The widow of Richard Copley married Peter Pelham, an engraver and artist, by whom she had one son, Henry Pelham, who followed his father's profession. Peter Pelham died in 1751. John S. Copley became one of the most famous painters of his time. Without instruction, or master, he drew and painted, and "saw visions" of beautiful forms and faces which he transferred to canvass. His pictures show up the features and the figures of the aristocracy of Boston, of a time when there were aristocrats here, so that it has been frequently said that one of these ancestral portraits is a Bostonian's best title of nobility.
Major George Washington visited Boston in 1755 and sat to young Copley for a miniature. In 1766 Copley sent, without name or address, an exquisite portrait of his half brother, Henry Pelham, known as the "Boy and the Flying Squirrel," to Benjamin West, a fellow countryman then settled in London with a request to have it placed in the Exhibition Rooms of the Society of British Artists. The attention and admiration excited by this wonderful painting were such that the friends of the artist wrote most warmly to persuade him to go to England for the pursuit of his vocation, and West extended to him a pressing invitation to his own home. In 1769 he married Susannah Farnum, daughter of Richard Clarke, a wealthy merchant of Boston, and agent of the East India Company for their trade in that town. The tie between the artist and his wife was peculiarly close. We constantly meet her familiar lineaments through the whole course of Copley's works. Now Mary by the manger, with the Divine Infant at her breast, in "The Nativity," again in "The Family Picture" and in the fabled scene of Venus and Cupid, or in the female group in "The Death of Major Pierson," dissolved in an agony of grief, and fear, as they escape from the scene of violence and death.
The locality associated with his married life in Boston was a solitary house on Beacon Hill, chosen with his keen perception of picturesque beauty. His prophecy has been fully verified that the time would come when that situation would become the favorite site for the homes of the wealthy. Singular as it may appear the site selected by Copley was the same as that selected by William Blackstone, the first settler of Boston. In after years Copley's thoughts fondly reverted to his early home—his farm, he called it—which contained 11 acres on the southwest side of Beacon Hill, now bounded by Charles, Beacon, Walnut, and Mt. Vernon streets, Louisburg Square and Pinckney street.
In 1771 Copley wrote that he was earning a comfortable income. At this time, he moved in the best society, where his courtly manners and genial disposition made him a general favorite. He was now approaching the crucial period of his life. He saw the approaching storm that was soon to break and deluge his country in blood. He was peculiarly situated, and in a trying position. It is said that his sympathies were at first with the revolutionists, and he acted as an intermediary between them and his father-in-law, Richard Clarke,[169] to whom the tea was consigned, but when the infuriated mob destroyed the tea, and attacked the warehouse, and residence of Mr. Clarke, forcing him to flee for his life, Copley could no longer tolerate mob rule. His case was like that of many others of whom it is said "persecution made half of the king's friends." These outrages occurred in December 1773. Less than two years afterwards he wrote to his wife, from Italy, July 1775: "You know years ago I was right in my opinion that this would be the result of the attempt to tax the colony; it is now my settled conviction that all the power of Great Britain will not reduce them to obedience. Unhappy and miserable people, once the happiest, now the most wretched. How warmly I expostulated with some of the violent 'Sons of Liberty' against their proceedings, they must remember; and with how little judgment, in their opinion, did I then seem to speak! But all this is past; the day of tribulation is come, and years of sorrow will not dry the orphan's tears, nor stop the widow's lamentations, the ground will be deluged in the blood of its inhabitants before peace will again assume its dominion in that country."[170] Copley embarked for England, June 1774, six months after his father-in-law was driven out of Boston by the mob, and one year before the conflict with the mother country commenced. Leaving his aged mother, his favorite brother, his wife and children behind him, he went to prepare a place of refuge for them from the impending storm. Probably the desire to visit Europe and behold the work of the great masters of the art he loved so well had something to do with leaving his native land, to which he was never to return. After travelling and studying two years on the Continent, he went back to London, and was soon joined by his family. Then began a career of uninterrupted success. He became the fashion, and many of the nobility sat to him as did also three of the princesses, daughters of George III. Following the fashion of the day he took up historical painting, which included the death of Major Pierson and the death of Chatham (both now in the English National Gallery): The siege of Gibraltar, now in the Guild Hall of London, and Charles I demanding in the House of Commons, the surrender of the five impeached members, which now hangs in the Boston Public Library. "The death of Major Pierson" in repelling the attack of the French at St. Helier's, Jersey, on the 6th of January 1781, was painted in 1783 for Alderman Boydell, for his gallery. When this was dispersed it was bought back by Copley, and remained in the house in George Street till Lord Lyndhurst's death, when it was purchased for the National Gallery for 1500 guineas. The woman flying from the crowd in terror, with the child in her arms, was painted from the nurse of Mr. Copley's family; the figure between her and the wall, with the upraised arm, is Mrs. Copley; the boy running by the nurse's side is young Copley.
