Description:
Framed oil painting on a pine board of a two-story house with a hip roof and two chimneys; center front door and two windows with shutters on each side of the door; bushes and trees in front; and a rail fence on the right and picket fence on the left. According to an ink inscription on a piece of tape attached to the top of the frame: "From Mrs. Hartigan / Glendale, Calif. / 11-8-67." There is also a piece of paper taped to the back: "This picture of a house in Deerfield / Belonged to Dr. Steven West Williams." The house in this painting appears to be the house pictured in McGowan and Miller's "Family & Landscape: Deerfield Homelots from 1671" on Lot 16 South, which was built by David Wells (1774-1845) in 1801 and sold to Dr. Stephen West Williams (1790-1855) in 1822; Dr. Williams expanded the house from one room deep to two rooms deep in 1823. The person identified as the donor, "Mrs. Hartigan" (Dorothy Williams Hartigan), was a descendant of Dr. Stephen West Williams who married Harriet Taylor Goodhue (1799-1874) in 1818. Harriet was the daughter of Dr. Joseph Goodhue (1762-1849) who was a doctor at Fort Constitution, N.H., and moved to Deerfield by 1822. Stephen and Harriet had four children, one of whom, Dr. Edward Jenner Williams (1823-1881), studied medicine with his father and and then moved to Laona, Illinois, where he married Orilla Nancy Webster in 1856; Edward Jenner died in Charles City, Iowa. Two of their three sons and their daughter lived to adulthood - Dr. Henry Smith Williams (1863-1943), Dr. Edward Huntington Williams (1868-1944), and Harriet Goodhue Williams Myers (1867-1949) who wrote a privately printed book (1945), "We Three, Henry, Eddie and Me: Henry Smith Williams, Edward Huntington Williams, Harriet Williams Myers." Dorothy Williams Hartigan was the daugher of Henry Smith Williams and Florence Whitney Williams, and first cousin of Helen Myers Curtis and her sister, Neva Myers Brown, who were the daughters of Harriet Williams Myers and Raymond Myers. Both Mrs. Hartigan and Mrs. Curtis gave Historic Deerfield a number of Williams/Goodhue family pieces. There is no card in either the 1967 or 1968 Year Cards files for this picture. The picture is unsigned and undated. The canvas has been attached to the board with nails; the molded frame has a hook for hanging.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2007.800 |
