Ohio History Journal

Forty-First Annual Meeting             661

President Johnson then introduced Mr. Walter D.

McKinney, a life member of the Society, who had pre-

viously presented the rare original painting of Simon

Kenton, and who had brought to the meeting a painting

of Thomas Walker Cridland. Mr. McKinney came for-

ward with the painting in its pioneer frame, which he

presented to the Society in the following interesting and

informing address.

 

THOMAS WALKER CRIDLAND

Two years ago it was my privilege to place in the custody

of this Society, the portrait of Simon Kenton, the Kentucky and

Ohio pioneer, which had been in the family of Thomas Walker

Cridland for almost ninety years.

At that time, I made some remarks about Kenton, also about

the portrait, the hand-made frame and the man who made it, and

who had preserved the portrait. These remarks were published

in the QUARTERLY of January, 1925.

Today it is my added privilege to place in the custody of

this Society, the portrait of the man who made the frame around

the portrait of Simon Kenton and also that around his own por-

trait, and who also was a Kentucky-Ohio pioneer, Thomas Walker

Cridland, of Lexington, Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio.

This portrait and frame, like the others, have at least three

qualities which should make them of value and acceptable to the

Society, namely: The historical value of the subject, the artistic

value of the portrait, the workmanship of the frame.

I shall speak briefly on these in reverse order.

 

THE FRAME

The frame, like the one on the Kenton portrait, was designed

and made by Cridland; the processes were fully described in the

QUARTERLY before mentioned, but to those who have not read the

article or who may not have access to it, I desire to. say that the

frame was made of rough pine, two by four studding, carved into

form by hand; the ornamentation was made of glue putty, from

hand-made originals and then covered with gold leaf, making the

beautiful frame you see. Such a frame required about two

months to make and as it was made some eighty years ago and

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was hand-wrought, should pass as a fairly good antique, prized

in these days.

THE PORTRAIT

The portrait was painted by Edwin Cridland of Newport,

Kentucky, an artist of the highest order, from 1840 to 1875.

It was he that painted the famous picture of "still life", an old

violin on a barn-door. So perfect was this painting in every detail

that when it was first exhibited, a fence was built around it to

prevent persons from touching it to, see if it were a real painting.

This artist painted with almost photographic detail and

smoothness. My recollection is that he received two hundred and

fifty dollars for this picture and that later it sold for many thou-

sands of dollars.

With all his talents he could not turn his art into money.

He would paint only as the spirit moved him; would not sell an

original painting except under great necessity and then at a sac-

rifice; and his portrait painting had to be done to suit him and

not his customers. He died in humble circumstances, but as I

remember him, he was a high-class, artistic gentleman. He was

a cousin of Thomas W. Cridland who was about thirty to thirty-

five years of age when this portrait was painted.

 

THE SUBJECT

Thomas Walker Cridland, born in Leicester, England, Oc-

tober 1, 1811, came to America with his parents and his grand-

father's family in 1820 and settled in Philadelphia. There he was

apprenticed to a frame- and looking glass-maker. In 1834, he left

Philadelphia with his wife and babe, and settled in Lexington,

Kentucky. Here he engaged in business as an artist, frame-

maker, gilder, portrait and landscape painter.

About 1840, learning of the discovery or rather development

of the daguerreotype, he journeyed back to Philadelphia to learn

from Samuel F. B. Morse himself the art of the daguerreotype.

Samuel Morse was not only the inventor of the telegraph, but was

one of the foremost artists of his day (a painter and sculptor),

and associated with John W. Draper in making the first practical

daguerreotype--Cridland had made frames for Morse in Phil-

adelphia.

With apparatus, plates, chemicals, etc., Cridland returned to

Lexington, and became, as far as he was ever able to learn, the

first man to introduce the photographic art west of the Alleghanies,

and made the first daguerreotype.

Then came the ambro type (commonly called the "amber

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Forty-First Annual Meeting             663

 

type"); the ferro type or tintype, the photograph and today we

have the last word in the Vitaphone, the moving, speaking photo-

graph.

