George Washington’s First Inauguration

“The Inauguration” by Howard Pyle, engraved by F. S. King

Today marks the 224th anniversary of George Washington’s first inauguration as president of the United States. The ceremony was held April 30, 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in the city of New York - then the new nation’s capitol.

Howard Pyle pictured this great event at least twice. He painted his first version, evidently, in the summer of 1888, not long after finishing his children’s book Otto of the Silver Hand. The black and white oil painting (about 23.5 x 16 inches) was then engraved on wood by Francis Scott King (1850-1913) and appeared in John Bach McMaster’s article “Washington’s Inauguration” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for April 1889.

At the same time the magazine was on the newsstands, Pyle’s painting was exhibited at the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington as First President of the United States at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, from April 17 to May 8, 1889. Eventually, it wound up in the hands of collector William F. Gable, then it was auctioned by Freeman’s in Philadelphia in 1932, and ultimately it wound up at The Mint Museum, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

“The Inauguration” by Howard Pyle, via The Mint Museum

About a dozen years later, Pyle revisited the scene, ostensibly for Woodrow Wilson’s “Colonies and Nations,” then being serialized - and accompanied by 21 Pyle pictures - in Harper’s Monthly Magazine. In a March 28, 1901, letter to Wilson, Pyle suggested it as an illustration and explained: “I have already made an illustration for it for McMaster’s article, but I think I could represent the street in front of the old State House, a crowd of people and Washington on the balcony.”

Wilson approved of the idea and Pyle likely painted it sometime in April or May. For some unknown reason, however, it wasn’t reproduced in the magazine; rather, it appeared in the expanded, book version of Wilson’s articles, titled A History of the American People, published by Harper and Brothers in October 1902. Pyle’s black and white oil (23.5 x 15.5 inches) now belongs to the Delaware Art Museum.

“Inauguration of Washington at New York” by Howard Pyle

“Reading the Declaration before Washington’s Army, New York, July 9, 1776”

“Reading the Declaration before Washington’s Army, New York, July 9, 1776” by Howard Pyle (1892)

According to George Washington’s General Orders of July 9, 1776:

The Hon. The Continental Congress, impelled by the dictates of duty, policy and necessity, having been pleased to dissolve the Connection which subsisted between this Country, and Great Britain, and to declare the United Colonies of North America, free and independent States: The several brigades are to be drawn up this evening on their respective Parades, at Six OClock, when the declaration of Congress, shewing the grounds and reasons of this measure, is to be read with an audible voice.

The General hopes this important Event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms: And that he is now in the service of a State, possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest Honors of a free Country.

One hundred and fifteen years later, illustrator Howard Pyle was commissioned to commemorate the event for an article, “How the Declaration Was Received in the Old Thirteen,” by Charles D. Deshler in the July 1892 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.

Letters from Pyle (now at the Morgan Library in New York City) help to pin-point the creation of picture shown here: Pyle wrote to Arthur B. Turnure, then the art editor of Harper’s Monthly, on December 12, 1891, “I have not yet had an opportunity of looking over the MS of ‘How the Declaration was Received.’ I will read it, however, at the earliest opportunity and report to you as you desire.”

Then, on January 3, 1892, Pyle informed Turnure, “Your letter is received and I will give the very earliest attention possible to ‘How the Declaration was Received.’”

Three days later, Pyle said, “I hope, if all goes well and I complete the work I am now upon that I shall be in New York on Friday, I shall then bring you a plan of...‘How the Declaration was Received.’”

So, unless Pyle’s plans went awry, on Friday, January 8, he visited Turnure at Franklin Square in lower Manhattan and talked over his ideas. But whatever was discussed and whenever it was discussed, on January 29, Pyle wrote, “I send you to day by Express, two pictures. One of them is illustrative of ‘How the Declaration Was Received’ - Washington having the Declaration read to the troops.”

Subsequently, Pyle’s black and white oil on illustration board - measuring some 23.5 x 17.5 inches - was engraved on a 6.5 x 4.8" block of wood by Albert Munford Lindsay (who later studied with Pyle at the Drexel Institute).

Looking out the window on this July evening in New York, Pyle and Lindsay seem to have nailed the light just right. I like that.

Eventually, the painting wound up in the hands of Harold S. Schutt, who gave it to the Brandywine River Museum in 1980.

(On personal note, this engraving was reproduced in Jean Fritz’s Alexander Hamilton, The Outsider, to which I added some illustrations of my own.)

