Frank E. Schoonover - A Long Life in Art

Yes, yet another Pyle-related video to watch. Here, the story of Frank E. Schoonover (1877-1972), one of Howard Pyle’s longest-lived and most devoted students, is told by his three grandchildren, who were interviewed in the Wilmington studio their grandfather used from 1906 on (after Pyle had pushed several “graduates” from his own nest of studios a few blocks away). Home movies and audio recordings of an elderly Schoonover are a nice addition to this documentary - it’s always great to see these folks move around and speak. So take a look. And while you’re there, also poke around the Frank E. Schoonover Fund and the Schoonover Studios sites.

A Typical Yankee Named Hoyt

“Jack Frost’s Harvest” by Philip L. Hoyt in Harper’s Weekly for December 6, 1902

In an article N. C. Wyeth wrote about Howard Pyle - published in the Christian Science Monitor one hundred years ago today - he discussed an unnamed Pyle student:

Mr. Pyle's inordinate ability as a teacher lay primarily in his sense of penetration; to read beneath the crude lines on paper the true purpose, to detect therein our real inclinations and impulses. In short, to unlock our personalities. This power was in no wise a superficial method handed out to those who would receive. We received in proportion to that which was fundamentally within us.

I recall an instance as an illustration. One member, an ungainly lad from the back country of northern New England, found his way into Pyle classes. He had dreamed, in his remote village, of becoming an artist; of picturing his visions of cities he had never seen, and of the lives of the people therein.

He had come into the composition class week after week, with sketches of society folk and kindred subjects. They were, naturally, unconvincing and poor, but Mr. Pyle’s interest in them did not flag. Meanwhile he assiduously gathered from the fellow accounts of his life in the woods, of breaking snow roads, of gathering maple sap, of log driving, of corn huskings, and a myriad things. It began to dawn upon the Vermonter that his own life at home, the incidents of his own north country which he knew and loved were interesting, yes, intensely interesting. His pictures at once gained in vitality and importance. With Mr. Pyle's trenchant help, he had found himself. I doubt if Howard Pyle ever had a student that did not at some time or other experience some such awakening as this while under his direction.

This “ungainly lad” was Philip Langly Hoyt, born November 2, 1873, in Wentworth, New Hampshire, a few miles from the Vermont border. The son of a farmer, Hoyt studied with Pyle at the Drexel Institute, won a scholarship to the 1899 Summer School of Illustration at Chadds Ford, and was selected by Pyle to join the nucleus of his own art school when he founded it in 1900.

Hoyt seems to have taken fellow New Englander Wyeth under his wing when the latter arrived in Wilmington in 1902. In an error-ridden letter home, Wyeth wrote of him:

The fellow is a typical Yankee named Hoyt. He’s from Vermont [sic]. Perfect Habits. Shrewd and as economical as possible.

I had to get an easle of course and Pyle could get a $25 one for 12.60. Hoyt says Don’t ye dew it! Make it. He made a slendid one for himself, lumber (hard pine), iron fixings and all cost four dollars or a little less. Now it’s quite a piece of mechanism and needs a cabinetmaker’s skill to make one so I bought his for five dollars and he’s making himself a new one making a few improvments (which is to his great delight).

Hoyt remained in Wilmington until about 1904 or so, when he moved to Boston. Eventually he abandoned illustration and although he may not have actually lived in Vermont prior to meeting Wyeth, Hoyt did wind up there later: on the 1930 Census he is listed as a construction contractor in Hartford in Windsor County. He died in Vermont at the age of 90 in March 1964.

Photograph taken in Chadds Ford, PA, showing Pyle and his students seeing off Philip Hoyt, on or about September 1, 1899, at the close of the second Summer School of Illustration. From left to right: Robert L. Mason, Emlem McConnell, Frank Schoonover, Howard Pyle, Annie Hailey, Sarah Stilwell, Ellen Bernard Thompson, Anna Whelan Betts, Stanley Arthurs, Philip Hoyt (in straw boater), Bertha Corson Day.

Is This Young Howard Pyle?

Figure 1. Young man photographed by Emily Webb, Wilmington, Delaware, 1870s

Is this young Howard Pyle?

I don’t know. But I really, really wish I did - and I’m 99 percent convinced that it is Howard Pyle, somewhere in his early 20s. What throws me is the size of his hands, which seem too big (Pyle had smallish hands, apparently), and the shape of his ears. But these could be optical illusions. Also, I don’t know what color hair young Pyle had, or what his hairline was like before he started balding.

His eyes, though, look right, as does his nose, brows, and especially the shape and smallness of his mouth. In 1909, a reporter noted that Pyle had “eyes blue as a fog, a small mouth, bland, but massive and singularly youthful face.” And artist James Edward Kelly remembered that when Pyle arrived in New York in 1876, “he had a high, smooth forehead; a long, smooth nose; light blue eyes; long flat jaws; rosy cheeks; a long smooth chin; small pursed mouth.”

Fortunately, there is a bona fide early photo of Pyle - Figure 2 - taken about 1875 in Owings Mills, Maryland. Here he has longish, darkish hair, and a face very much in keeping with Kelly’s description. The slope and shape of the shoulders, nose, chin, mouth, etc., etc., are also very similar to Figure 1’s.

Figure 2. Howard Pyle at Owings Mills, Maryland, c.1875

Then again, the youngish Pyle in another early photo (Figure 3) appears to have brown or maybe even reddish hair, or at least something lighter than what we see in Figure 1 - but the darker tone there could be an illusion or from Macassar oil, or something...

Figure 3. Howard Pyle, by a Philadelphia photographer, c.1880-85

Still, there is indeed something reminiscent of Figure 1 in Figure 3. Not to mention in Frances Benjamin Johnston photos of Pyle, taken when he was in his early 40s. Pyle’s face has become rounder in Figure 4 and Figure 6, but his demeanor is similar, as are his mouth and eyes.

Figure 4. Howard Pyle photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1896

Curiously and coincidentally, the photographer of Figure 1, Emily Webb, was Howard Pyle’s first-cousin-once-removed: she had grandparents in common with Pyle’s father. Emily was born on February 23, 1830, died on April 24, 1914, and somewhere along the line - and at a time when female photographers were quite rare - she set up her “Union Gallery” on Market Street in Wilmington. Her sister Sarah, meanwhile, was the wife of the Saturday Evening Post’s Henry Peterson, who was also Pyle’s mother’s first publisher.