So much for Cridland's activities in introducing the photo-

graphic art into this section of the United States. Art was his

means of livelihood and he was indeed an artist in temperament

and in the highest meaning of the word.

But in a man's service to his fellow man, uninspired by gain

or self-enjoyment, lies his true value to society; and there should

be a place in history for such strong, modest characters as Thomas

Walker Cridland, who did so much for the liberty of the bodies

and souls of the men and women of America.

About the time that Cridland came to, Lexington, Kentucky,

the anti-slavery agitation began to take form. In the rear of his

residence was a slave-pen and sales-market, and he and his family

were obliged to listen day and night to harrowing sounds and to

witness heart-rending scenes, husbands separated from wives,

children from parents, sold and widely separated.

Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in Illinois for advocating anti-

slavery. The North and South were both alarmed by what might

be the economic effects of anti-slavery. Cassius M. Clay, a young

Kentucky firebrand, had, while at Yale College, caught the spell

from William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and fear-

lessly took up the discussion of anti-slavery in Lexington. Crid-

land took up the cause. He also made frequent trips to Cincin-

nati for goods and materials, where he met Lyman Beecher and

his family. His adventures and experiences with escaping slaves

cannot be rehearsed here, but they were recited from time to

time to Lyman Beecher, his son Henry Ward and his daughter,

Harriet Beecher Stowe. The latter also visited Cridland in Lex-

ington, to see for herself, and there obtained much of the at-

mosphere of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

During this tremendous agitation, was born the famous (or

at the time infamous) "Underground Railway", an invisible chain

of determined and fearless men, who inspired by righteousness,

aided certain black men, women and children (slave and free)

to reach the free land north of the Ohio River. Cridland became

a member of this "chain" at one of the starting points. (My

mother tells of black men being placed under her bed with the

admonition to her not to fear if she heard any noise during the

night, for all would be well.)

It is history how Cassius Clay had his print shop destroyed

and was obliged to leave Kentucky, and how the anti-slavery agi-

tators and workers were driven out of the South. With them

came Cridland in 1852 to Cincinnati and then to Dayton, where

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he lived the remainder of his life, except for a few years in Cali-

fornia.

In 1859, at Dayton, he made a photograph of Abraham

Lincoln pronounced one of the best ever made of Lincoln. It

was copied extensively.

However, he continued his efforts for equal rights of man

and woman everywhere. He was not a public speaker nor writer,

but powerful and convincing in conversation.

He counted among his friends the great liberty-loving minds

of his day, including the Clays, the Beechers, William Lloyd

Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Lucretia Mott, Mary A. Livermore,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and the great artists

of his time.

His religious thoughts were in harmony with those of Rev.

William Ellery Channing, that distinguished Unitarian divine

who found God and good in everything. Cridland loved the

trees, the streams, the beasts, the birds, the flowers and all man-

kind. He walked with them and talked with them and repro-

duced them in his paintings. The last act of his life was to finish

a landscape of a Southern California scene. He brought it home

and laid him down to rest amidst those he loved--a fitting ending

for a long and useful life. He died at Los Angeles, California,

November 25, 1891, and was buried at Dayton, Ohio.

He truly "touched no subject that he did not adorn." Thomas

Walker Cridland was my grandfather. (Applause.)

A vote of thanks was extended to Mr. McKinney

for his gift and address.

President Johnson: "We are somewhat unfortu-

nate in the matter of our program, because of the unex-

pected absence of Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Jones, who

were here, prepared to take part, but were called away

at the last moment, yesterday, by the illness of the only

sister of Mr. Jones.   I have here a letter from    Mrs.

Jones, addressed to Mr. Galbreath, expressing regret at

their inability to be present, and promising to address

the Society at some future date. I think I need offer no

other explanation of their absence from the meeting.

We sincerely trust that Mr. and Mrs. Jones will come

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