Description:
Framed drawing of Isaac Abercrombie (1759-1847) attributed to Caroline Negus Hildreth (1814-1867), done in crayon on paper. There is a label on the back of the farme inscribed: "Portrait of Isaac Abercrombie Sr. / Born 1759 Died 1847" and in ink on paper covering the back of the framed, "Isaac Abercrombie, son of the Rev. Robert and Maragret Stevenson Abercrombie / Born in Pelham, Mass. Sept 30 1759 / Died in Deerfield Dec. 4, 1847 / Married Martha McCullock Jany. 26, 1790." About 1830, Isaac and Martha Abercrombie (d.1837) moved to Cheapside (then part of Deerfield, not Greenfield) from Pelham, Mass., where he had been a Justice of the Peace in 1800 and a representative to the General Court in 1819. Isaac and Martha's son Asiel Abercrombie (1807-1874), a farmer and tavern keeper in Cheapside, married Elizabeth Brooks Fuller (1817-1906) in 1845; they had three children who lived: Robert (b.1846), William Hyslop (1851-1940) and Hattie Fuller (1860-1955); only Robert married - Ellen Margaret Crawford in 1873. Robert and Ellen's son, James Douglas Abercrombie (b.1878) was the father of James Douglas Abercrombie (1913-1978), husband of the donor. This portrait probably descended through Asiel (1807-1874); to Asiel's son William Hyslop; to William's nephew, James Douglas Abercrombie. This may be a posthumous portrait; based on memory; or possibly copied from an early daguerreotype. The youngest daughter of sign painter Joel Negus (d.1816) and Basmeth Negus of Petersham, Massachusetts, Caroline joined her sister Mary Angela in Deerfield in 1824 where they lived with their sister, Fanny Negus Fuller (1799-1845), the second wife of Aaron Fuller (1786-1859) who married in 1820. In the spring of 1824, Cariline attended school, possibly Deerfield Academy, and in the early 1830s attended Katherine Fiske's Female Seminary in Keene, New Hampshire, which also stressed the ornamental arts. Other artists in the families included Caroline's nephews, Fanny's stepson Augustus Fuller (1812-1873) (both briefly studied with artist Chester Harding), and Fanny's son George Fuller (1822-1884). Caroline established herself as an artist in Boston, where she exhibited at the National Academy and the Boston Athenaeum. In 1844, Caroline married the historian Richard Hildreth (1807-1865) who had been born in Deerfield, where his father Hosea Hildreth (1782-1835) was principal of Deerfield Academy, and later moved to Boston; both died in Italy where they had moved in 1860.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+85.052 |
