Description The next house overyellow, with a hipped roof and central chimneyis obviously the focal point of the painting: it is placed near the center, is larger than the others, and is moved forward in the pictorial space. Despite significant paint loss, it is possible to see such features as dentil molding at the cornice, a pedimented entrance with an arched door, and quoins to simulate block construction at the corners. To the left are three smaller structures: a single-story yellow building with two burgundy doors (painted to match the main house) at the left and right ends of the facade and a central chimney; a smaller gray barn behind this yellow building; and a tiny yellow building with a cupola between the barn and the main house. The third house from the left is also a two-story yellow dwelling with a pitched roof and central chimney. The burgundy front door is framed in white and opens onto a yard surrounded by a white lattice fence with a high front gate. To the left and behind the house is a barn. At right is a dense cluster of dwellings painted in various shades of red, blue, yellow, and brown, with a white church steeple in the middle. Stretched across the front of the picture plane is a row of trees, including one stump in front of the town center at right. There are two smaller groves of treesone behind the town and another, perhaps seedlings, to the left and behind the freestanding house on the right. The dark-green grass stretches behind the houses and town in gently rolling contours. Behind this area is another series of rolling hills, painted in a lighter green, followed by a third set of hills in blue-gray; this succession of colors is meant to suggest depth. Paint losses in the buildings reveal a dark-green first layer, demonstrating that the houses were painted over the first field of green grass. The sky consists of a creamy pink that shifts to a pale blue and then a medium blue at the top of the image. Several horizontal clouds, ranging from cigar shapes to puffy hillocks that echo the contours of the land, are modulated from dark gray on the bottom to light gray in the middle to white on top. Biography A patriot during the Revolution, Wheeler became involved in local, county, and state government. In 1773 he was a member of the towns first Committee of Correspondence.9 Wheeler served as assessor (1771 and 1773), town clerk, and moderator of the regular town meeting in Harvard (1773), and he represented Harvard at the first and third Provincial Congresses in 1774 and 1775.10 In April 1775 Wheeler was among those who responded to the alarm in Lexington.11 That year, he was chosen as Harvards representative in the General Court of Massachusetts, serving for a time as speaker pro tem.12 In 1776 he was elected justice of the peace. In addition, he performed occasional service as special justice on the Court of Common Pleas.13 He also served as register of probate for Worcester County, a position he held until his death.14 In 1777 Wheeler was appointed to a committee of Harvard citizens to review the proposed state constitution, and in 1780 he chaired a committee with the same purpose.15 Wheeler moved from Harvard to Worcester, the seat of county government, in 1781.16 He was elected a town selectman in 1783 and appointed to the Committee of Correspondence and Safety.17 He also served as county treasurer.18 His wife died in 1783, and on May 30 of the next year, he wed Marguerita (Olivier) Jennison of Worcester.19 During Shays Rebellion, the political unrest that arose in 178687 over an excessive tax burden, Wheeler helped restore order in Worcester."20 He died in 1793, and his property and position as register of probate passed to his son Theophilus.21 Analysis
John D. Smith, a local antiquarian, restored the painting. The Wheeler overmantel demonstrates that artists who created such landscapes often combined literal transcriptions of actual places with elements that were either stylized or imaginary. For example, the trees lining the street here appear to be stylizations to suggest an orderly thoroughfare in a prosperous town, rather than a representation of plantings in Worcester at the end of the eighteenth century. As a young minister in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, Wheeler had been impressed by a similar landscape feature on the property of his predecessor: "Fronting the house that was built by Rev. Mr. [John] Seccomb is supposed to be the longest row of elm trees in New-England, set in exact order, and leading directly toward the meetinghouse."25 This element of the overmantel also resembles the way trees were designed in embroidered samplers of the time. Such samplers occasionally served as source material for decorative painters.26 Similarly, the cluster of buildings at right reflects a hieratic division of space found in samplers between the featured property of the owner and the rest of the town.27