Washington is Notified of His Election

On May 19, 1896, Howard Pyle wrote to Woodrow Wilson:

In thinking over the subject for this Sixth Washington Article, I would suggest, by your leave, the following:

1 Thomson, the clerk of Congress, bringing to Washington the official papers notifying him of his election. It seems to me that this is a very good point and I am going on with it now.

Two gentlemen came down from Alexandria along with Thomson and were present during the interview, Thomson addressing the General in a formal speech, to which he replied in as formal a fashion, accepting the honor done him....

Not long after writing (days, maybe, or a week or two), Pyle completed “Thomson, the Clerk of Congress, announcing to Washington, at Mount Vernon, his election to the Presidency,” which illustrated Wilson’s “The First President of the United States” in Harper's New Monthly Magazine for November 1896. When Pyle exhibited the painting in his one-man-shows at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia and the St. Botolph Club in Boston in 1897, he described it in this deliberately archaic-sounding way in the catalogues:

The Clerk of Congress Announcing to Washington his election to the Presidency.

Here the Hero is depicted receiving with that calm Reserve that befitted him so well, the Announcement of his Election to the Chief Magistry of our Nation. The sealed Packet lies upon the Table, while Charles Thomson, Esq., addresses the great Man in Terms of respectful Congratulation. The other Figures represent two Gentlemen of quality who accompanied Mr. Thomson from Alexandria upon his grateful Mission.

But here’s how Wilson described the scene:

...on the 7th [of April, 1789] Charles Thomson, the faithful and sedulous gentleman who had been clerk of every congress since that first one in the old colonial days fifteen years ago, got away on his long ride to Mount Vernon to notify Washington of his election. Affairs waited upon the issue of his errand. Washington had for long known what was coming, and was ready and resolute, as of old. There had been no formal nominations for the presidency, and the votes of the electors had lain under seal till the new Congress met and found a quorum; but it was an open secret who had been chosen President, and Washington had made up his mind what to do. Mr. Thomson reached Mount Vernon on the 14th, and found Washington ready to obey his summons at once.

The relative brevity of this passage calls to mind Pyle’s comments to Paul Leicester Ford:

...the historic writer has a great advantage over the draughtsman, in that he need not necessarily state the most minute point in his work. If he is uncertain as to any single part, he may slur that and pass on to something else. The illustrator must have everything as perfectly accurate as he can render it, for the picture represents not only the general description, but a description so particular that it may take pages upon pages to fulfill it in literature.

The original painting belongs to the Boston Public Library.

“Washington Firing the First Gun at the Siege of Yorktown”

“Washington Firing the First Gun at the Siege of Yorktown” by Howard Pyle (1898)

Such nicely abstract grouping by Howard Pyle here. But “Washington Firing the First Gun at the Siege of Yorktown” - the eleventh in his celebrated series illustrating Henry Cabot Lodge’s “The Story of the Revolution” - is not very well known these days. Pyle most likely painted this at Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1898 and it appeared in Scribner's Magazine that November. Subsequently, I assume, the full-color oil on canvas (about 36 x 24") was trundled around the country as a part of Scribner’s traveling “Revolutionary Pictures” exhibition, and perhaps it was sold somewhere along the way, since the original has yet to turn up.

“Washington in the Garden at Mount Vernon”

“Washington in the Garden at Mount Vernon” by Howard Pyle (1896)

What was on the mind of Howard Pyle - then in the midst of illustrating Woodrow Wilson’s biography of George Washington - 115 years ago today?

...I would represent Washington in his rural life at Mount Vernon. I am informed that the box-walk at Mount Vernon is now very much as it was in Washington’s day. It is very picturesque, and it would be interesting to place Washington in it as a setting.

Perhaps a good arrangement of this idea would be in the visit of Lafayette to Mount Vernon. I would represent Washington as directing the old negro gardener in the setting out of some shrub or small tree, and Lafayette standing at a little distance looking on with a certain remote dignity, Mrs Washington, perhaps, standing with him. In this way we might not only represent the way Washington was sought after in his retirement by great folk, such as Lafayette, but also indicate the idea of his Cincinnatus character....

So Pyle wrote to Wilson on March 27, 1896. As you can see, he altered his concept by leaving Lafayette and Martha Washington out of the painting, which he completed sometime in April. The reproduction above comes from “First in Peace” by Woodrow Wilson (Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, September 1896). When Pyle exhibited the painting the following year, he described it in the catalogues in this old-fashioned way:

Here we behold the great Soldier dwelling, Cincinnatus-like, amid those humble and bucolic Joys he held so dear, and to which he was so glad to return after the distracting Clamor of War. Of the Gardener to whom Washington is talking, the ingenious Professor Wilson says, “He agreed with Philip Barter that if he would serve him faithfully as gardener and keep sober at all other times, he would allow him four dollars at Christmas with which to be drunk four days and four nights, etc.”

