Hezekiah Augur was born on February 21, 1791 in New Haven, Connecticut, United States to Hezekiah Augur and his second wife, Lydia Atwater.
The father was a house carpenter and joiner in New Haven, where the young Hezekiah was born. The boy learned to use his father's tools and early devised various machines, but his father was unwilling to have him continue his own trade and apprenticed him, at nine years old, to a grocer.
Augur was set to learn the apothecary's trade. To qualify he had to study anatomy and this, though he continued it only one year, was of use to him later on. Augur also learned his trade as a woodcarver, carving table legs and other furniture ornament.
At sixteen he was placed, as clerk, in a mercantile house and at nineteen he became acting partner in a business concern.
A few years later he became a partner in a dry-goods business of which he acted as sole manager. He came successfully through the difficult business years of 1815 and 1816, but in December of the latter year, as the result of a misunderstanding, the partnership was dissolved and Augur found himself a bankrupt.
Not only did he find that his original capital had disappeared but also that, for some inexplicable reason, he was in debt as well. His father and some of his relatives became indebted for him. This financial catastrophe preyed upon him and he became somewhat of a recluse; for many years his one desire was to free himself from a situation for which he was not to blame.
At first he assisted his father, but after four or five months borrowed $200 and set up a small fruit and cigar stand which he kept for about two years. Previously he had carved the frame of a harp and when he had taken it to be varnished it had attracted sufficient attention to encourage him to continue, so after he had sold his fruit stand he opened a carving establishment.
His business grew and he soon added mirrors to his output. From this period came one of his numerous inventions, an improvement on the artificial leg.
After having relieved his relatives by annual payments from their indebtedness for him, he was at last able, in 1823, to make a final settlement with his former partner. It required, however, the selling of his mirror establishment and left him in somewhat straitened circumstances.
In this same year he began, at the suggestion of S. F. B. Morse, to carve in marble the head of the Apollo Belvedere. It was finished the following year and was much praised at the time.
Since his father had died in 1818 he now felt free to follow his own bent and continued to interest himself in sculpture. He did a head of George Washington and a Sappho. One of the few public commissions he received was for the bust of Oliver Ellsworth in the Supreme Court room in the Capitol at Washington.
Another of his early works is the bust of Prof. Alexander M. Fisher, made in 1827 and presented to Yale College by members of the professor's class. Though carved in marble it shows the technique of wood-carving.
Another bust, an idealized subject, called "Resignation, " is now in the possession of a member of his family in Portland, Ore. His principal work, "Jephthah and His Daughter, " consists of two separate small statues. Though executed sometime in the thirties, they still recall the technique of the wood-carver, particularly in the folds of the drapery.
After its completion, sometime before the end of 1837, the group was acquired by the Trumbull Gallery at Yale. Previously the college had, in 1833, bestowed upon the sculptor the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Up to the year 1837 Augur had been living with his mother and sister, but after the death of the former in that year he moved into bachelor quarters.
The following year he was commissioned to design the bronze medals for the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of New Haven. According to his diary, he made, in 1840, a monument for Miss Ogden, but all trace of it has apparently disappeared.
His sculpture, however, seems not to have been very remunerative, for in 1845 he was forced to sell his effects at auction. Among the items sold of which all trace has been lost were an Apollo and a Washington in marble, probably the ones previously mentioned, a Franklin and a "Sleeping Cupid. "
It was a disheartening period for Augur. In his diary he speaks of a single ray of light, which refers possibly to a carving machine which he perfected at about this time. He patented it and became a member of a company for exploiting it in New England.
It was perhaps the most important of his various inventions, among which were a machine for making worsted lace, and the bracket-saw.
His financial difficulties seem to have emphasized his somewhat reserved and unassuming manners. They likewise prevented him, except at rare intervals, from indulging his fastidious taste in dress.
Member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He was a small man and in stature resembled his mother's family. In features he is said to have resembled portraits of Jefferson. He had to face many obstacles in his career as sculptor, but his accomplishment is praiseworthy and, though exercising no influence, he was an interesting figure in early American sculpture.
There are no records of his own family. Presumably, he had never had a wife or children.
