GROWING | PORTRAITIST | LANDSCAPIST | GALLERY |
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Resident Portraitist |
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I have just opened here, and the prospects seem tolerably
favorable in as much as there is wealth, taste, and a lack of pictures. Junius to P.R. Spencer from Princeton, Illinois, May 18, 1956 In May, 1856, Junius, at twenty-nine, went to Princeton, Illinois, thirty miles from Kewanee on the two-year old Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad to offer his services as Princeton's first resident portraitist. Princeton, the seat of Bureau County with a population of 2,500, had been settled in the early 1830's, primarily by a group from the Hampshire Colony, Massachusetts. Among them were Cyrus and John Bryant and later Arthur and Austin, brothers of the famous nature poet William Cullen Bryant. The Bryants were strong abolitionists and helped bring the beardless Abraham Lincoln to speak in Princeton at an anti-slavery rally, July 4, 1856. Junius made a sketch, dated May 14, of Cyrus Bryant's house, said to have been a hiding place for escaping slaves. Princeton proved to be a lively place of young professionals. To win customers, Junius became friends with twenty-seven year old furniture dealer James T. Stevens, who sold pictures and mirror frames with his furniture. Stevens apparently agreed to display portraits by Junius, to let customers know of Junius' services. In an illustrated letter to his family in Kewanee, Junius lightheartedly noted how that selling arrangement worked [see "Fishing for Business" letter]. |
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