Perhaps another, identified copy of Webb’s photo - or the use of a facial recognition system of some kind - will solve the mystery. (Though, in laying out all these things, I think I'm now 99.9 percent sure.)

Figure 5. Closeup of young man photographed by Emily Webb, Wilmington, Delaware, 1870s

Figure 6. Closeup of Howard Pyle photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1896

Howard Pyle’s Wedding Pictures

“The Sailor’s Wedding” by Howard Pyle (1895)

It’s Howard Pyle’s wedding anniversary today: on April 12, 1881, the 28-year-old artist-author married the 22-year-old Anne Poole, daughter of the J. Morton and Ann (Suplee) Poole, in a Quaker ceremony in the parlor of the Poole house at 207 Washington Street in Wilmington. Pyle’s close friend and fellow illustrator, Arthur B. Frost, was best man and his sister, Katharine, was one of the bridesmaids. Lunch followed and later that day the couple took the train to Washington and stayed just a few blocks from the Executive Mansion at the Arlington House, the finest hotel in the city at that time (and not to be confused with Custis-Lee Mansion across the Potomac River in Virginia).

Somehow, weddings don’t show up too often in Pyle’s pictures. The image above, “The Sailor’s Wedding,” comes from his story “By Land and Sea” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for December 1895. Wilmingtonians might recognize Old Swedes Church in the background - a place Pyle was fond of, historically and aesthetically, and where his brother Walter married his first wife in 1884.

Pyle’s own nuptials more likely resembled the scene he presented in “A Quaker Wedding” (Harper’s Bazar, December 12, 1885). It’s tempting to call it a self-portrait, but Pyle was probably already balding and his sister recalled that the chairs were arranged in rows, with an aisle leading to a bow window, where the couple stood under a large bell made of white flowers. Even so, the mood and the crowd must have been akin to this.

“A Quaker Wedding” by Howard Pyle (1885)

And, just for the sake of completeness, here’s another Pyle wedding picture, from Building the Nation by Charles Carleton Coffin (Harper & Brothers, 1882).

“A Kentucky Wedding” by Howard Pyle (1882)

I might add that on April 12, 1911, Howard and Anne Pyle celebrated their 30th - and last - anniversary together by taking a day-trip from Florence to Pisa with their two daughters. I wish I had some pictures.

Another Look In and Around the Pyle Studios

Still more video showing the insides and outsides of Howard Pyle’s studio buildings at 1305 Franklin Street in Wilmington, Delaware.

A Video Tour of Howard Pyle’s Studio

I just noticed this video on Howard Pyle. Not all of it is accurate, but there are lots of images and much footage taken in and around his Wilmington studio. Makes for a good vicarious visit.

“I saw a many ‘gruesome’ sights”

“The stout little old gentleman who ate four fish-balls for breakfast on Sunday”

How better to charm a woman than by drawing an old man about to vomit? That was Howard Pyle’s tactic, at least, in a letter he wrote to Miss Alice Hannum Cresson on August 19, 1875:

Wilmington

Aug 19th 1875

Dear Miss Alice:

Now ma am the question is am I or am I not to be forgiven for my appearant neglect of your kind permission to write to you. Before the court decides let me be heard in a little excuse “iv it be plazen to yus mum [?]”. Now the fact is that immediately upon my return home I received orders to prepare myself ‘instanter’ for a business trip to the north so you can easily imagen that I must have been much hurried to get off in reasonable time.

I arrived home on Monday or rather Tuesday last at half past one o’clock at night, rather fagged out to tell the truth; having travelled about thirteen hundred miles (and all at night at that) the foregoing week. However I am now as you perceive in my normal state of vavicious brilliancy - “Richard’s himself again!” in fact.

Boston was the last city I visited before I returned home and from there I came to Philadelphia by ocean. Ah Miss Alice in two days of ocean travel I saw a many “gruesome” sights - old gentleman that would ever and anon dash frantically to the edge of the boat where they would stand with bodies that heaved and swayed with the force of some internal conflict between breakfast and stomach. The wail of little children and cries of suffering women whilst the stewardess ran hither and thither with a baisin in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other - no ma am I was not sea-sick.

This little sketch represents the stout little old gentleman who ate four fish-balls for breakfast on Sunday.

[drawing of man, 7/8 x 3/4" - see above]

But enough of this “fal-lal.”

I saw Spencer this evening. He tells me that he has received a letter from Miss Sallie inviting us both up to Consho. next Saturday. Most unfortunately I have sundry little engagements for that day; while Saturday week Spencer is engaged; however on Saturday two weeks weather permitting and provided it suits you we shall do ourselves the pleasure of visiting you.

I suppose Spencer has told you all about our departure from Maryland. How I scarcely had time to buy my segars and ticket and to dash off a few agonized lines of parting to Miss Smith and at the last moment to post your letters almost forgetting my valise in my hurry. We were both upon the platform of course to catch a last lingering look at our lady friends at Mansion Farm and were duly gratified.

I enclose an illustration of Shakspeare - “a poor thing but mine own” - applicable to this peach and watermelon season [enclosure missing]. Please give my respects to your father and mother and the rest of my Consho. friends and believe me as ever -

Very Respectfully Yours

Howard Pyle

May I hope to hear from you soon in answer to this my first letter since my return from Maryland?

I should note that although Pyle dated the letter “Aug 19th” sometimes he got his dates wrong, plus the envelope (see below) was postmarked 10 p.m. August 20th, so it’s possible he wrote it on that day.

I’ve posted a couple of things regarding “Miss Alice” already, but here’s a quick review:

When the 22-year-old Pyle wrote to Alice Hannum Cresson, 26, she was living with her parents, Walter and Alice (Hannum) Cresson, and sisters, Anna and Sarah (or Sallie), in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. She and Pyle were cousins by marriage - Alice’s maternal aunt, Hannah Hannum (1817-1896), was the widow of Pyle’s maternal uncle, John Painter (1824-1865) - so they may have known each other since childhood.

