The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (52 page)

[17]
Rayford W. Logan,
Haiti and the Dominican Republic
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 13, indicated “a small number of Negroes … came in from the United States [1819-1844].”

[18]
Unless indicated otherwise, references to Edmonia’s childhood appear in the following sources: Child, letter to the editor, BL, Feb. 19, 1864; Child, “A Chat;” Child, “Edmonia Lewis;” Wreford, “A Negro Sculptress;” Wreford, “Lady Artists in Rome;”
Boston (MA) Post;
HELBAA; Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” NYDG, July 10, 1873; SFC, Aug. 26, 1873; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis;”
Indianapolis (IN) News,
Nov. 18, 1878; NYT, Dec. 29, 1878; NYT, Sept. 25, 1879;
Boston (MA) Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880; Faithfull,
Three Visits,
293-94.

[19]
Record of Attendance, Conduct, and Grades of Students in the NYCC, 1854-1858. Lamont Memorial Free Library, McGraw, New York. See also Richardson, “Edmonia Lewis at McGrawville;”
Cortland (NY) Standard,
“New York Central College,” Mar. 1, 1915; NYCC Association, Annual Reports, New York State Library;
Syracuse (NY) Daily Star,
“New York Central College,” Aug. 3, 1849; L. F. Litwack,
North of Slavery; the Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 141; Ralph Varney Harlow,
Gerrit Smith, Philanthropist and Reformer
(New York: Henry Holt, 1939), 231; McGraw Central School District, History, accessed July 1, 2010, http://www.mcgrawschools.org/teacherpage3.cfm?teacher=817.
NYCC was sponsored by the American Baptist Free Mission Society (which had separated from the American Baptist denomination). Its supporters included Oberlin College backers William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, and Henry Ward Beecher.

[20]
HELBAA. Cf. New York. State Education Dept,
Iroquoian and Algonquian Indians: A Historical Perspective and Resource Guide
(Albany, NY: University of the State of New York, 1985), 10
.

[21]
H. W. [Henry Wreford] “A Negro Sculptress,”
Athenæum
2001, Mar. 3, 1866, p. 302. See also HELBAA. Cf. New York Central College register of students from 1854 – 1858, Courtesy of Mary Kimberly, village historian, Village of McGraw NY.

[22]
Bearden and Henderson,
A History,
54. The authors had information suggesting that Edmonia descended from a colored man named Lewis who married a daughter of the Mike family in the Chippewa community. The 1851 Canadian census, provided by professor Donald B. Smith, University of Calgary, June 12, 1996, listed the daughters of John and Caty Mike, Jane and Catherine, as ages 15 and 6, respectively, too young to have borne a child in 1844.

[23]
U. S. census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900. Edmonia’s brother gave census takers a variety of birthplaces: New Jersey, Bermuda, and eventually the more truthful yet vague West Indies. He cited West Indies again in his brief histories published in 1885 and 1894. Only in his 1896 obituary and the census of 1900 do we find mention of Haiti. See also Tim Matthewson, “Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haiti,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
140 (1996): 22-48; Thomas O. Ott,
The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804
(Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1973).

[24]
The term is found in
Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie
(1847) and
The Song of Hiawatha
(1855).

[25]
Cleveland,
Story,
109-110. Edmonia’s baptism, which could not be confirmed by Archivio Storico del Vicariato in Rome, must have taken place outside Rome.

[26]
Catholic Encyclopedia
(New York: Robert Appleton co., 1907-1914), s. v. “Chippewa Indians,” accessed July 7, 2010, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03690a.htm. The western Jesuit missions to the Catholic Chippewa of Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula were, we believe, too remote and too early to be relevant.
By the time of Edmonia’s birth, the Michigan/Wisconsin Jesuits had long since turned their missions over to other Catholic priests and departed the area.
Edmonia’s childhood tales made one reference to that area. A lone interview mentions Michigan:
Boston (MA) Post,
quoted in
Philadelphia (PA) Daily Evening Bulletin,
“American Artists in Rome,” Mar. 9, 1867. Not supported by any other source, the writer may have assumed she lived in Michigan based on her connection with Longfellow’s poem. See also Devine,
Historic Caughnawaga,
61-62, 151-153, 244-247. Schoolcraft,
Notes on the Iroquois,
29, 44- 221.