The original 21 x 15" oil on board - painted in part color - belongs to the Boston Public Library.

And here is the garden from a different point of view, as seen in a turn-of-the-century postcard...

UPDATED June 1, 2011: Alas, Pyle’s low, snaking boxwoods are incorrect (though, in his defense, he was going on the limited information available to him at that time). The History Blog points out in a new post that Washington’s garden was a much different animal.

Washington’s Birth-Day

From  Harper's Weekly for March 4, 1882:

Washington’s Birth-Day
by Howard Pyle

The breakfast china stood in rows,
And all was smart and bright at home,
Where Patience stood in Sunday clothes,
Waiting for Jared Judd to come.

For it was Washington’s Birth-day,
And Jared was to take her down
To Bristol Township for to stay,
And see the doings in the town.

So up he comes, all sprucely dressed:
A finer sight you never see
Than Jared in his Sunday best,
With light blue coat and figured vest,
And splatterdashers to the knee.

Then Jared’s heart beat nation high,
As down they rode the turnpike way,
With Patience on the pillion nigh
Behind him, on the dapple gray.

The town with flags was all afloat;
They fluttered in the frosty air;
And all the men of local note
Were gathered there from everywhere.

And there they see the butchers’ stalls,
With “show beef” hung, and ribbons gay,
And flags tacked up against the wall,
Where sirloins stand in fat array.

The fife and drums are playing loud,
And likely girls the sidewalks hem,
And close behind the band, a crowd
Of men and boys march after them.

The drummers make a pesky noise,
The fifer fifes with might and main;
The girls laugh at the men and boys,
Then look away and laugh again.

And on the common, near at hand,
They’d brought the old town cannon out,
And built a ten-foot speeching-stand,
With flags and streamers hung about.

And there they see the train-band stout
All step about with measured tread,
While Captain Green gives orders out,
And marches boldly at their head.

And then Judge Dean he makes a speech,
While great men sit along the stand.
Says he, “The train-band men will teach
Our foes to shun our native land.”

At which all cheered; and Captain Bent
He jabbed a red-hot poker to
The cannon’s butt, and off it went,
Till't shook the folks all through and through.

It frightened Patience so, she caught
At Jared's arm and shook for fear;
And so he took her by, and bought
Her cooky-cakes and ginger-beer.

And so the holiday was passed;
And as the afternoon grew late,
He took her home, and said good-by,
And kissed her near the garden gate.

“...and followed by Washington’s Birthday”

“Enter Fourth of July bowing and followed by Washington’s Birthday” by Howard Pyle from “The Revolt of the Holidays” by E. I. Stevenson (Harper’s Young People, December 18, 1883).

November 8, 1895

Last year I wrote about how Howard Pyle altered his painting “The Burial of Braddock” after it was first published in magazine and book form in 1896 and before it was sent to its new (and present) owner, the Boston Public Library, in 1897. Now, here’s a little something written on this day 115 years ago about the origins of the same work...

And in case Woodrow Wilson’s handwriting is difficult to read, here is a transcription:

Everett House, Union Square, New York.

8 Nov., 1895

My dear Mr. Pyle,

Your last letter came just as I was leaving home, and I had to bring it off with me to find time for an answer.

You will notice that Washington in his account of Braddock’s death says “near the Great Meadows,” careful Mr. Parkman says exactly the same, writing before the publication of W’s account. It would not be safe, I think, to take the picture of Braddock’s grave as a picture of Great Meadows. [Colonel Thomas] Dunbar’s camp at the time of B’s death was, I should judge, between Gist’s and Great Meadows, nearer the latter than the former. See map opposite page 438 of Winsor’s “Mississippi Basin,” on which Gist’s is called “Guests.”

In haste,

Cordially Yours,

Woodrow Wilson

Mr. Howard Pyle

Wilson, by the way, was writing from Everett House, a hotel on the north side of Union Square, at the corner of Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South) and 17th Street, right next to The Century Company - a fragment of which can be seen on the left side of this photo of the hotel from the Museum of the City of New York. The hotel was pulled down in 1908, but The Century offices (which Pyle visited somewhat frequently in connection with his work for St. Nicholas and The Century Magazine, etc.) are now home to a Barnes and Noble store.