First, regarding “iv it be plazen to yus mum”: I’ve been squinting at that phrase for the last fifteen years. “It be” and “to” were clear, but the other parts I thought, at various times, were “played to your music” or “muse” and “plague to your name” and so on. All nonsense. But I think I’m on the right track now. It really can’t be anything but “plazen” - that’s Pyle’s “p” and “z,” etc. - and if we say it with an “Irish” accent, it translates to “it be pleasing to.” Since Pyle was familiar with Irish character songs and plays, this seems likely. I might be misreading the first word “iv” (or “if”), but Pyle also was apt to add extra bits to his letterforms and not dot his “i”s consistently. “To yus mum” - i.e. “to you, ma’am” - is iffy (or ivvy), but I don’t know what else it could be. Any takers?

But what else does this letter show us, apart from Pyle’s earthy sense of humor - and that he sometimes smoked “segars”?

Well, we see that Pyle was a mediocre speller, but he knew that: “I was never a good hand at spelling,” he admitted years later. He also knew his “Shakspeare” - sort of: “a poor thing but mine own” is a common misquotation of “an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own” from As You Like It (Act 5, Scene 4). Incidentally, Pyle also used the phrase to “modestly” describe his fairy-tales in an 1889 letter: “But you know what Touchstone says - ‘A poor thing, a poor thing, but mine own!’” Meanwhile, “Richard’s himself again!” comes from Act 5, Scene 3 of Colley Cibber’s Richard III.

“Spencer,” it turns out, was Willard Spenser, born July 7, 1852 (or later), in Cooperstown, New York. He moved to Wilmington in 1873 and in 1875 was living at 1229 Tatnall Street with his mother, Mary, and brother, Claude. All three taught music. Spenser had early musical talent and composed his first waltz at age 7. In 1886, “The Little Tycoon” - for which he wrote both the music and the libretto - premiered in Philadelphia and became the first successful light opera by an American composer. By then it seems that he and Pyle had drifted apart, though later they were fellow members of the Franklin Inn Club.

“Mansion Farm,” as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, was the Owings Mills, Maryland home of Pyle’s (and Alice’s) aunt and uncle, Sarah and Milton Painter. I recently learned, though, that the place - also known as ULM and built by Samuel Owings himself - was the focus of controversy some 15 years ago, when a developer sneakily demolished it. A more full, interesting, and illustrated history of it can be found here.

But perhaps the most intriguing thing about this letter is what it reveals about Pyle’s otherwise murky involvement in his father’s leather business. The 1875-76 Wilmington city directory (published in June 1875) lists William Pyle as a “leather dealer” and Howard Pyle as an “artist.” The latter description may have been wishful thinking at that point, but it’s plain that Howard’s duties went beyond clerking in an office and that he acted - well, once - as a sort of traveling salesman, going by train - and boat - to visit scattered customers. This is, at least, exactly what his father did, especially in the 1880s, after his younger sons, Clifford and Walter, had taken the reins of the family enterprise.

One more thing: chief among the Pyles’ products (eventually, but quite possibly in the 1870s, too) was leather for bookbinding. Their clients, naturally, would have included publishers. In fact, according to Alpheus Sherwin Cody - who interviewed Pyle in 1894 - Roswell Smith, President of Scribner & Company, “was a friend of [Pyle’s] father.” Why would a Delawarean leather dealer become friendly with a New York publisher?

I wonder, therefore, if this as-yet hypothetical connection to the publishing world was an “in” - or the “in” - that Pyle successfully exploited in 1876, after writing up his Chincoteague experiences...

Howard Pyle Slept Here, Part 1

Southwest corner of Seventh and West Streets, Wilmington, Delaware (1994)

Okay, Howard Pyle may have slept here.

I was going through some old files and came across this photo. It was taken by Paul Preston Davis one day in July 1994 when we were tracking down Pyle’s different residences in and around Wilmington, Delaware. Many - most - were gone, pulled down years earlier, but a couple still stood.

The poor old building shown here might be one of the survivors. That is, if it was erected more than 140 years ago: it looks it, to me, despite the more recent portico and newer structure added to the back. It may also have been a one-family dwelling divided into two, at some point. It sits (provided it hasn’t since been destroyed) on the southwest corner of Seventh and West Streets in Wilmington.

The Pyle family moved to this location from their second house in the country, called “Evergreen” or “Evergreens” on the Philadelphia Pike, in the late 1860s. Actually, the exact year may have been 1869, if we can trust Howard Pyle’s statement, “Nearly all of my life up to sixteen years was spent in the country.”

The Pyles’ time here corresponded with the three years that Howard spent studying art under F. A. Van der Wielen in Philadelphia. They may even have chosen to return to Wilmington proper to make Howard’s commute easier - unless, of course, he lived in Philadelphia when classes were in session, since he also said:

At the age of 16 I left home to be a student at a private art school in Philadelphia. The school was kept by a man who won a gold medal at Antwerp, the center, perhaps, of the most technical art in Europe. I remained three years in Philadelphia... [emphasis mine]

But young Howard would still have spent long periods at his parents’ place. In fact, we know for sure that he was there on July 11, 1870, when the Ninth U.S. Federal Census was taken. On that day, the household included the immediate Pyle family (William, Margaret, Howard, Clifford, Walter, and Katharine) plus some others:

• Frances Augustine Eyre (born 1848), Howard Pyle’s first cousin
• Hannah James Churchman (born 1794), Howard Pyle’s great-aunt
• Edward Churchman Painter (born 1846), another first cousin
• Catherine Ragan [sic], an Irish-born housemaid, aged 28

And it was probably here that the 18-year-old Howard drew the masthead for Every Evening, which first appeared in print on September 4, 1871.

In 1872, however, the family packed up and relocated yet again, to yet another house on Market Street - their third of four - and the sixth home Howard Pyle lived in before the age of 20.

Twelfth Night, 1906

In 1904 Howard Pyle was elected a non-resident member of New York City’s prestigious Century Association - his name having been proposed by publisher J. Henry Harper and seconded by painter John White Alexander. Late the following year, Pyle was asked to design the invitation and program for the club’s traditional Twelfth Night celebration, to be held on January 6, 1906.

