Written by: Jessica Pearl
I’ve been perusing a scrapbook kept by Solomon Townsend II (1805-1880), which contains newspaper clippings, letters, notes, and drawings related to the Townsend family. In some entries, he writes about specific family members. Many pages are difficult to read due to age and ink bleed-through.
The last entry is a remark on “My little brother Solomon.” While reading this description detailing the life of his brother who passed away at 2 years and 8 months of age (I may have cried at my desk), I found some interesting details that relate to paintings that were donated to the museum in 2022. We were given two watercolor portraits, one of Solomon Townsend I (1746-1811), and the other of Anne Townsend (1725-1823). We were incredibly enthusiastic about receiving these paintings from a descendant, though we had some questions. Comparatively, Solomon looks much younger than Anne, so we thought it may have been a portrait of one of Solomon and Anne’s children, and that there may have been a suite of family portraits. There are also three locks of hair inside the framed portrait of Anne. This makes me wonder, to whom do the locks of hair belong? Giving hair keepsakes during the 19th century was common practice, and were given as gifts to family and friends, or as a memorial of a lost loved one.
How wrong we were! By reading Solomon Townsend II’s entry about his little brother Solomon, I believe it may be a painting of Solomon I, and at least one of the locks of hair belonged to Solomon II’s late brother. I still wonder about the age of Solomon in the portrait looking much younger than Anne. The frames date to around 1810-1820, and Solomon died in 1811. Is it possible his portrait was made posthumously, or were the frames changed to keep with the current style? After finding this discovery, I linked these three objects together and added notes in our collections database, so that future generations will know the relationship between the portraits and writings of Solomon Townsend II. Research is always ongoing, and finding these collection connections helps us fill in the picture and tell a more complete history of the Townsends.
The following is a transcription of the entry on “My little brother Solomon.”
My “little brother Solomon”
Born at 225 Pearl St. 1st July 1801 and died at 71n 50 Nassau St near Fulton ) on the 1st March 1804- of the dropsy at 2 years + 8 months of age. My Father describes in the family record, as being “for the most part a weakly child” yet the little lock of his flaxen hair in the frame of my mothers portrait and which is there with my father and her own reminds me often of how gently and affectionately she and my sisters always speak of his memory. How he could get his Papas slippers when he came home for his many other endearing ways. Making me sometimes wonder to myself that if I should have been taken this young, my little life and ways would as tenderly cherished and fearing that they could not be- I remember my mother saying that at his closing moments she resigned him from her own to Cousin Phebe Talmans arms who sat opposite to her. The emotion that she evinced when she narrated this incident to the little listener at her knee would have been painfully heightened had she then have known that it would the fate of her little tender delicate childx to have lapsed in his sole embrace the dying forms of his three then manly brothers- and in the case of two of them (Saml. + Jacob) under most painful attendant circumstances My brother Samuel at the present just before the death of our Brother- asked me to excuse him from the room- as he could not control his feelings to stay and witness the final end- yet my brother S. was a man of nerve, where many would falter?
X (illegible) this period of -17 I was (illegible) them + my mother often predicted a short life for me. S.T. Oct. 29, 1864
