The bicentennial of a somewhat battered bird ....

We took this somewhat battered little piece of primitive artwork down from a wall in the Stephens House earlier this week in order to clean and make a slight repair to the frame, the first time anyone has looked at it carefully in quite a few years I'm guessing. That process brought to light a handwritten note on the back that suggests the colorful bird is celebrating its 200th birthday this year --- quite a milestone. The frame most likely is younger, but there's no way to date it precisely.

The art itself is a painted paper collage and the discoloration may be traces of the paste used to hold it together.

The flowers, clusters of grapes and leaves that surround it all are leather, fragile and very old, that have been tacked to a simple frame, then the whole apparently shellacked. Here's the note:

Martha Thompson Penick is the author of the note, "Mother painted this picture in 1819. She was then twenty-one years old." Whether this is her handwriting or a transcription of an earlier note, I can't say. The frame is sealed, so we can't see the back of the original work it contains.

The additional line, "Painted by the grand mother of W.B. Penick," refers to William B. Penick (1857-1935), a prominent Chariton banker, farmer and entrepreneur, Martha's son.

The "mother" who created the collage probably would have been Margaret (Arbuckle) Thompson, Martha's mother, but I've not been able to discover anything about her. If she were 21 when the work was completed, she would have been born ca. 1798.

Martha Thompson (1831-1909) married William Calvin Penick (1827-1914) during 1853 in Ohio and they moved west immediately to Eddyville, Iowa, where he went to work for Keosauqua-based Edwin C. Manning, at the time one of Iowa's merchant princes. William C. Penick eventually went into partnership with Manning and moved to Chariton at the outbreak of the Civil War to found  Manning & Penick --- a general merchandise operation and a bank --- here. Their three-story brick building, commenced in 1869 and first occupied during early January, 1870, still stands on the west side of the Chariton square.

We've rehung this little item on a wall away from direct light in the Stephens House dining room. It's easy to overlook, but do take a look the next time you visit. Hopefully, by that time we'll have added an appropriate explainer.