Copley was an Addresser of Hutchinson in 1774, the year he left Boston, and in 1776, on his return from Italy to London, he became a member of the Loyalist club, for weekly conversation and a dinner. He died at his residence in George Street, London, Sept. 9, 1815, aged seventy-eight and was buried in the tomb belonging to Governor Hutchinson's family in the parish church at Croydon, near London. Copley had one son and two daughters who lived to maturity.
JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY
Born in Boston July 3, 1737. Painter to the King. Died in London Sept. 9, 1815.
John Singleton Copley, the younger, was born in Boston May 20, 1772, was early destined for his father's profession, and, accordingly he attended the lectures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Barry, at the Royal Academy. He, however, had no inclination to follow in his father's footsteps. He threw off his instructors, impatiently declaring that he would not be known as the "son of Copley the painter" but it should be "Copley, the father of the Lord Chancellor." So early did he prognosticate his own future eminence. He was entered 1790 at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the mathematical tripos of 1794, was second wrangler, sickness alone preventing him from obtaining the highest honor of the year. He was also Smith's Prizeman, won the King William prize, and, the following year, was appointed a "travelling bachelor" with a grant for three years of a £100 a year, and, a month later, was elected a fellow of Trinity, improved the opportunity to visit Boston, the town of his birth, with the ulterior view of regaining the family estates on Beacon Hill, owned by his father before leaving Boston, more than twenty years before. For although Copley was an Absentee, or Refugee, and therefore had laid himself liable to the confiscation of his property, yet, through his well known sympathy with the Revolutionists before the commencement of open war, and through the assistance of some of his friends, his property, which consisted of the largest landed estate in Boston, had not been confiscated. There were however several real estate speculators who had profited largely by purchasing the confiscated estates of the Loyalists for a mere trifle who determined to possess themselves of Copley's property. Jonathan Mason, and Harrison Grey Otis, made a contract with Gardiner Green, who was Copley's agent, to purchase the same, without adequate authority from the owner. When the deed was sent to him for execution he refused to sign it. A bill in equity was bought to enforce the contract of sale. Copley executed a power of attorney to his son, when he went to Boston, giving him authority to settle the case. He arrived in Boston Jan. 2nd, 1796, and wrote to his father: "The business cannot come on till May. If you can make yourself a subject of the United States you are clear. If otherwise I am not yet sufficiently informed to say what may be the result, if you are decreed an alien, but take courage." He wrote again in February 27, 1796, saying, "I have, my dear sir, concluded my negotiations with Messrs. Mason, Otis, and others. I have acted for the best. I was very strongly of the opinion that the event of the contest would be in favor of the plaintiffs. Your counsel agreed with me in their sentiments upon that head.[171] A compromise became, therefore, necessary, and for the consideration of $18,450 a deed of release was given, dated February 22, 1796, recorded in Lib. 182, fol. 184, Suffolk Deeds."[172]
No deed of any lands in Boston within a century will compare with this in importance and interest. Taking into consideration the upland, beach, and flats, this purchase is at a considerably less rate than $1,000 per acre. That the son acted wisely his letters prove, but the transaction was one of deepest regret to the whole family, and embittered the remainder of the artist's life.
In a letter to his mother from Boston, the young man says: "Shall I whisper a word in your ear? The better people are all aristocrats. My father is too rank a Jacobin to live among them. Samuel Adams is superannuated, unpopular and fast decaying in every respect." Again he wrote to his mother from Philadelphia: "I have become a fierce Aristocrat. This is the country to cure your Jacobins. Send them over and they will return quite converted. The opposition here are a set of villains. Their object is to overset the government, and all good men are apprehensive lest they should be successful. A great schism seems to be forming, and they already begin to talk of a separation of the States north of the Potomac from those on the southern side of the river."[173] He was a visitor at Mount Vernon and spent a week as a guest of the first President of the young Republic.