| Notes |
- From John Campbell, correspondent, note of April 14, 2004
NARA film number: T9-1012
Page: 59
Page letter: A
Entry number: 2132
Film number: 1255012
Collection: 1880 United States Census
The Story of Caption Benjamin Boutell
Bay County Historical Museum - 321 Washington Ave. - Bay City, MI 48708_Bay City, MI 48708_Phone: 989-893-
5733_Website <http://www.bchsmusuem.org/>
Captain Benjamin Boutell Feature Gallery is named in honor of Captain Benjamin Boutell; his entrepreneurial spirit and leadership were well known throughout Bay County and the country at the turn of the nineteenth century. It was through his vision and leadership that many fledgling industries flourished, making Bay County a thriving community.
Although probably best known for his success in the shipping and lumber industries, he was also heavily involved with the start of the sugar industry in Bay County as well as several sugar companies throughout Michigan, Colorado and also in Canada. Captain Boutell was involved in other various industries including: farming, banking real estate, coal, iron and cement just to name a few. Paintings of several of the captain's vessels by renowned maritime artist Howard Freeman Sprague are currently being exhibited as part of "A Family
Legacy: The Story of Captain Benjamin Boutell".
The paintings commissioned by Captain Boutell are believed to be the largest museum collection of Sprague's work.
Family photographs and brief documentary on the family are also featured in the exhibit.
The U.S.S. Gloucester at Santiago, (painting).
Artist: SPRAGUE, HOWARD FREEMAN, 1871-1899, painter.
Title: The U.S.S. Gloucester at Santiago, (painting).
Dates: 1898.
Medium: Oil.
Dimensions: 22 x 36 in. cm. 55.9 x 91.4
Owner: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, New York
References: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc, Sale Cat. 4180, 11/78.
Illustration: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc, Sale Cat, 4180, 11/78 Lot. 583
Note: The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.
Repository: Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012
Control Number: IAP 61519714
Top of Form 1
Item information
Smithsonian AmericanArt Museum Control Number
Inventory of American Paintings 61519714
You will find 12 paintings listed on the Smithsonian website:
http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1233P99X6L498.7856&profile=ariall&uri=link=3100006~!
216463~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!siartinventories&term=Sprague%2C+
Howard+Freeman%2C+1871-1899%2C+painter.&index=AUTHOR#focus
"Artists in Ohio, 1797-1900" by Mary Sayre Haverstock and others-
http://books.google.com/
Howard Freeman Sprague- "Marine painter, draftsman, and illustrator specializing in portraits of Great Lakes and other deepwater steamships. Born in Huron (Erie), January 16, 1871, he was descended from Jonathan Sprague, who had helped to build merchant schooners on the Huron River earlyh in the century. The younger Sprague painted in the busy port of Cleveland (Cuyahoga) during the early 1890s, them moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where he drew
commercial illustrations for the American Barge Company, shppers of iron ore. He is known to have then worked briefly in Detroint before accepting an illustrating assignment for Century magazine during the Spanish American War.
These illustrations, including some of the ill-fated Maine, appeared in the Century in October and December 1898 and March and May 1899. On May 15, 1899, Sprague died of tuberculosis in New York City."
New York Times of May 16, 1899-
"Herbert Sprague, an artist connected with The Century Magazine, died yesterday at the boarding house whe he had been staying for the last two weeks, 132 East Sixteenth Street. Mr. Sprague was a sufferer from consumption, it is beleved, but had not been ill abed. He was apparently well at the time he ate breakfast, and an hour later was taken with a sudden hemorhage and died before a doctor could be summoned. Mr. Sprague was about thirty years old and was an artist in black-and-white. His work was of a high grade. He had done a number of sketches of naval vessels and of scenes in the recent war. About two weeks ago he returned to this city on the United States cruiser New York, having been on her latest trip in the interest of The Century Magazine. Mr. Sprague, who was unmarried, is said to have come from Ohio and to have had a mother living there. His brother will arrive in town today."
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of January 15, 2009
Herbert Freeman Sprague b. 1871 Huron Township, Erie County, Ohio - d. 18992 Buffalo, New York
http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/ArtistKeywords.aspx?searchtype=KEYWORDS&artist=86312
Herbert was the son of George Sprague and Helen Amelia Tinny and half-brother (20 yrs older) to my grandmother Helen Marian McDonald. Herbert died of tuberculosis after his return from the Spanish-American War where he was employed as an illustrator for one of the newspapers. You can also reference the following:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Columbus_whaleback_Sprague_painting.jpg
Also:
The Story of Caption Benjamin Boutell
Bay County Historical Museum - 321 Washington Ave. - Bay City, MI 48708
Bay City, MI 48708
Phone: 989-893-5733
Website
Captain Benjamin Boutell Feature Gallery is named in honor of Captain Benjamin Boutell; his entrepreneurial spirit and leadership were well known throughout Bay County and the country at the turn of the nineteenth century. It was through his vision and leadership that many fledgling industries flourished, making Bay County a thriving community. Although probably best known for his success in the shipping and lumber industries, he was also heavily involved with the start of the sugar industry in Bay County as well as several sugar companies throughout Michigan, Colorado and also in Canada. Captain Boutell was involved in other various industries including: farming, banking real estate, coal, iron and cement just to name a few. Paintings of several of the captain's vessels by renowned maritime artist Howard Freeman Sprague are currently being exhibited as part of "A Family Legacy: The Story of Captain Benjamin Boutell". The paintings commissioned by Captain Boutell are believed to be the largest museum collection of Sprague's work. Family photographs and brief documentary on the family are also featured in the exhibit.
As well as:
The U.S.S. Gloucester at Santiago, (painting).
