Description:
Framed oil portrait of Dr. Stephen West Williams (1790-1855) by his nephew, Joseph Goodhue Chandler (1813-1884). The son of Dr. William Stoddard Williams (1762-1829), Stephen West Williams was born in Deerfield and educated at the Deerfield Academy. He initially studied medicine in his father's office and then spent a year at Columbia College, NY. Although he returned to Deerfield to practice, he was not satisfied, so besides lecturing at the Berkshire Medical Institutions, College of Physicians and Surgeons in NY, Dartmouth College in NH, and Willoughby University at Lake Erie, Ohio, he also wrote on medical and scientific studies, and then history; his sketch on the Indians of the Connecticut Valley won him honorary membership in the New York Historical Society in 1818. He also studied natural history, collected a herbarium, and compiled a record of local plants and flowers illustrated by his wife, Harriet Taylor Goodhue Williams (1799-1874). He claimed to have collected "probably the most extensive of any library in the state. His portrait was painted from a daguerrotype when he was about 50 yrs. by his nephew, Joseph Chandler, who signed it in red paint "G. Chandler" (the "J" may have been rubbed off). Labels on the back read: "Father of Caroline Williams Putnam -- Born in Deerfield, Massachusetts 1790. To be left hanging where it is in Putnam Home. Their motto 'Seek Science in her coy abode'. C. W. Putnam"; "Stephen West Williams, son of William Stoddard Williams and Mary Hoyt Williams born in Deerfield March 27, 1790 and died at Loana, Illinois July 9, 1855."; and "This portrait was painted by his nephew Joseph G. Chandler about the year 1864 from a daguerreotype taken when father was about fifty years of age. Caroline W. Putnam." Born in South Hadley, Massachusetts to Captain David Chandler (1770-1838) and Clarissa Goodhue Chandler (1788-1891), Harriet Talyor Goodhue's sister, who married in 1803, Joseph Goodhue Chandler trained early as a cabinetmaker, but later, between ages 14 and 19, travelled to Albany, NY, to study painting with Williams Collins (1787-1847) who was listed in Albany directories from 1827-1832. His earliest portraits date from about 1837, and are primarily those of famly members. In 1840, Chandler married Lucretia Ann White (1820-1868), an established painter in Hubbardson, Mass., and they likely collaborated on a number of portraits over the years. Chandler then travelled as an itinerant painter, primarily in northwestern Massachusetts, until he established a studio in Boston in 1852. The Chandlers returned to Hubbardston in 1860, where they lived and worked for the rest of their lives. The donor, Dorothy Williams Hartigan, was a descendant of Dr. Stephen West Williams who married Harriet Taylor Goodhue in 1818. Harriet was the daughter of Dr. Joseph Goodhue (1762-1849) who was a surgeon in the United States Army at Fort Constitution, N.H., for 21 years before retiring 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.
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