It is not often that one has the opportunity to acquire a miniature portrait of an important sitter by an important artist of the period. This miniature is signed "G S Hayward 1885" for Gerald Sinclair Hayward (1845-1926), one of few miniature painters active in America in the late 19C.
Hayward was born in Port Hope Ontario, but spent much time in New York and in Britain, Germany, and Russia, where he painted many notables.There is one other miniature by him in this collection, of a Mrs Osborn, painted in 1922, 37 years later; 20C - American Miniature Portraits: Hayward, Gerald Sinclair ... There is one miniature by him in the Smithsonian.
Archives Canada outlines his career, his mother being;
"Caroline (Bartlett) Hayward (act. 1845/46) the wife of Captain Alfred Hayward. They lived at Ravenscroft between Port Hope and Cobourg and also near Rice Lake, Ontario. She was an artist who is known for her drawings, and prints after her sketches of Rice Lake. She also wrote and published poetry. Two sons, Gerald Sinclair Hayward (1845-1926) and Alfred Frederick William Hayward (1856-1939) were also artists born in Port Hope, Ontario. Her son Gerald Hayward was occupied in railroading and farming during his youth; served with the 10th Royals in the Fenian Raids in 1866; studied painting in England in 1870 where he painted principally as a miniaturist; he married Sophia Cawley, of Jersey; and later lived in New York and Boston with a summer home at Gore's Landing in Ontario 1904-08, where he died in 1926. He also painted watercolours in the Rice Lake district. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.The exhibition of his miniatures in New York in 1889 is said to have revived interest in the art in the United States. He painted portraits of English royalty and aristocracy and important statesmen in the United States and Canada. His brother Alfred Frederick William emigrated to England in 1875 and remained there except for trips to Canada coinciding with exhibitions. He painted portraits and later flower studies and still lifes and interiors. His wife Edith (active 1866-1929) was also an artist who painted watercolours in the Rice Lake area."
The sitter, the author John Gardner Perry (1840-1926) is equally distinguished in American history. He is identified by a note inside the miniature and by comparison with a photograph of him taken in March 1864 in his Union Army uniform. The note reads "Doctor John Gardner Perry brother of Elizabeth F Bowditch & left to John Perry Bowditch in 1928". The miniature is in good condition, although with minor flaking of his eyes.
Born – 22 January 1840, Suffolk at Boston, Mass.
Died – 1 December, 1926, Boston, Mass. of coronary sclerosis
His parents were Marshall Sears Perry (1805-1859) and Abby Stimson (1816-1857). He married - Martha Derby Rogers in 1864 [probably in Mass.] Her parents were John Rogers and Sarah Ellen Derby.
Perry was educated at Harvard Medical School, Boston 1863 and became a surgeon in New York in 1863, before enlisting in the army as an assistant surgeon. While in the army he badly broke his leg in a fall from his horse and was told by another surgeon that it needed to be amputated. He said no to the Surgeon and signed his own discharge papers to travel home. When he arrived home, there was no one to set his leg, so he set it himself with the help of his brother in law.
After he had partially recovered and completed his medical degree, he returned to active duty on crutches. On his arrival he was required to be inspected by the surgeon-general, so he hid his crutches under the stairs, and managed with great difficulty to walk across the room without them. Perry was commissioned an officer in Company S, Massachusetts 20th, Infantry Regiment, 14 April 1863 and mustered out, on or about 10 August 1864. A fellow surgeon in the 20th Massachusetts was named Hayward and may have been a relative of G S Hayward.
He returned to medicine after the Civil War and walked on his leg until his death in 1926. The Perry’s lived in Boston at least until 1864 then moved to Manhattan. The 1870 census shows them in New York Ward 21, District 17, New York, New York. There is an entry for a Nellie Perry, age 4, born about 1866 residing with them. I would assume that Nellie was a daughter but there is no other information about her nor does she appear in the 1880 or 1900 census reports.
