A Trove of HC Merrill Wood Engravings

“The art and trade of wood engraving are today largely a matter of history,” Hiram Campbell Merrill, age 71, said in 1937. Probably as his way of marking the transfer of wood engraving from a trade integral to the printing industry to the art form in which it is known today. For a period of seventy years, Merrill practiced his trade and creativity in prints, drawings, and paintings.

Ann Prentice Wagner, the most knowledgeable authority on Merrill, mentions him in her work “The Graver, the Brush, and the Ruling Machine: The Training of Late-Nineteenth-Century Wood Engravers”: “Hiram Merrill (1866-1958), a wood engraver whose life is well documented in the Hiram Campbell Merrill Collection of the Boston Public Library, began his career in the typical fashion with an apprenticeship of several years in an illustration firm. Two major factors urged Merrill, like so many young people in the late nineteenth century, toward a career in wood engraving: he was poor and he was interested in art. His father was a wheelwright and, as the family probably had no connection to art, Merrill is unlikely to have received any particular encouragement in that direction. Despite this, from an early age he drew from nature and dreamed of being a painter. Merrill attended drawing classes at Shephard Grammar School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a surviving report card records that he received excellent grades in drawing. Merrill summed up his situation: ‘The necessity to earn money decided me to embrace wood engraving, as I was told it was lucrative.’”

Hiran Merril in 1937, addressed

the Sociey of  Printers of Boston

Hiram Merrill was born in Boston and was 16 when he entered his apprenticeship as a wood engraver. He worked for a firm that did book illustrations. In 1890, seeking to advance in magazines and newspapers, he moved to New York City. He worked for Harpers, both their Monthly and Weekly magazines. This work was at a faster pace than in Boston. Yet he found time to take art classes, draw, and paint. In 1896 he traveled around the United States drawing and painting. In 1905 he traveled to Europe and again in 1909 to Brittany where he made studies that were material for many later paintings and engravings. Merrill often visited Vermont, where his mother was born, and where he also found material for his creativity. Merrill was awarded a bronze medal for engraving at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, 1901, and the same honor at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis, 1904. Merrill died in 1958.

A print collector, Barbara Robeson, describes Merrill as “one of the highly skilled practitioners of American reproductive wood engraving that flourished at the end of the 19^th century. Late in his life and long after the demise of “reproductive wood engravings”, he embarked on a series of 50 original wood engravings created from his own designs - paintings, sketches, and photographs of his extensive travels in Europe and New England.”

"Village Store, Ryegate Vermont" 1942. Signed by the artist. 

Ryegate is the birthplace of Hiram Merrill's Mother.

We are indebted to the estate of Miss Shirley Southard who died this year in Denver, intestate and without any known family, for this peek into the art of Hiram Merrill. Among her papers were a small trove of Hiram Merrill wood engravings. In order to share these engravings, her only legacy, with the public, they are reproduced here. Southard was of New England stock, and is buried with her mother in Peacham, Vermont, which may explain the subject matter of five of her seven engravings. Southard’s collection are representative of the latter part of Merrill’s life. The first is dated 1942, when he would have been 76 years old. The most recent is dated 1951, at age 85. Five are scenes in New England; one shows his mother; and the last is a scene in Brittany. Southard was in her teens during these years. We don’t know how she acquired them as she left no notes. She might have come by them later in life through purchase, or an older relative might have acquired them, later passing them to Southard. In the 1940s, Merrill’s prints appear to have sold for as little as $10.

"My Mother, Emeline W. Merrill, 90 years old" 1944. 

Signed by the artist. 