[27]
Daniel Wilson, “The Artistic Faculty in Aboriginal Races,” in
Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada
(Montreal, Dawson Bros., 1886), III 65-117. Richard Rhodes, University of California, Berkeley, to author July 12, 2010, translated the name. See also St. Regis Mohawk Tribe: Tribal History, accessed May 14, 2010, http://www.srmt-nsn.gov/his.htm; E. M. Ruttenber,
Footprints of the Red Men. Indian Geographical Names
(n.p.: New York State Historical Association, 1906), 189-190; Thomas K. Donnalley,
Handbook of Tribal Names of Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia, Pa., 1908), 8. There is more on Edmonia’s Indian names in the Epilogue.

[28]
New York, State Education Dept., op. cit.

[29]
Joseph Mitchell, “Mohawks in High Steel,”
New Yorker,
Sept. 17, 1949, 38-53; Devine,
Historic Caughnawaga,
379.

[30]
Franklin Benjamin Hough,
A History of St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties, New York
(Albany: Little & Co., 1853), 167-168; Devine,
Historic Caughnawaga,
388-389;
Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Co., 2000), 13.

[31]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Dec. 12, 1869, Whitney MSS. We found no accounts of other visits to her aunts. See also Elizabeth McKinsey,
Niagara Falls. Icon of the American Sublime
(Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 127; Mark Twain, “Niagara,” in
Sketches New and Old
(New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1903), 58-67.

[32]
For example, Lawrence Labree,
Rebels and Tories; or, The Blood of the Mohawk!
(New York: DeWitt and Davenport, 1851), 93-94, etc.

[33]
Tuckerman,
Book,
603-604. See also Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” Gay, “Edmonia Lewis;” Henry Robertson Sandbach, Diary, Feb. 8, 1872, (Powys County Archives, M/D/SAND/1/19) quoted in National Museums Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, accessed Mar. 22, 2010, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/foreign/longfellow_edmonia_lewis.asp; Clarkson, T., letter to the editor,
Boston (MA) Daily Globe,
Oct. 2, 1883.

[34]
See also Donald B. Smith,
Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 207, the New Credit Chippewa group resolved to exclude colored persons in 1844, the year of Edmonia’s birth.

[35]
Sampson, “Doing the Centennial.”

[36]
Longfellow,
Life,
II, 248: “Work at “Manabozho;” or, as I think I shall call it, “Hiawatha,” — that being another name for the same personage.” Cf. H. R. Schoolcraft,
The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends
(Philadelphia: Lippincott & co., 1856), 13.

[37]
Oberlin Evangelist,
“Commencement Exercises,” Sept. 11, 1861, 151, quoted in Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Oberlin, Document 17, accessed July 21, 2010, http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/oberlin/doc17.htm.

[38]
Child, “Edmonia Lewis.” See also Miller,
An Illustrated History,
374-376.

[39]
Official documents being lost, the contemporary record of the incident, which took place Jan. 27, 1862, and its aftermath came mainly via news coverage and a diary:
Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer,
“Mysterious Affair at Oberlin,” Feb. 11, 1862, “Oberlin Poisoning Case,” Feb. 25, 1862, and “Oberlin Poisoning Case Again,” Mar. 3, 1862; LCN, “Trial in Prospect,” Feb. 19, 1862, “Poisoning Affair,” Mar. 5;
Cleveland (OH) Morning Leader,
“Oberlin Poisoning Case,” Mar. 3, 1862; Fannie Maria White [Mrs. James Bailey], diary, Jan. 31, 1862, Oberlin College Archives. See also Langston, Virginia Plantation, 171-180; Blodgett, “John Mercer Langston” and “Spiced Wine.”

[40]
Cf.
Boston (MA) Commonwealth,
quoted in NASS, “Prejudice at Oberlin College!” June 11, 1864.

[41]
NYDG, July 10, 1873. Cf. HELBAA
.

NOTES FOR BOOK ONE – Boston. 1. EAST IN 1863

[42]
In February, 1863, the College denied permission for Edmonia to register for the spring term, according to Clara Hale to Dear Folks at Home, Feb. 26, 1863, Clara Hale file, Oberlin College Archives. See also LCN, “Mary Lewis had another,” Feb. 25, Elyria, May 6, 1863; Mary Edmonia Lewis file, Oberlin College Archives. Records of courses taken spring 1861 and of two winter courses of a possible four remain (1859-60 and 1861-62).

[43]
Charles Grandison Finney, perhaps the most popular preacher of his day, was a forerunner of Billy Sunday and Billy Graham.

[44]
Marcia Goldberg, “A Drawing by Edmonia Lewis,”
American Art Journal
9 (1977): 104; Marcia Goldberg and W. E. Bigglestone, “A Wedding Gift of 1862,”
Oberlin Alumni Magazine,
Jan.-Feb. 1977, 20; J. V. Turano, “More Information on Edmonia Lewis’ Drawing,”
American Art Journal
10 (1978): 112. See also Miller,
An Illustrated History,
374-376.

[45]
Frederick Douglass, editorial, “Miss Edmonia Lewis.” Douglass recalled meeting Edmonia Lewis in the spring of 1863, “conversing most earnestly and encouraging [her], then a student at Oberlin, with regard to art. She exhibited some signs of talent in drawing and painting, and had evinced such enthusiasm for the Art which adorns and ennobles that, from a kindred artistic love, we were led to advise her to seek the East and by study prepare herself for work and further study abroad.”

[46]
Fletcher,
History,
II, 718.

[47]
We have not identified Edmonia’s model, but we found a nearly identical drawing captioned “Urania, antique statue in the Vatican” in
Blackie’s Modern Cyclopedia
(1899) at Look and Learn Picture Library, accessed May 3, 2012, http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/M089050/Urania-Antique-Statue-in-the-Vatican. The drawing seems to reflect
Urania Ludovisi Altemps,
accessed May 3, 2012, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urania_Ludovisi_Altemps_Inv8579.jpg.

[48]
NYT, Dec. 29, 1878. See also Carleton, Literary and Artistic.

[49]
SFC, Aug. 26, 1873.

NOTES FOR 2. EPIPHANY

[50]
The building, which opened in 1865, is located at 45 School Street and is now called “the Old City Hall.”

[51]
SFC, Aug. 26, 1873. Versions of Edmonia’s encounter with the Benjamin Franklin statue also appear in Wreford, “Lady Artists in Rome;” Elizabeth P. Peabody [hereafter “Peabody”], ChReg [1869], quoted in Hanaford,
Women of the Century,
264-266; HELBAA; Pickle, On the Wing, “Edmonia Lewis—An Episode;” Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” NYDG, July 10, 1873; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis;” Faithfull,
Three Visits,
293-94.

[52]
Darren Bonaparte, “The History of the St. Regis Catholic Church,” Wampum Chronicles, accessed Mar. 10, 2010, http://www.wampumchronicles.com/catholicchurch.html. See also. Franklin Benjamin Hough,
A History of St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties, New York
(Albany: Little & Co., 1853), Chap. II. The Saint Francis Xavier mission, built in 1720, was rebuilt around 1845 with statues of St. Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, Our Lady, etc.

[53]
Sources for Brackett’s course with Edmonia include Child, letter to the editor, BL, Feb. 19, 1864; Whitney to Adeline M. Manning, Aug. 9, 1864, Payne MSS, 511-512; Child, “Edmonia Lewis;” HELBAA; Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” NYDG, July 10, 1873; and Gay, “Edmonia Lewis.” NYT, Sept. 25, 1879; and
Boston (MA) Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880.

NOTES FOR 3. BRACKETT

[54]
(Sara Jane Clarke Lippincott),
Greenwood Leaves: A Collection of Sketches and Letters,
“by Grace Greenwood” (Boston: Ticknor, Read, and Fields, 1852), 286-288. See also Joy F. Kasson,
Marble Queens and Captives. Women in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture
(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990), 128-130; Charlotte Cushman [hereafter “Cushman”],
Her Letters,
71; Leach,
Bright Particular Star,
244-258 (chap. 21). Greenwood accompanied Cushman and others to Rome in 1852. After returning to the U. S., she married Philadelphia publisher, Leander K. Lippincott (?-1896) in 1853.

[55]
Jarves,
Art Thoughts,
319.

[56]
NYDG, July 10, 1873. See also Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis.” Edmonia found lodging with Alfred G. and Edwin F. Howard and their families in a four-story brick house at 40 Poplar St. in Boston’s fashionable old West End. According to the 1865 Massachusetts census, their household accounted for one third of the very few colored people in the old fifth ward. City directories, etc., noted Alfred and Edwin Howard were barbers and caterers. See also Pauline E. Hopkins, Famous Women of the Negro Race: “Educators,”
Colored American Magazine,
July 1902, 206-214, which notes the Howard family was politically active and friendly with Garrison and others.