An Ellen Derby Perry, 6 December 1835 – 22 November 1876, appears as a daughter to John and Martha in a genealogical search of the Salem/Nantucket Gardners and Cousins. A search in Ellen’s name indicates she never married. She does not appear in the 1880 census report. The 1880 census has the Perry’s still living in New York City [Manhattan] and shows four domestics, so he was obviously successful.
John was issued a passport on 11 June 1888, age 48, no photo. There is no record of his travel other than an entry noting his return from Genoa, Italy aboard the liner SS Konig Albert [North German Lloyd Lines] on 20 September 1912. The 1900 census shows them renting a farmhouse at 48 East 34th. Street, Manhattan. John is 60, Martha is 59. The census shows three domestics living with them.
Perry is famous for a book published in 1906, which recounts his experiences during the Civil War, as included in letters to his wife.The full book is available to read at Letters from a Surgeon of the Civil War : John Gardner Perry ... and Read Online
Martha arranged the letters for publication and wrote in the Introduction;
"In a much weather-beaten trunk, which since the Civil War has travelled from one attic to another, have been carefully preserved a pair of shoulder-straps, a silver trefoil (the badge of the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac), a green military sash, a well-worn workbag, in which is still a big darning-needle with its half-used thread, numerous photographs of officers and localities, and a mass of letters.
From the end of the war until the present time these letters have remained unopened, and as the contents are mixed with much which is personal, it seems best to separate the war news from the rest and preserve it in a connected form which may prove of interest to the general reader.
John G. Perry of Boston, Mass., entered Harvard College in 1858, bearing with him a very youthful attachment; and in the undoubting judgement of youth, he and I, but boy and girl, in light-hearted gayety strolled one evening in the moonlight to consider the unsupportable length of time before living our lives together. First the present college term; then the Medical School and hospital service after, for even in childhood John was called "the little doctor".
How indefinite it all seemed, — how far, and away the future! So we wandered on, regardless of all possible interference in our joy of life, and finally decided with but little, or I may say, No! hesitation, that the college life, then but a few months advanced, must be abandoned and the Scientific School offering shorter terms and collateral studies, adopted — for even then the medical course must follow. This was insurmountable; and thus it was that the plan of action agreed upon by both was taken and earnestly continued until the spring of 1862, when the Government issued a call for volunteer contract assistant surgeons to serve in the military hospitals, to thus avoid detaching the commissioned assistant surgeons, who were needed on the fields of battle, from their respective regiments. The medical student in general belonged to the class best adapted to this service, and as it exactly fitted the needs of this particular one, he made application and was accepted."
There is now glamour associated with the memory and the re-enactments of the Civil War, but Perry's letters reveal the true horrors associated with it. On July 3rd, 1862 he recorded, "A thousand wounded men arrived at the fort tonight, and tomorrow we shall probably have five hundred more. The work is endless."
The horrors were not limited to the battlefield. Martha Perry reports on the New York Riot of July 1863. "The disturbance was due to the draft made necessary by the dearth of volunteers, and also to the fear amongst the Irish that the negroes at the South would come North and crowd them out of their work."
The 1863 riot continued for several days and Martha also wrote of it, "The next day was a fearful one. Men, both colored and white, were murdered within two blocks of us, some being hung to the nearest lamp-post and others shot. An army officer was walking in the street near our house, when a rioter was seen to kneel on the sidewalk, take aim, fire, kill him and coolly start on his way unmolested. ... The next morning's news was that the rioters were murdering the colored people wherever found, and there was no limit to the atrocities committed against them. ... Men and women passed with all sorts of valuables taken from plundered houses. ... At the police station my brother was told that, through one of the detectives who had been working in our street all the morning, they had learned that their station and also our house, with the one opposite, were to be attacked and burned that night, all being in close proximity. The police had been already plundered of most of their firearms, and needed all their force to defend themselves. They could do literally nothing for us, but recommended barricading the front entrance to the house as best we could."
Perry's letters are recommended to visitors here, with his style easy to read. 1428
1 comment:
I am related to Gerald S Hayward and even have a old photograph of him stored in my house. :)
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