"The Holstein Calf, Newbury, Vermont " 1945. Signed by the Artist

"The Covered Bridge, Conway, New Hampshire" 1945

Signed by the Artist

"Vermont Hills" 1950

Signed by the Artist

Title Indecipherable - Farm Scene 1951

Signed by the Artist

"Concarneau, Brittany. Fishermen's Wives" 1951

Signed by the Artist

Resources:

Merrill, Hiram Campbell, “Wood Engraving and Wood Engravers”, An Address to the Society of Printers of Boston, January, 1937

Robeson, Barbara, Website: www.flickr.com/photos/19469168@N02/4457653365, “Wood Engraving  by HC Merrill”, 2010

Wagner, Ann Prentice, “The Graver, the Brush, and the Ruling Machine: The Training of Late-Nineteenth-Century Wood Engravers”, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massechusetts, 1995

Whittles, George Howes, “Monographs on American Wood Engravers, XXIX Hiram Campbell Merrill”, The Printing Art Magazine, University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, Volume XXXII Number 6, February, 1919

Roger Doherty

Shoshoni, Wyoming Postcard. The Casteels Arrive.

About 1905 Archibald and Estella Casteel, my great grandparents were casting about for a new opportunity. Their family had been in Nebraska since the late 1870s, when Archibald’s father, Isaiah Bennett Casteel moved from Grundy County , Illinois and filed a homestead claim in the Loup Valley area of Sherman County. By 1905, the extended Casteel clan centered in the Mitchell/Morrill/Lyman area in the Southwest corner of Nebraska.

In 1904, the townsite of Shoshoni, Wyoming was being developed. The Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad was building west from Casper, a nearby portion of land in the Wind River Indian Reservation was opened for mineral exploration, and the nearby Boysen Dam and Reservoir was under construction. There were opportunities. 

So the next year, 1905, Casteel loaded his brood of ten children (his eldest, Sam, having left home previously) and possessions onto a railroad car, and headed for Wyoming. The railhead at that time was Moneta, some twenty miles east of Shoshoni. The Casteels traveled the rest of their journey by horse and wagon.

 By 1906, Shoshoni’s population was maybe as high as 2,000, although the city was largely composed of tents. Here is another view of Shoshoni in 1906. Today, about 650 persons live in Shoshoni. 

The Casteel home was one of the first built in Shoshoni, and exists today although vacant and in a very decrepit state.

Roger Doherty

__________

ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT: All Is Lost, Save Honor And Peanut Butter.

Recently, I have been wondering about the location of some documents from my college days. With my ever more noticeable memory loss, I just couldn’t remember where I had put them. Yesterday, they turned up – inserted in my copy of “Howl”. Which segues to the story that I wanted to share with you. 

Back in the ancient time of my college leisure at the University of Oregon, the powers that be, a combination of students and administrators, decided that in the interests of open discussion and tolerance, there should be a designated “free speech” area on the campus. And shortly, there appeared a brick podium structure outside of the student union where both intellectual and unwashed were encouraged to give forth with “free speech”. And many took advantage of the likely audience of loungers and passersby from this strategic spot. Some were scheduled speeches and some were impromptu.

In 1965 or thereabouts, an unfortunate history teacher at Bend Community College (in Bend, Oregon for all of my readers from the East) named Ashleigh Brilliant found himself in trouble for having read publicly Allen Ginsberg’s filthy and sometimes banned poem, “Howl”. As it happened, a regressive troglodyte named Don P. Pence, president of this bastion of learning, was among those who had banned the poem. Brilliant was not offered a renewal of his contract.

In this time of student activism, Brilliant was invited to present his case to the soap dodgers at the University of Oregon’s Free Speech Platform. I and my extensive hoard of six or seven bohemians vowed to support this brave freedom of speech effort.

Brilliant gave what I am certain was a passionate and inspiring presentation in defense of freedom of speech and a  rousing condemnation of the banning of works of great literature! In truth, I don’t remember a word of it. But I must have had a great time adding my support to this worthwhile effort.

What I do remember is that Brilliant distributed a mimeographed flier to interested listeners, entitled “Some Unpoemed Titles”. I have kept it all of these fifty years, and am pleased to share it with you.

Brilliant subsequently turned his unpoemed titles into a lucrative business, eventually transmorgrifying into a syndicated cartoon called “Pot-Shots by Ashleigh Brilliant”. I’m sure you all remember seeing it in the daily newspapers. Here is a 1979 example of Pot-Shots.