[Note of November 8, 2013: I added a few details and links since first posting this]

January 13, 1896

"Should I now and then appear to question your details, I hope you will consider that I do so with all deference, and only with a desire to obtain the uttermost accuracy possible."

Howard Pyle to Woodrow Wilson, January 13, 1896

Washington and Steuben at Valley Forge, 1896

"Washington and Steuben at Valley Forge" by Howard Pyle (1896)

Howard Pyle felt compelled to convince Woodrow Wilson that an illustration featuring Valley Forge would be perfect for the latter's article, “General Washington” (Harper’s Monthly, July 1896). “Not only is it a very sublime subject, but there are no doubt instances of individuality displayed by Washington at that time that would be very dramatic,” Pyle stressed in a letter of February 5, 1896. “I wish you would consider that and see what you think of it, for I feel very sure that it is a point we should not miss.”

Wilson didn’t need too much convincing. “I can agree very heartily to an incident taken from Valley Forge,” he replied on February 7, “if only you hit upon something that took place there which dramatically reveals the man, and not merely the now conventional subject of the sufferings of the troops from cold and privation. Washington’s greatness at Valley Forge was moral: can you get at that in a picture of any veritable incident?”

Pyle outlined some possibilities on February 11:

To illustrate this I would choose one of three subjects, the picture of Washington paying a visit to one of the huts - a sick man huddled in his cot, another lean man near, and a cadaverous soldier standing near him, or else I would represent a picture of Washington in his own hut - the log shanty into which he moved after living in the stone house called his headquarters - either reading his Bible or else receiving one of his many worrying letters, the messenger standing warming his hands by the firelight, or else a picture of Washington and Baron Stuben [sic] passing down the street of huts with a foreground group, of soldiers standing at the door saluting as the two officers pass.

In my opinion the last of the three subjects will make the best illustration.

Pyle didn’t wait for Wilson’s approval, but declared in the same letter, “I shall begin to-day upon the picture of Washington and Stuben [sic].” It wasn’t that Pyle didn’t care what Wilson thought: rather, his initiative shows the level of trust that had developed between the two men over the course of their collaboration. Indeed, Wilson proved “unaffectedly delighted” with Pyle’s choice of subject and felt all the more convinced that Pyle understood “the objects I have in view quite as sympathetically as I do myself.”

By early March, Pyle was able to inform Harper and Brothers that he would deliver the picture - and the others for the article - “within a few days”. And on the 16th he assured Wilson, “The last set of illustrations are, I think, by far the most successful that I have made, and I am almost sure you will like them - especially the one of Washington and Stuben [sic] at Valley Forge.”

Pyle's Post-Publication Changes, Part 1

Illustrators, have you ever wanted to alter a picture after it was published? I know I have - too many times - but I've always stopped myself before going through with it. Howard Pyle never stopped himself, though, particularly when he had good reasons to change something. Historical accuracy was one.

Take "The Burial of Braddock" from Woodrow Wilson's George Washington. Here it is as it appeared in Harper's Monthly for March 1896 and in the book version published later that year.

Now, in reviewing the book, writer and historian Paul Leicester Ford criticized some of the details in the illustrations. Pyle heard about this in late April 1897, just when most of the original oil paintings were about to be purchased and presented to the Boston Public Library. No doubt chagrined, but "anxious to make them as accurate as possible," Pyle asked Ford for advice on how to correct them, "especially as my pictures are now, as it were, to go upon record."

In his review, Ford had said of the burial scene: "Common sense should have informed the artist that there was no time to get or make a coffin for Braddock, if the account had not specifically stated that he was wrapped in a standard." Apparently, Ford reiterated this point in his answer to Pyle.

"I had overlooked the fact that Braddock was wrapped in a standard," Pyle admitted, "but I disagree with you that the body would have been buried uncased or uncoffined." As Braddock had died at 10 p.m. and was buried at dawn, Pyle reasoned that "in the interim...some rude case would have been constructed to contain the remains. This is what I have tried to represent, and not a well constructed and well finished coffin." And while Pyle agreed that Braddock's uniform and boot-toes should be hidden by a flag, he told Ford, "I shall probably allow the roughly made box to remain, unless you, in your kindness, will suggest some further detail to indicate that I was in error."

Evidently, Ford indeed suggested that the "rough box" should be rougher still, for Pyle replaced it with one built from a broken up crate - as can be seen in the painting now "upon record" in Boston.