Either out of his own enthusiasm, or a desire to impress his fellow members, Pyle turned what should have been a quick and casual job into something much more ambitious. “I am afraid you are taking the Twelfth Night drawing too seriously,” warned his friend Frank Millet, who was coordinating the project (and who later went down with the Titanic):

The committee is very anxious to have something to send out with the notices which must be issued soon and they do not expect an elaborate work nor would they desire to give you much trouble about it.... Dr Curtis apparently dreams of something which in a few lines of the pencil will illustrate fully his description of the revels at Eagle-roost. But you can see from the old programs I sent you that elaboration is not necessary.

Millet wrote that on November 19, 1905, but I gather it was too late for Pyle to rein himself in. The invitation (which was also issued in grey-blue wrappers) and the program were printed under his supervision by John M. Rogers on Orange Street (“opposite the Old Malt House,” reads the colophon) in Wilmington, Delaware. Rogers had, among other things, printed Pyle’s Catalogue of Drawings Illustrating the Life of Gen. Washington and of Colonial Life, The Ghost of Captain Brand, and The Divinity of Labor - all in 1897 - and The Constitution and By-Laws of the Howard Pyle School of Art in 1903.

In addition to the drawings, Pyle did all the lettering seen here, except for the verse stanzas in “Centuria’s Call” and the portion of the paragraph beneath “The Programme of the Festival”: these were set in Fifteenth Century (later known as Caslon Antique), which Pyle began to use almost as soon as it was issued by the type foundry of Barnhart Brothers & Spindler.

And yet, for all his work, Pyle may not even have attended the Twelfth Night festivities: instead, he may have gone to the Franklin Inn Club’s dinner - for which he had also decorated the program cover - held the same evening in Philadelphia.

(By the way, Dr. Edward Curtis (1838-1912), whom Millet mentioned above, co-performed the autopsy on the body of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.)

At the Quill and Grill Club, November 8, 1883

Howard Pyle belonged to many clubs and associations over the years: some well-known - like the Grolier, the Players, and the Century - and a few more obscure. For example, Pyle was a founding member of the Quill and Grill Club, formed on August 17, 1883, in Wilmington, Delaware. It was composed mostly of journalists and lawyers, including some of Pyle’s intimates, such as Alfred Leighton Howe (to whom Pyle dedicated Within the Capes), Lewis C. Vandegrift (dedicatee of The Rose of Paradise and later Pyle’s neighbor), and newspaperman Edward Noble Vallandigham (Pyle’s “esteemed friend of many years standing”).

Interestingly, another early member of the Quill and Grill was the legal scholar and future World Court Judge, John Bassett Moore, then in his early twenties. At an 1885 meeting of the club - held in Pyle’s studio - Moore read poem which was published in his Collected Papers (and once upon a time at the Library of Congress I managed to dig up and hold in my hand the original manuscript). That same year, Moore went to Washington to work under Secretary of State Thomas Francis Bayard (later Pyle’s friend and landlord).

Pyle created the invitation shown here in 1883 or, perhaps, 1884, judging from the style of the lettering and decorations.

At a meeting held on November 8, 1883, attorney Joseph A. Richardson read a poem (dedicated to Miss Elizabeth Shipley Bringhurst, later Mrs. John Galt Smith) entitled “The Evolution and Development of Q. and G.,” in which the club’s founders are humorously described, including this stanza on Howard Pyle:

One by nature has been gifted
With the power of creating
Shapes of most surpassing beauty
From musty tomes of ancient legend.
At his touch sprang into being
Sweet Elaine, Shalott’s fair lady,
Robin Hood, and all his fellows.
His cunning hand that raises
Forms of brave Colonial heroes
Damsels prim in olden costumes,
Cavaliers and burly Roundheads
Till they seem to breathe before us.

Trips off the tongue, no? But we should be grateful to have a relic such as this, which sheds light on how a young Howard Pyle was perceived by his friends.

“That Miserable Engagement”

In his letter of August 26, 1876, to the Misses Cresson, Howard Pyle mentioned “that miserable engagement that detained me at the Newspaper Office, until half past one on that Tuesday when you passed through Wilmington.”

But what miserable engagement? What Newspaper Office? What Tuesday? I needed to find out. Fortunately, there were only a couple of newspapers published in Wilmington at that time, chiefly Every Evening and the Wilmington Daily Commercial. Pyle had an established relationship with the former: his first known published work of any kind was a drawing for Every Evening’s masthead in 1871. But for some reason that I can’t recall now (this was 15 years ago), I decided to search the Commercial first; perhaps it was because its editor, Howard M. Jenkins (1842-1902), was a friend of the Pyle family and a fellow member of the Friends’ Social Lyceum (plus Swarthmore College has a letter Pyle wrote him in 1889). Jenkins, incidentally, went on to edit The American - a Philadelphia-based periodical which published several works by Pyle’s mother and sister - and The Friends’ Intelligencer. An account of life and tragic death can be found here.

Anyway, the Library of Congress had bound volumes of the newspaper - which were less blinding to go through than microfilm - and I set to slog. As the volume for 1876 wasn’t delivered right away, I started with earlier years, which gave me a better sense of what life was like in Wilmington during Pyle’s youth (I was struck, in particular, by the number of stories about spelling bees and cases of epizooty).

Now, in his Cresson letter, Pyle also mentioned that “duty called me to make a visit to Chincoteague.” This was equally intriguing: after all, Pyle’s “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies,” (Scribner’s Monthly, April 1877) helped launch his career. He called the article "the first I ever wrote for publication” (in a letter to Henry Troth, April 13, 1897) and it is routinely mentioned in interviews and biographical sketches. In 1903, for instance, Pyle said:

"Then I went to an island off the coast of Virginia, where roamed at will a breed of half-wild ponies. Once a year they were corraled and branded. I wrote an article about them and made some pencil drawings, which were redrawn; and on its publication I felt my art was of some practical use. This was confirmed by Mr. Roswell Smith, who advised me through my father, who had dropped in at Scribner’s to inquire if an article of mine were acceptable, to come to New York." (Interview with Charles Hall Garrett in The Reader, May 1903)

Well, I eventually got to August 1876 in the Wilmington Daily Commercial - and this jumped out at me:

Wilmington Daily Commercial, Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, August 15, 1876.

LIFE ON CHINCOTEAGUE.

A CORNER “OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY” - THE SIMPLICITY OF A CENTURY AGO - BEACH AND SEA - HOW THE CHINCOTEAGUERS DWELL IN PEACE

Correspondence of the Commercial.

Chincoteague, Va., August 12. - Could a man be suddenly transported from one country to another, as in eastern fables, he could meet with no more strongly marked and different peculiarities than he will discover when a day’s ride from Wilmington lands him on the Island of Chincoteague, just off the northernmost coast, or Eastern Shore, of Virginia.

The inhabitants themselves, are a peculiar race, for the most part of a sallow, leathery, smoke-dried complexion, with back and shoulders rounded like the bowl of a spoon. They generally roam in bare feet in summer, thus avoiding the unnecessary expense of shoe leather, their chief costume consisting of a pair of extraordinarily patched trowsers, strapped up to the seventh rib, a red or checked shirt, and a straw hat with wonderful breadth of brim, sheltering a placid face from the torrid glare of the sun.

Immediately to the eastward of Chincoteague, between it and the ocean, stretches Assateague Island, or, as the natives call it, “the beach,” upon the middle of which stands Assateague light-house, a first-class light and one of the finest in the country.

The ponies for which Chincoteague is so widely celebrated mostly roam in a wild state over the whole island, though some are now confined by their owners to large tracts of salt meadows fenced off, while others are swum across the narrow channel that separates Chincoteague from Assateague, to run at large upon the latter island, which, in spite of its quite heavy pine timber, is still in many portions unclaimed land.

Land-locked as Chincoteague is, separated by interest as by water from the rest of Virginia, its inhabitants seem to have retained the thoughts and prejudices of the state of civilization of seventy-five years ago. Not more than one or two of the older native inhabitants can read, and though in the last few years many people from the mainland have settled upon the island, you may still live there for weeks without beholding a newspaper, or a book of any kind for that matter.

Among the quaint and curious characters of the island is one popularly known as “Uncle Ken” Jester, one of the largest pony owners of the place, all whose thoughts seem to bear directly or indirectly upon “beach-hosses,” and to the one additional topic of whiskey. Of this favored liquor Uncle Ken imbibes on an average a quart or three pints a day, but drunk or sober he knows all that is to be known about ponies, and can catch them when at their wildest.

The wisdom evolved from the inner consciousness of these illiterate people is often quaint and shrewd enough. An old negro who goes by the name of “Ole Dan Tucker” was very entertaining in this respect. A pencil sketch of his queer figure was much desired, and he was offered ten cents as an inducement to stand still for that purpose. “Look yeh, Mass,” said he, in his broad Virginia accent, “reckon I’s ugly ’nough ’out puttin’t on paper. Land knows I want money too, I reckon. Money’ll take a man anywhe’s - ’cept to Heaven.” So Dan could not be persuaded to “pose,” but was subsequently caught upon the wing, so to speak, in front of the hotel.

Curious to northern eyes were the interior of some of the houses visited on Chincoteague, but with hospitable inhabitants. On the visitor’s entrance to the first the good woman of the house who was smoking vile tobacco in a very dirty short pipe, spanked a child who was rolling nearly naked upon the floor, whipped a sauce pan and a dirty pair of trousers off a chair and bade her guest sit down, all in a breath. One or two cheap prints, a highly-colored circus advertisement, and bottles with red flannel inside them were hung here and there, ornamenting the walls. The housekeeping arrangements consisted of three or four rickety chairs, a saucepan, a cracked pitcher, a griddle and a coffee pot; the smaller properties heaped in a rickety wash tub in one corner of the room. Then the bed! a voluminous mass of feathers rising in a mountainous heap quite five feet in height, with tawny counterpane and spindle bed-posts decked at the top with bits of parti-colored worsted. So hospitable are the owners of these dwellings that it requires some ingenuity to escape from the pressing invitations to share the meal which spread their board, consisting of fried potatoes, nodules of fat pork fried and floating in molasses, and conical chunks of bread which they dip in the same.

Some of the houses of a better class are equally curious in their way. One such is the residence of Capt. Caulk, an ex-Delawarean, a frame structure of hexagon shape in front of which is a collection of immense bones, relics of an enormous whale that was stranded upon the beach in a storm.

The Island of Chincoteague claims to have been, during the late war, the only loyal spot in East Virginia. The interests of the islanders were all against secession; they dealt with the North and held intercourse with it, while with Virginia and the South they had little or nothing in common. Only one man upon the Island, Joseph Hill by name, voted for the ratification of the secession act of the Virginia Assembly. The inhabitants of Chincoteague raised an immense flag-pole, a hundred and odd feet in height, to which, being Bell-Everett men, they hung a great bell and a United States flag. Prominent in this action was Mr. J. A. M. Whealton, a man of an intellect and education not often found among native Chincoteaguers. Upon a deputy coming from the mainland to protest and threaten, “Gentlemen,” said the courageous loyalist, “I hung that flag and bell, and when they go down I go down with them, but they hang there so long as I have powder and bullets and can use them.” And the Mainlanders were satisfied and let them hang!

At this season of the year Chincoteague is visited by quite a number of guests from other sections of the country, drawn by the exceptionally good gunning and fishing to be found upon the island no less than by the legitimate attractions of the ponies. Among these we had great pleasure in making the acquaintance of Prof. Otto Leugger, the German naturalist of the Baltimore Academy of Natural Sciences, who was there, puzzling the natives with his strange implements and proceedings; his butterfly nets and insect chasing; his seines and dredges and deep sea fishing. A pleasant expedition we had through the pine woods and thickets that clothe the island, though from that expedition and those thickets we emerged covered with myriads of seed ticks. Seated upon the edge of a stranded boat we endeavored to remove them from our persons with but indifferent success. Among the many insects which the Professor has collected it may be doubted if any have cost him more pains than those he doubtless still carries about him.

