation and scrutiny. If the standard of life’s ordinary action should be the precept “Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well,” with what intensified force does it apply to the writing of history! Pains, infinite pains, are the requisites for good work. Nothing meritorious is ever accomplished without hard labor. Toil conquers everything; without it, the result is at best uncertain. While it is some gratification to have set wrong right and done tardy justice to Browere’s reputation, it is a far greater satisfaction to have rescued from oblivion and presented to the world his magnificent facsimile of the face and form of Thomas Jefferson.

VI

Three Generations of Adamses

THE allied families of Adams and Quincy are the only instances in this country, that present themselves to my mind, of hereditary ability manifesting itself and being recognized in the public service, for three and more generations. The Quincy family has done its work in local and more narrow spheres than the Adamses; yet Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Boston Port Bill fame, and his son, bearing the same name, who for so many years was at the head of Harvard University, have had a wide field for the spread of their influence. But the Adams family is the only one that has given father and son to the Presidential chair, and father, son and grandson to the English mission. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family connected with missions to England and treaties with that power, is most curious. John Adams, just

after having served as a commissioner to arrange the treaty of peace that concluded the Revolutionary War, was made minister to the court of St. James; his son John Quincy Adams, immediately after signing the treaty of Ghent, that concluded the war of 1812-15, was appointed minister to the same court; and his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, minister to England during the entire Civil War, took part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question.

John Adams was born in 1735 and died in 1826. The coincidences in his career, parallel with events in the career of Jefferson, are very remarkable. They were both on the committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence; they both signed that American Magna Charta; they both represented this country in France; they both became successively Vice-President and then President of these United States, being the only signers of the Declaration of Independence thus elevated to the chair of state; and they both died, within a few hours of each other, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Is it possible that more curious historical parallels can be found in the lives of any two men?

From Monticello, the home of Jefferson, Browere journeyed to Quincy, the home of Adams, in order to secure a mask of the face of the distinguished nonagenarian. But the Virginian story of the maltreatment of Jefferson had gotten there before him, and it was with difficulty that Browere could persuade Mr. Adams to submit. However, the old Spartan finally yielded, and submitted not only once but twice, as appears by his certificate: