(Originally published in 1890. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1890. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
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Chester Harding was born on September 1, 1792, at Conway, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Abiel and Olive (Smith) Harding. The father wras agreeable, moral, but shiftless, working at perpetual-motion machines while the mother struggled to keep the children decent.
Chester, with almost no schooling, began work at the age of twelve. In 1806 the family moved to Madison County, New York, then unbroken wilderness, where the boys helped the father with a clearing and learned to make chairs.
The War of 1812 arousing patriotic fervor, Chester enlisted as a drummer and almost died of dysentery at Sacketts Harbor. Discharged from the service, he made his way, thinly clad and suffering frightfully, to his parents’ home. He obtained a contract to manufacture drums for the army and, after the war, undertook general cabinet making at Caledonia, New York. Opening a tavern, he “paid off some old debts by making new ones. ” Threatened with imprisonment, he fled the town, leaving his wife and new-born baby, and worked his passage on a raft down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh. He obtained work as a house-painter, saved a few dollars, tramped back to Caledonia, brought his family away secretly, and rafted them to Pittsburgh, where they arrived penniless.
On the verge of starvation, Harding was advised by a barber to open a sign-painter’s shop. He borrowed twenty dollars, bought paints and gold leaf, and began to solicit orders. He soon was working in his own busy shop. An itinerant portrait painter named Nelson made Harding’s and his wife’s likenesses at ten dollars each. Fascinated by the possibilities of this art, the young sign-painter set a palette with the pigments of his trade and did a head of Mrs. Harding which so nearly resembled her that he became “frantic with delight. ” A journeyman baker soon after offered him five dollars for a portrait and started him on his career.
Chester’s brother Horace, a chair-maker, had meanwhile established himself at Paris, Kentucky, and on his urgence the artist moved his family down the Ohio, again on a raft, and opened a studio adjacent to Horace’s shop. He made many portraits at twenty-five dollars, then considered a large price, and began to have aspirations, not having previously thought of portraiture as “more honorable or profitable than sign painting. ” Having saved some money, he went to Philadelphia where he drew for two months at the Academy. Returning to Kentucky, he found a panic in progress. As sitters were unobtainable, he went to St. Louis with a letter of introduction to Governor Clark, whom he painted. Fifteen months of success followed. Harding at this time made a long trip to paint Daniel Boone in his cabin.
An ambition to visit Europe now possessed him. Harding had $1, 000, a carriage and horses. With his wife and four children he drove to western New York, intending to leave his family there; but his mother, sensibly concerned by the lack of proper provision for them, persuaded him to postpone his foreign tour. He canceled passage on the Albion, which was wrecked with total loss of passengers, and spent a winter in Washington, adding to his savings. A friendship formed with Senator E. H. Mills of Massachusetts led the now prospering artist to summer at Pittsfield, where he increased his acquaintance and bank account. In the following autumn he visited Boston, “chiefly on a pilgrimage to [Gilbert] Stuart. ” He then painted at Northampton, was urged by several Bostonians to settle in their city, and presently yielded. Thus began in Boston the “Harding fever” - a term coined by Stuart, whose popularity was temporarily eclipsed. In six months Harding painted eighty portraits and acquired funds sufficient for two years abroad.
Harding left his family at Northampton and sailed for Liverpool August 1, 1823. The journal which Harding kept in England and France is the naive record of a backwoodsman who became a social lion. Harding was so charmed by British life that he determined to stay and sent for his family. This move was unfortunate because of depressed financial conditions in Great Britain and a social difficulty. The Hardings sailed for Boston in 1826 and took a house which four years later was exchanged for one at Springfield, their permanent home during the rest of the artist’s life.
The Civil War found Harding in a tragic predicament. Two of his sons fought for the Union, two for the Confederacy. His death came through his leaving Springfield in March 1866 to fish for trout at Sandwich, near Daniel Webster’s old home. He caught a severe cold and died at the Tremont House, Boston.
(Originally published in 1890. This volume from the Cornel...)
Quotations: “My profession entitled me to move in the highest circles, in which, at the same time, my wife and children would not be recognized. ”
Harding was a member of the National Academy of Design.
Of agreeable personality, striking appearance, and cultivated speech, Harding was everywhere socially popular. He was industrious and painstaking.
Quotes from others about the person
“Harding appears to have attained to respectability but nothing more. ” - Kenyon Cox
Harding was married to Caroline Woodruff.