The most important event in the routine of Chincoteague life is the occasional penning of the ponies, or driving them into corral, one of which took place during our visit last week, when the ponies were penned for public sale. The pen was located immediately behind and to one side of a curious old frame building called the Virginia Hotel. It was quite early in the morning when the penning came off. Along the beach that stretches up the Island a mile or more, came suddenly in sight a crowd of ponies dashing along, now pattering over the moist sand, now splashing through shallow salt-pools that lay here and there along the strand. Behind came clattering with noise and gesticulation the figures of the drivers, men and boys, riding for the most part stirrupless and upon simple sheep-skins strapped to their ponies’ backs, bending almost level from their seat, every now and then dashing ahead to head off some fractious animal. Presently they approach the pen and squealing, whickering, biting and kicking, the ponies are headed tumultuously in. Then comes the tug of war, the capturing and haltering for the sale.

The lasso used is a rope about fifteen yards long with a running noose at one end. They do not cast the lasso after the manner of the Western mustang catchers, but hanging the noose around the end of a pole eighteen or twenty feet long, they approach near enough to drop it over the pony’s head. Now “Uncle Ken” takes the pole. Cautiously approaching, he keeps his eye fixed upon the one he wishes to secure, keeping the pole and noose well raised so as not to scare his intended captive. Suddenly, one of them taking fright, away they all plunge, scattering the spectators right and left. In the meantime the chosen pony is wedged in the midst of a crowd of his fellows. Uncle Ken sees his advantage; he runs forward, the noose is dropped and the pony captive. Then, as the animal feels the noose tighten upon his neck, ensues a shouting and struggling, half a dozen negroes at one end of the line and the pony at the other. He rears and plunges, dragging Ned and Sambo and the rest through the soft sand in a cloud of dust. Sometimes they are thrown completely off their feet as the pony makes a side plunge; then over they go, their heads plowing through the sand and stink-weed, but still gallantly and with much perspiration they retain their hold upon the line. At length the choking noose overcomes the pony’s courage; he stands still, trembling, with eyes rolling, while he emits a wheezing noise from his contracted larynx. Now is the time; a parcel of negroes rush quickly forward seizing the pony by every available point, legs, mane and tail. In vain the creature struggles; a sudden heave and over he goes, amid the tumultuous cheers of the surrounding spectators. Even yet he does not cease from his struggles, and sometimes by a sudden kick, he will send his captors tumbling right and left through the scattering crowd. But it is a last effort; a running noose is slipped over his nose and a piece of string tied from his forelock to this new loop. From this moment a sadder change comes over the pony. Now and then he will kick and plunge, of course, but as a general rule, he stands with half closed eyes as though nearly asleep, so that one would scarcely imagine that this was a veritable wild pony. But should you imagine that all the spirit has died out of him, attempt to mount him and you will discover your error.

The game in Chincoteague is excellent. Trout are caught by the fishermen in great abundance and sometimes of very large size. One that was shown me must have weighed two pounds. Another sportsman claimed to have shot one hundred and twenty snipe in less than two hours. The oysters and crabs are delicious, and indeed the island upon the whole abounds in good things; an interesting place to visit, though not altogether favorable for a permanent abode.

H.P.

So, as Every Evening’s masthead is Pyle’s first known published drawing, this article represents Pyle’s first known published piece of prose. It predates the publication of “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies” by more than seven months.

It also begs a few questions: Was Pyle working - even occasionally - as a reporter? Possibly, but I was unable to find any other pieces with his byline in the Commercial (or, for that matter, in Every Evening). Did he write the article on speculation, then submit it to Jenkins, or did Jenkins commission it? I wish I knew. But “that miserable engagement” probably involved Jenkins prodding Pyle at the Commercial offices (at the southwest corner of Fifth and Market Streets in Wilmington) to tweak and polish his text until it was good enough to be printed in that day’s paper.

As luck would have it, just as an Every Evening reader had criticized Pyle’s masthead drawing back in 1871, a disgruntled Commercial reader found fault with his Chincoteague letter. On August 29, 1876, the paper printed the following:

Chincoteague’s Bright Side.

SOME OF ITS ATTRACTIVE FEATURES - ITS SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, LITERARY TASTE - A VIGOROUS RACE, PHYSICALLY.

Correspondence of the Commercial.

Chincoteague, Va., August 22. - Chincoteague boasts to-day of her public institutions; though the youngest settlement on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, hers is the only school district that runs a graded school. Its session covers ten months in the year, with an average attendance of scholars which exceeds one hundred, and to the expense of which the trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund made an annual appropriation of three hundred dollars.

Chincoteague has her Cornet Brass Band of fourteen instruments, under the leadership of Mr. J. T. Kenney, a gentleman of extraordinary musical ability, and though the organization has been in existence but twelve months, it stands side by side with similar institutions of longer standing.

We invite your correspondent “H.P.” to visit our churches and Sabbath schools, of which we have three, claiming that Chincoteague in her pulpits and pews, has as much ability and intelligence as is usually found in country churches.

Instead of the islanders, as “H.P.” asserts, being of a “sallow, leathery, smoke-dried complexion, with back and shoulders rounded like the bowl of a spoon,” they are in complexion the picture of tanned health; and in stature they resemble the North American Indian, from which race a few of them claim to have descended. An acquaintance with the Birch family, the Whealton and Lewis families, and a host of others, will fully corroborate the above statement. Whatever else may be said of the natives, to their credit we will say that in their homes and persons, though many of them are poor, they are the personification of neatness and cleanliness.

It is a strange fact, that while, as “H.P.” asserts, “one might live here for weeks without beholding a newspaper or a book of any kind,” we should read his article in the Commercial of the 15th the following morning; and we would say, just here, that if “H.P.” had made the acquaintance and associated with the better class of our island, they would have supplied him with the following leading publications: Harper’s Weekly, N.Y. Herald, N.Y. Sun, Philadelphia Times, Philadelphia Ledger, Wilmington Commercial, Baltimore American, Baltimore Sun, Richmond Dispatch, N.Y. Christian Advocate, Baltimore Methodist Protestant, with a host of lesser lights, all of which are received at our post office by actual subscription. The fact that H.P. failed to get a copy of Appleton’s Journal was not a proof of his assertion. We boast too of our commercial importance. Chincoteague Bay and tributaries yield to the toilers of the sea an annual income of two hundred thousand dollars, while from our agriculture, ponies, and sheep comes no small revenue.

Among our summer visitors we have had Hon. John A. J. Creswell, Col. H. R. Torbert of the Baltimore Custom House, Lieut. Thomas Traviss of the U.S.R.M. service, Mr. James Maffitt, theatrical manager, of Boston, Capt. C. H. Smith and family, of Wilmington, and a host of others, who spent their summer vacation here.

JONADAB.

(Our correspondent, as may be inferred from some expressions, takes strong exception to a letter from Chincoteague, published in the Commercial of August 15th. He does not give fair credit, we think, to the generally kind and friendly tone of “H.P.’s” letter, but as he presents a number of additional facts, we print his letter with pleasure, and should be glad to hear from him again. - Ed. Commercial)

But Pyle ignored “Jonadab.” Rather, he broadened his text threefold, added more anecdotes and local color, retained all of his grotesque descriptions, and further lampooned the islanders. In doing so, however, he was emulating the travel-writing of his day, which combined autobiography, history, and humor - as well as prevailing prejudices. He had excellent models: both Mark Twain and Bayard Taylor, America’s first professional travel writer (and Pyle’s “cousin” - at least according to Pyle), had grown wealthy and world-renowned on the genre. When completed, the second version of Pyle’s Chincoteague article surely lacked the finesse of these masters, but it was a creditable, even precocious effort - and worthy enough to appear in Scribner’s Monthly the following April.

The sketches Pyle had made, though, weren’t quite up to snuff, so the magazine had them redrawn by more seasoned illustrators. Still, as this and his illustrated fable, “Drummer Fritz and his Exploits” (St. Nicholas, September 1877), had been accepted by national publications - and even some commissions had begun drifting his way - Pyle felt encouraged enough to set out on what he later called his “new life” as an artist-author. And by mid-October 1876, he had left Wilmington for New York.


Howard Pyle’s text and the redrawn pictures for “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies” will be in my next post.

May 11, 1906

“In Wilmington Lucia Guliana was placed on trial in the Federal Court on charge of having imported Rosa Caliente from Italy for immoral purposes. The girl was formerly an artist's model in Italy and one of the men summoned to serve on the jury is Howard Pyle, an artist, of Wilmington.”

The Reading [Pennsylvania] Eagle, May 11, 1906

An Invitation from Howard Pyle

How would you like to have gotten this in the mail? It's an invitation - hand-lettered and decorated by Howard Pyle himself - for an event held 106 years ago tonight at 1305 Franklin Street, in Wilmington, Delaware. For those who trip over archaic ligatures and long s's, here is a transcription:

Mr Pyle presents his Compliments and will be happy if you will attend a Bohemian Card Party at his Studio on Saturday, the twelfth day of March, Nineteen Hundred and Four, at Eight o'clock in ye Evening. (Tobacco, Etc.)

A guest list has yet to surface, but one invitee was Henry Francis du Pont, 23, who later founded Winterthur Museum, and was the only son of Pyle's friend Colonel Henry Algernon du Pont. Young Henry brought along another guest, with the host's permission: "Any friend of your father’s son shall always be welcome under my roof," Pyle had assured him.

Pyle's students came, too, after having spent (according to Allen True) "a fine afternoon making things for the evening while [Pyle] painted at his mural decoration and swapped stories." True said they played "a very funny game called Muggins" and that "there was a fine crowd of young people - cards till about eleven when chafing dishes were spread around and we had a Dutch feed and some good singing. It was delightful all the way through and had a distinctive flavor very different from most occasions of the sort."

Where Was Howard Pyle Born?

Howard Pyle was born 157 years ago today in Wilmington, Delaware. But where in Wilmington? Readers of the Abbott or Pitz biographies might come away with the idea that he was born and raised at “Green Hill” (or “Greenhill” - and now “Goodstay”), the bucolic property on the outskirts of the city. While it's true that Pyle spent about seven years there - more time than at any of his other childhood homes - his father, William Pyle, only purchased the place when Howard was 18 months old.

The 1853 Wilmington City Directory, however, tells us that William Pyle, patent leather manufacturer, resided at 224 Market Street. Simple enough. But where was 224 Market Street? In those days, before citywide renumbering, it stood between Eighth and Ninth Streets. Market Street, then Wilmington's main thoroughfare, was busier at its commercial lower end, toward the Christiana River, but above Eighth and up to the Brandywine it was a quieter stretch lined with colonial residences and newer townhouses.

William Pyle’s older brother and business partner, Cyrus, lived across the street at No. 225 and their immediate neighbors were predominantly doctors, lawyers, and merchants. The house at 224 had been built on the grounds of the old Wilmington Academy, where the Declaration of Independence had been read in 1776, and where, in 1786, a visiting Benjamin Franklin (joined by Dr. Benjamin Rush and James Madison) performed an experiment with electricity. In 1832 the Academy was torn down and replaced with private homes. (A misplaced note of mine states that No. 224 in particular was erected in 1835.)

I don't know how long the Pyles stayed there - three years at the most. William Pyle married Margaret Churchman Painter on September 30, 1851, and I gather they set up house soon after - perhaps at No. 224. But on September 25, 1854, William bought “Green Hill” for $10,000 and the family moved on to more rural surroundings. At the start of the Civil War they left “Green Hill” and in the 1860s and ’70s wound up renting three other houses on Market Street.

As time went on, new buildings sprang up near No. 224 (or No. 826, after the renumbering), most notably the Masonic Temple or Grand Opera House, which opened in late 1871. It was separated from the Pyles’ old place by only one other townhouse. And at the turn of the century the Garrick Theatre was erected directly adjacent to the house, which had been used primarily for business since the 1880s.

So far I haven’t found too many images of the house, but here are a few...

This crude engraving comes from John Thomas Scharf’s History of Delaware (1888). The six windows on the far left presumably represent 224 (or 826) Market Street.

In this 1890s view, the house is partially obscured by a pole and a wagon, and sits to left of the place with the bright shutters.

In this photo, taken in 1906 at the latest, we see the house again partially obscured by a pole and butted up against the Garrick Theatre, which opened November 23, 1903. The sign on the wall between the second floor windows might have advertised the law practice of Benjamin and John Nields, which was located there for many years.

