Letters arrive like gifts, telling of the past

With the Christmas season and all its tinsel, lights, and greenery upon us, the mail also brings letters sometimes like gifts – like the following letter that this historian hopes will turn into a gift of sorts.

The letter from Barbara Havey begins, "Hi Alice, I am great-great-granddaughter of Caroline Cornellia and Dr. Beattie. (Caroline was Congressman Schoolcraft's wife).  My grandfather inherited a painting that I believe may have been a part of the Schoolcraft collection.  It subsequently passed to my mother and now to me.

“I am most anxious to try to identify the artist.  I will be ordering your book and, next time I'm up your way, I plan on visiting Guilderland.  I live in Florida now, but grew up in Yonkers.  Any info you could tell me about the painting would be greatly appreciated....."

This historian wonders if the painting is one that John Schoolcraft bought in Europe and brought home to Guilderland.  The writer tells me that the painting is "a neoclassical style Italian looking landscape with castles in the background.”  It measures about 56 by 42 inches.

This historian is anxious to see the painting to try to identify it with Congresssman John Schoolcraft who built the Schoolcraft House on Guilderland’s Great Western turnpike, now Route 20.

Another letter arrived from Chris Philippo of Glenmont after he read my column on restoring of the Dunn cemetery on Bill Bennett's property in Dunnsville. Abigal Gaskin's burial stone was the only female stone in the Dunn cemetery. Abigal was the daughter of Charles Dunn.

Chris Philippo surmised that Abigal Gaskin was married to the postmaster John Gaskin and quoted from a list of “animals exhibited at the Fair...by John Gaskin of Guilderland — a superior stud horse. (At the Albany Cattle Fair Daily Albany Argus.) November 6th 1833."

He also referred to this: “Catalogues stating pedigrees will be ready on the day before and on the day of the sale, which may be had by application...at John Gaskin's, innkeeper in the Town of Guilderland."

Another letter from Barbara Havey about her painting was on my desk at Town Hall Tuesday morning, Dec. 15. Barbara sent a picture of the painting she inherited from the Schoolcraft relatives.

The painting is dark and as yet I am unable to identify it or the artist who painted it.  But I do believe it is from the Schoolcraft ancestry.

Barbara also reveals that it came from "Mr. Schoolcraft's estate in 1860.  That is the year he died.   Caroline Schoolcraft married Dr. Beattie about two years after Schoolcraft died.  He became ill at the Republican Convention when Abraham Lincoln was nominated for President.

Caroline moved to Richmond, Virginia and took the paintings with her.  She outlived her daughter, who was Barbara Havey's great-grandmother, Agnes Jennings Beattie Stuart.  The paintings passed to her grandchildren, including Barbara's grandfather, Robert McAllister Stuart, born in 1903.

The frame had been cut to fit a wall in 1965 in Yonkers, New York.  The history of the painting passed along with it is that it was done by an artist who also painted a portrait of George Washington for the White House. We are both working on that and will let you know!