Brilliant was indeed brilliant, taking short snips and bon mots from the public domain and adding a cartoon to the then copyrighted product. On a few occasions, he had to go to court to defend his copyright, but seems to have been successful. He apparently became known as a professional epigrammatist. You will note that some of his 1965 “titles” are a little explicit. In his syndication years, he seems to have been much more constrained. I guess Brilliant is still alive and living in the Santa Barbara area of California. He was born in 1933 in London, England. So he would be about 84 now. So here’s to the good health and even longer life of Ashleigh Brilliant whose defense of free speech left an indelible imprint on my life.

November 2016 update: Since this post, I found a 2002 lecture which Brilliant gave in Bend, describing his free speech experience. It's worth reading. Go to https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/writings.html#FreeSpeech

July, 2017 update: Here is some correspondence with Mr. Brilliant:
Me: Hello Mr Brilliant. Here's hoping you are still with us. I wanted to share with you that I heard you speak in Eugene Oregon back in 1965, and a little while ago I wrote about my expreience in my blog. You can see it at grumblingatwill.blogspot.com . I hope you can forgive any infringement on your copyrights, but it is too good a story not to share with my grandchildren. Roger Doherty

Mr. Brilliant:
  
Hello Roger,
I'm touched by your tribute.
Thanks so much for this long delayed, but therefore all the more welcome, recognition.

Just one point:  None of my words (as opposed to the accompanying images) ever knowingly came from the "Public Domain,"  but were and are all original.

All best,
Ashleigh Brilliant

Roger Doherty

Sarah Doherty Cunningham - From Inishowen to Oregon

The Story of Sarah Doherty Cunningham

   By Dennis D. Doherty

July, 2016

Sarah Doherty was the oldest of four children born to Francis and Catherine Grant Doherty in County Donegal.  When she came of age, Sarah left her family behind and immigrated to Oregon.  Her destination?  Big Butter Creek in south Umatilla County, near the edge of the Blue Mountains—rugged country—even today, an area of big ranches, few people, and a far piece to Pilot Rock, the nearest town.

Leaving Ireland

Why was this young Irish woman departing a homeland to come that far to this place, which would be considered a lonely place by many people, and probably a desolate place to some?  The answer lies in the remarkable story of a relative who preceded Sarah.  We need to start there, with Catherine Doherty Nelson.  Unfortunately, I have very little source material available to tell the full story of Catherine Doherty Nelson; or for that matter, the full story of Sarah herself.  In both cases, the basic story emerges by inference from source material available about others, plus “oral history.”

Catherine Doherty Nelson was a relative of Sarah’s parents.  She left Ireland, chaperoned by an uncle, as early as 1849, and traveled to the California gold fields.  The uncle died in a mining accident.  Following that, Catherine married a Swedish immigrant named Ebner B. Nelson.

Reliable source material about Mr. Nelson is found in an undated 579-page book, History of Umatilla and Morrow Counties.   Inside the cover of the book there is a handwritten inscription dated 1903.  So, the book was published then or earlier.  Mr. Nelson was orphaned at a young age; went “to sea” at age 14; served what sounds like “hard time” as a merchant marine and on a warship; came in 1849 to the California gold fields (Eagle Gulch, Nelson Hill, Yreka…); moved on in 1863 to Grant County, Oregon (Canyonville and Granite Creek, where there had been a lesser gold strike); settled near Vinson on Big Butter Creek in 1869; raised cattle; and was killed by hostiles on July 6, 1878, during the Bannock-Paiute Indian uprising.

As disappointing as it is, this source acknowledges, but does not name Mr. Nelson’s wife.  It simply states that she is “still living with the son, who owns the old place.”

There is also a short biography of the son, James Nelson:  born in 1860 in Yreka; came to Grant County six years later, and Butter Creek in 1869.  So, the benchmarks for Catherine Doherty Nelson seem pretty well connected.  Clearly, though, women of that time often did not receive the recognitions and attributions that were accorded to the male “heads of family.”

Settling on Big Butter Creek

Catherine Doherty Nelson and that “old place” on Big Butter Creek served as a magnet for family still in Ireland, and Sarah Doherty was the first that I know of to answer the call.  Sarah, then, became the magnet for other Dohertys.

Sarah’s Marriage

Like Catherine Doherty Nelson, Sarah’s story emerges indirectly, for the most part -- meaning, by inference from what we know of others.  Obviously, Sarah reached her destination.  Ebner Nelson was deceased, but his wife and son were still on the “old place.”  Sarah endured.  What costs and what hardships—we don’t know.  She logs into the historical record by virtue of the fact that she married Charles Cunningham in Pendleton on May 20, 1883.  Mr. Cunningham’s name is renowned in Umatilla County to this day.  He, too, was Irish, orphaned, came to America penniless, eventually settled on Big Butter Creek in 1876, and built a sheep and wool-based business.  Here’s some of what the same undated source book says about Mr. Cunningham:

“Here he commenced operations, devoting his whole attention to the raising of sheep, and bringing to bear all his native ability and wisdom and his acquired knowledge through experience.  This soon began to tell and it became evident that Umatilla had acquired no ordinary stockman in the person of Mr. Cunningham.  He has constantly increased until now he is the proprietor of a princely domain of eighteen thousand acres of land on Butter and Birch creeks, while he owns twenty-one thousand head of sheep, giving him an annual wool clip of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, while his annual income from this immense establishment is over seventy thousand dollars.  …

His first marriage was celebrated in Pendleton, when Miss Sarah Dougherty (sic) became his wife.  To this union were born two children, one, Sarah, living at the present time and one son dying in infancy.  …    (Italics added for emphasis)

Thus from the Irish lad landing in New York a stranger, whose only capital was plenty of pluck and two good hands, and who at once offered his blood for the honor of the flag under which he had come to dwell, we have passed briefly to the leading stockman of the northwest, a noted financier and commendable and loyal citizen. ….”

Sara Cunningham (Mooney), daughter of Sarah and Charlie Cunningham with her father.

Sarah’s Children

Again, there is only a brief passing reference to Mr. Cunningham’s first wife (our Sarah Doherty).  The marriage was not a long one.  There was the son who died at birth, March 27, 1884; and the daughter, also named Sarah.  Sadly, mother Sarah died giving birth to daughter Sarah, February 27, 1885. 

Sarah’s Legacy

I am pretty certain that Mr. Cunningham had not achieved fame or fortune during the time of his marriage to our Sarah.  Sarah’s story, though, isn’t about that or what might have been.  It is about what she did in her short life; and, for the Blackhorse Dohertys, about her legacy.  Just as Catherine Doherty Nelson had been the magnet that drew Sarah, Sarah was the magnet that drew her mother, sister and brothers to Big Butter Creek.  For, after Sarah’s father (Francis) died, her mother, Catherine Grant Doherty, immigrated also, bringing Sarah’s sister (Mary) and two brothers (Bernard F. and James G.) with her.

They, too, reached their destination, arriving in New York, October 8, 1883, and at Big Butter Creek sometime thereafter.  Following Sarah’s death, Catherine Grant Doherty was there to help care for Sarah’s namesake daughter; was there while her two sons worked for a period of time for Mr. Cunningham; was still there in 1891 when she and her two sons settled in Blackhorse Canyon, near Lexington and Heppner, in Morrow County.

Blackhorse Canyon

In Blackhorse Canyon, Catherine Grant Doherty and sons established what has come to be known as the "Blackhorse Doherty" family line.  Catherine came to be known as “Blackhorse Kate.”  She was nobody’s “passing reference”; she was the matriarch!  No doubt about that.  Blackhorse Kate died in 1913 and is buried in the Heppner Cemetery.  Relevant materials about Catherine Grant Doherty appear in The History of Morrow County, published in 1983.