Add to my list
Artist:
Sprague, Howard Freeman, 1871-1899, painter.
Title:
The U.S.S. Gloucester at Santiago, (painting).
Dates: 1898.
Medium: Oil.
Dimensions: 22 x 36 in. cm. 55.9 x 91.4
Subject: Cityscape -- Water
Waterscape Landscape -- South America
Object Type: Painting
Owner: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, New York
References: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc, Sale Cat. 4180, 11/78.
Illustration: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc, Sale Cat, 4180, 11/78 Lot. 583
Note: The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.
Repository: Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012
Control Number: IAP 61519714
Item information:
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Inventory of American Paintings
Control Number: 61519714
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of October 23, 2009
Freshwater Portraits
The Great Lakes Maritime Paintings of Howard Freeman Sprague
by Laura R. Ashlee
Although not an artist, Laura Ashlee comes from a family of painters. She studies American art history while completing a master's degree in American studies at Michigan State University.
When America was a mere collection of colonies, members of the wealthy merchant class commissioned professional artists. such as John Singleton Copley and Robert Feke, to create their likenesses on canvas. Portraiture was stylized and often contained a symbol that represented the subject's occupation or hobby. If their subjects were merchants or shipbuilders, artists often portrayed them in front of a window through which the sea and a few vague vessels were visible. The accuracy of the portrait-the face of the subject-was far more important than the setting, the background or even the human form. Portraiture was the first type of professional artistry to become fashionable in America, and it foreshadowed the beginnings of seascapes and ship portraiture.
In the late eighteenth century, driven by romance and the desire to capture what was 'uniquely American," artists turned toward nature and its unpredictability. The awesomeness of the land and the sea and man's vulnerability was depicted by artists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. Gradually, with the growth and prosperity of New England's shipbuilding industry, ship portraiture emerged as fashionable. Ship owners demanded accurate likenesses of their vessels and often commissioned foreign artists, although capable painters resided in America. In the nineteenth century-America's golden age of marine painting-artists focused more on specific ships and the activities at significant ports like Boston, Newport and Chesapeake Bay.
Despite the importance of the Great Lakes to North American trade and commerce, scenes of lake vessels and lake harbors have none unrepresented in exhibitions and published works on American marine painting. Scholars have traditionally focused on ships of the Atlantic seaboard, overlooking the many accomplished painters who studied and depicted Great Lakes subjects.
In 1983 the Muskegon Museum of Art held an exhibition. entitled Great Lakes Marine Painting of the Nineteenth Century.' to acknowledge the contributions of these artists and bring attention to their work. According to exhibit curators, the most accomplished artist was Howard Freeman Sprague, whose brief career ended when he died in 1899, at the age of twenty-eight, of tuberculosis contracted in Cuba while illustrating warships during the Spanish-American War.
Sprague was born in Ohio in 1871. In contrast to his contemporaries who had no formal artistic training but had intimate knowledge of boats, Sprague briefly attended art school, but lacked first-hand experience with boats. He did not have close association with boats until as a teenager he went to the Superior-Duluth area to work as an advertising illustrator for Alexander McDougal. Owner of the American Steel Barge Company, McDougal was developing a curious type of steam freighter known as the whaleback. Sprague illustrated many of these ships, including the Christopher Columbus, which he painted twice. Constructed in honor of the
Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Christopher Columbus was white with a pink smokestack when she was completed. Sprague depicted her then and again after she received new colors following the exposition.
Howard Sprague gained a reputation as a technician. able to cut through romance and masterfully depict the vessels he was commissioned to paint. Since much of his work was for advertising, his job was to create a scene where the ship was identifiable and the primary focus of the work. As in colonial portraiture, the setting and background were secondary. Sprague's technical abilities, however, did not result in cold architectural images. He used the sky and water to create a balance between the vastness of the lakes and the invulnerability of the vessels. Rather than showing vessels at the mercy of the lakes, or in solitude on a never-ending sea, Sprague dotted his background seascapes with ambiguous shadows of other boats to put his subjects in the context of their purpose-commerce-and to remind us of the great number of ships that plied the Great Lakes.
Sprague's paintings of the Ira M. Owen, the Northern Light-reproduced here for the first time-and the schooner Queen City, depict proud, majestic ships cutting through the waves with ease.
He followed contemporary Seth Arca Whipple's lead in painting night scenes. Although dark, his 1889 The Steamboats City of Alpena and City of Detroit II is lively and typically detailed. The two passenger steamers pass under the glare of each other's searchlights on the Detroit River. The windows are gaily lit hinting at the festivities inside, while passengers, fog horns, even the pedestaled searchlights, are visible on board.
Around 1922, St. Nicholas Magazine posthumously published an article written by Sprague. The article was a celebration of the mail boats that delivered letters and packages to sailors. In a short paragraph Sprague capsulized the essence of the Great Lakes and why they are so vital to American shipping. Seeking to awaken readers to this fact, he declared: "It would be well for American young folk to get the idea firmly fixed in their minds that the commercial supremacy of America is largely due to the aid of these great fresh-water seas, over whose courses are carried the nations corn and flour, its copper and iron ores, its lumber and salt, and the coal for the great northwestern country."
Howard Freeman Sprague realized the Great Lakes were special and that American commerce and transportation depended on these inland seas, located far from New England's coast. Thanks to Sprague's draftsmanship and artistry, and the talents of his contemporaries, the vessels of the Great Lakes have been immortalized in portraits on canvas. The ships that docked at Detroit, Chicago and Duluth have taken their place beside the vessels of Boston and Newport in the painted historical record left by marine artists. [1]
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1871 - 1899 (28 years)
[1] 
Census
