Description:
Daguerreotype of Betsy Hale Colton (1791-1865) showing an elderly woman with her hair parted in the middle, wearing spectacles and a brooch in its original wooden frame, which along with the matching picture of her husband Richard Colton (HD 2008.6.5) descended in the Colton family of Northfield. There is a handwritten label reading, "Betsy Hale Colton / wife of Richard Colton / Born April 14, 1791 / Died Nov. 2, 1865." The son of Isaac Colton (1760-1803) and Elizabeth Calkins Colton (d.1811), Richard Colton (1787-1872) was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts; married Betsy Hal of Enfield, Connecticut, in 1808; and moved to Northfield. Mass., in 1811. Richard was a plow and wagon maker, skilled surveyor, and active in civil affairs as a Northfield selectman, Representative in the Legislature in 1827, Justice of the Peace and County Commissioner. Richard and Betsy had six children: 1. Eli Hale (1809-1882) who married Cynthia Terry (1813-1889) of Enfield in 1838; 2. Eliza (1811-1891) who married George Alexander (1805-1887) of Northfield in 1834; 3. Amanda M. (1814-1899) who married Charles Alexander (1810-1892) of Northfield in 1845; 4. Alonzo (1816-1890) who married Sophronia Brewster (1821-1901) of South Hanson, Mass., in 1852, and moved to Hanson; 5. Edwin Williams (1831-1862) who married Mary S. Newton in 1860; and Edwin's twin brother, 6. Edward Wells (1831-1887) who married Susan Maxwell Heard (1837-1874) in 1861, and Fanny Matilda Warriner (1838-1917) of Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1877. The Colton family also had hand-colored versions of these two pictures (HD 2008.25.11-.12)
Tags:
portraits Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2008.6.6 |