In the meantime, Sarah’s sister, Mary, became a matriarch in her own right.  By virtue of her marriage to Michael Kenny on December 16, 1884, the “Kenny” line of descendants was started.  It later came to include the “Healy” line.  A fine accounting of Mary’s legacy is available in A Bit of Irish Stew, published in 1984.

Sarah’s brother, Bernard F., never married.  The oral history is that he and James G. had agreed that the Blackhorse Canyon farm could support only one family.  As it turned out, that was James G.  So, James Grant Doherty eventually became the sole owner.

Three Lineages

I have already written about Catherine Doherty Nelson and Catherine Grant Doherty.  On July 6, 1893, James G. married the “next Catherine”—meaning Catherine Doherty, who was born March 7, 1872, also in County Donegal, and who had emigrated at age 16.  James Grant Doherty and Catherine Doherty Doherty then proceeded to populate Blackhorse Canyon, not stopping until they had 13 children to expand the Blackhorse Doherty family line (Mary, Sarah, Nora, Ann, Margaret, Tina, Francis, Eugene, Bernard, Gertrude, Helen, Paul, and Betty).  The 11 who married then had children of their own—plus or minus, 44 of them.   From there, you’re on your own to keep track.

If only “keeping track” were that simple.  Not so, because to really keep track, we would have to trace two additional lineages.  First, the lives and descendants of daughter Sarah Cunningham (who married Matt Mooney).  Second, the lives and descendants of the 11 brothers and sisters of Catherine Doherty Doherty.  Seven of them also came over from Ireland and stayed (Philip, Anne, John “Dutchy”, Eugene, Nora, Rose and Margaret).  Fortunately, Rose’s granddaughter, Eva Gremmert, has laid down a lot of that history in her 2011 book, A Cottage in Donegal – well done, very readable, and excellent backgrounding.

Saving the Blackhorse Farm

Ironically, James G., ironically, saved the Blackhorse farm by dying unexpectedly, per oral history.  It was the Great Depression.  The family was struggling to keep the farm intact, but a mortgage foreclosure seemed imminent.   On February 11, 1933, as James G. was waiting for a ride into town to meet with the banker, he died of a heart attack.  The heart attack that took him triggered the insurance policy that saved the farm.  His wife Catherine Doherty Doherty stayed on the farm and with the help of the children kept the Blackhorse farm going.   

Sarah Doherty Cunningham was pivotal in our family histories. Her story, however sparse the historical documentation, is the lead-up to each of our stories?  And that our history is her legacy?  The same can be said about all three Catherines:  Catherine Doherty Nelson; Catherine Grant Doherty; and Catherine Doherty Doherty

Sarah Doherty Cunningham, her grave, fence and memorial plaque. July, 2016.

On February 27, 1885, Sarah Doherty Cunningham was laid to rest in the tiny cemetery at Vinson, Oregon (population 2), on Highway 74 which connects Heppner and Pilot Rock.  This cemetery lies between the Catherine Doherty Nelson and Charles Cunningham places.  Sarah has rested there for 131 years now.  God bless Sarah Doherty Cunningham!  May she rest in peace forever!

                                                                                                                                             

EPILOGUE

Sarah’s Vinson gravesite is a place to be revered for all that it represents.  For many years, perhaps from the time of her death, the grave was enclosed with a wooden picket fence, built with square nails.  The fence withstood the forces of nature well, but has now had to be replaced.  In Sarah’s honor, the Blackhorse Dohertys dedicated a new steel fence on July 3, 2016.  It is capped with shamrocks.   The fence was built and placed by relatives Patrick “Packy” Doherty and his son Kelly, both of Pilot Rock.  On the fence is a bronze plaque commemorating Sarah’s memory, her story, and her importance to us.  Indeed, she paved the way for all of us.

Author's Note: For the record, Anne and I now have our own Catherine—our granddaughter, Catherine Susan Doherty, daughter of our son, Ben, and his wife, Melissa Hobson Doherty.  This Catherine was born May 6, 2008, and she is known as “Cate.”