Later photos suggest that the building was re-sided or remodeled, but, either way, the original structure was pulled down long ago. And one of these days maybe we’ll know for sure whether or not Howard Pyle was born there on March 5, 1853.

NOTE: Another scrap of evidence can be found here.

A Howard Pyle Model

“Lola” by Howard Pyle (1908)

In 1925, Estelle Taylor, Hollywood actress and wife of world heavyweight champion boxer Jack Dempsey, reminisced in a syndicated interview about growing up in Wilmington. Here (from The Delmarva Star, February 7, 1926) she tells of what happened after she dropped out of high school:

Shortly afterwards I met Howard Pyle, the noted Wilmington artist and illustrator, and he asked me to pose for him.

After much urging Grandmother [Ida Barrett] agreed that I might pose for Mr. Pyle. For, as she said: “He’s such a fine man, the association may be very pleasant for you, and besides, (and with her it was a very important ‘besides’) the experience may get those stage ideas out of your head.”

But as to that last, it worked just oppositely.

I’ll never forget the day I walked into Mr. Pyle’s studio. The first thing I saw was a picture of a pirate sitting in the sand, with a bandanna about his head - his brow wrinkled in thought.

As I studied the picture which, I think, is one of Mr. Pyle’s most famous works, I fell to wondering what was in the pirate’s mind. I wondered if his future was troubling him as much as mine was beginning to trouble me. For I found myself consumed with restless ambition. And I immediately began to figure how, by posing for Mr. Pyle, and possibly other Wilmington painters, (for there were three separate colonies of artists there) I could earn enough money to start on the stage.

While those thoughts were going through my head Mr. Pyle came into the room. Although, on our first meeting, he had struck me as large, he now seemed taller and bigger - and much more formidable. I felt somewhat awed by him. And I began to fear that my posing days might be limited to just that one, for I was not at all sure that Mr. Pyle would like me as a model.

But I had all my fears for nothing. He was kindness itself and I never saw anyone more patient or more considerate, only sometimes he’d forget how long he had been working and would keep me in one position until I felt I’d drop from fatigue. That, however, I knew, was the result of his concentration on his painting. For, when he realized how tired I must be, he’d say: “Oh, I’m so sorry, child, you must be worn out. Now take a nice long rest.”

All the time he painted he whistled, no tune in particular, as I noticed over and over again, but a sort of medley - and he always seemed happy and contented with life. My experience as a model for him was extremely happy.

Ida Estelle Taylor was born May 20, 1894, in Wilmington. Some biographies erroneously say she was born “Estelle Boylan” and was of “working-class Irish” stock, but she appears on the 1900 Census, aged six, the daughter of Harvey (or Henry) D. Taylor, a building and loan agent, living on a respectable stretch of Washington Street (just a few blocks north of Pyle’s home from 1881 to 1893). While she may have been of Irish descent, her parents and four grandparents were born in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Estelle’s mother married Harry Boylan c.1913 - hence the Boylan confusion - but by then Estelle was married to Kenneth Peacock. She later moved to New York City and Hollywood and married Jack Dempsey in 1925.

Estelle vaguely says she dropped out in the “second grade” of high school. Gertrude Brincklé said Estelle posed for the title character of the story “Lola” for the January 1909 Harper's Monthly Magazine, which would have made her only 14 - a little young, but not out of the question. And Pyle was indeed at work on “Marooned” in 1908: he showed it in progress to his students Gayle Hoskins and Ethel Pennewill Brown on February 6 of that year.

Brincklé also recalled that Estelle first modeled for Clifford Ashley, who recommended her to Pyle, and that she went by trolley to the Taylor house to “hire” Estelle and escort her back to 1305 Franklin Street. Although Estelle does not mention Ashley in her interview, she does remember posing for Harvey Dunn, Leslie Thrasher, E. Roscoe Shrader, Stanley Arthurs, Charles MacLellan, W. H. D. Koerner, and Douglas Duer - all Pyle disciples. And she notes, “Altogether I worked for Wilmington artists for approximately two years.”

A Pyle Student’s Letter Home, Part 1

In early December 1901, a young artist named Henry Jarvis Peck arrived in Wilmington to study illustration under Howard Pyle.

Peck was born June 10, 1880, in Galesburg, Illinois, and grew up in Warren, Rhode Island. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and then the Eric Pape School of Art in Boston, where his classmates included Clifford W. Ashley, a cousin, who had also just joined Pyle's class; N. C. Wyeth, who came down the following fall; and Sidney Marsh Chase, who became a Pyle student in 1903 [actually, I’m not sure when!].

On Sunday, December 8, 1901, Peck wrote his first letter home and I am happy to be able to display it here. A complete transcription will follow in a new post.

On This Day in Howard Pyle History?

On December 7, 1900, Howard Pyle had a special guest at his studio on Franklin Street in Wilmington, Delaware. Yes, none other than Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University...Woodrow Wilson!

Well, maybe.

At this time, the two were corresponding regularly about Pyle’s illustrations for Wilson’s “Colonies and Nation” which appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine throughout 1901.

On December 1, 1900, Wilson wrote to Pyle:

I find (have only just now found for certain) that the date fixed for my lecture before the New Century Club in Wilmington is December sixth, next Thursday. I am to stay at Mr. Job Jackson’s [at 1101 Washington Street]. If you are to be at home the next morning, will you not let me know at what time I may call on you? A lecture rather does me up; but the next morning I will be fit to enjoy myself again.

Pyle replied on December 3, 1900:

Of course I shall be most delighted to see you, say at my studio the day after you lecture here in Wilmington. I am only sorry that we are not to have the pleasure of entertaining you. I shall probably see you the night of the lecture.

And then a few months later, on March 6, 1901, Pyle asked: “When do you come to Wilmington again? Do not forget that the next time you are to stay with me.” Wilson replied the next day: “Thank you very much for saying what you do about my staying with you the next time I come to Wilmington. The idea is most attractive. May the thing some day happen!”

So it’s still up in the air if Woodrow Wilson visited Howard Pyle on December 7, 1900, and I’m inclined to think Wilson never wound up being Pyle’s house guest once their collaboration was over. But if ever I obtain corroborating evidence, I’ll let you know.