The overmantel was not listed in the probate inventory, and no paintings or other images were listed in the rooms downstairs. The beveled edges of the panel reflect the fact that such paintings were built into the rooms they ornamented, not hung on the wall. As mentioned, Henrietta Aiken had the panel removed from the parlor when the house was torn down. Probably, the houses depicted on either side of the Wheeler property belonged to Thomas Lynde (left) and Daniel Heywood (right); Wheelers above-noted 1784 deed thus identifies the owners of the adjoining lots.35 To the right the artist has compressed a town center, which appears to be more a conceptual than an actual representation of Worcester in the late eighteenth century. At the heart of this cluster of buildings, however, is depicted the distinctive steeple of the First Parish (or Old South) Church, where Wheeler owned a pew. That church also is seen in Ralph Earls Looking East from Denny Hill. Notes 2. Wheelers masters thesis consisted in a negative response to the question, "An Separationibus Pastorum a Populis suis, ob Prejudicia irrationalia, Religionis Emolumentum promoveatur?" Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 234. 3. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 234. 4. Ibid., 235; Worcester History 1879, I, 560; Nourse 1894, 195. 5. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, XIV, 235; Wheeler 1903, 370; Bouley 1964, 553. 6. The church leaders noted that, due to Wheelers failing health, the congregation was "deprived not only of his publick Ministry, but likewise in a great measure of his private Instructions, Visiting the Sick, attending funerals, catechizing children, and Baptizing Infants." Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 236. Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, August 29, 1768. 7. Adams "heard Mr. Wheeler, late minister of Harvard, atWorcester, all day." John Adams diary, June 2, 1771, as quoted in Dresser 1972, 10. 8. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 236; Nourse 1894, 438, 441. 9. Nourse 1894, 198, 306. 10. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 23637; Nourse 1894, 304, 31112. 11. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors, XVI, 1907, 979. 12. Wheeler 1903, 370; Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 237; Nourse 1894, 415. 13. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 238; Nourse 1894, 423. 14. Nourse 1894, 198, 417. 15. Ibid., 123, 125. 16. Wheeler 1903, 361. 17. Worcester Records 1882, 428. 18. Worcester History 1879, I, 560; Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 238. 19. Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 238. 20. Ibid. 21. Massachusetts Spy (Worcester), February 14, 1793; Columbian Centinel (Boston), February 20, 1793. 22. Charles A. Aiken to Louisa Dresser, April 8, 1954, object file, Worcester Art Museum. 23. Wheeler Mansion 1885, 2. 24. Aiken to Dresser. 25. Joseph Wheeler to a friend (correspondent name not given), as quoted in Sibley and Shipton, XIV, 1968, 235. 26. The collector and historian of early decorative painting Nina Fletcher Little suggests that embroiderers borrowed from print sources and that decorative painters borrowed from both prints and samplers. Little 1952, 24. 27. Huish 1970, 9; Ring 1993, I, 156, 163. 28. Nathaniel and Hannah Heywood to Joseph Wheeler, April 28, 1784. Worcester County, Register of Deeds, book 92, p. 410. 29. Wheeler sold the northern portion of the property, including the "Store & Probate Office" and half of the barn to his son Theophilus in 1787. When the house was demolished in 1885, the construction date of the dwelling that the overmantel originally decorated was given as 1787. Joseph Wheeler to Theophilus Wheeler, March 24, 1787, Worcester County, Register of Deeds, book 101, p. 416. Wheeler Mansion 1885, 2. 30. Probate inventory for Joseph Wheeler, after November 10, 1794, Worcester County, Register of Probate, Series A, case no. 63434. 31. Aiken to Dresser. 32. Wheeler 1903, 378. 33. Ibid; and Joseph Wheeler probate inventory. 34. Wheeler 1903, 378. 35. In 1783 Nathan Patch bought a parcel of land from Daniel Heywood, paying 200 pounds for about three and one-half acres. That parcel abutted the Wheeler property, demonstrating that Wheeler owned land on Main Street prior to the deed recorded in 1784. Daniel Heywood, Esq,. to Nathan Patch, yeoman, May 10, 1783. Tax-valuation lists for 1784 confirm that Lynde and Heywood each owned a house and barn in that year. Tax Valuation Lists, Massachusetts General Court, Worcester, 1784. An antiquarian publication incorrectly identifies the buildings as houses belonging to Timothy Bigelow, the Lynde family, and the Wheeler family and finally a tavern belonging to the Heywood family. But clearly, only three, not four, properties are represented. Worcester Houses 1919, 5. |