John Hillings (1822-1894)
Date: Circa 1854
The Old South Church
Oil on canvas
(22.5″ x 30.75″)
Excellent original condition; original stretcher
Looting the Old South Church
Oil on canvas
(26.75″ x 20.75″)
Excellent condition; trivial fill to stretcher rub; restoration to trivial tear in sky at left of church
Burning the Old South Church
Oil on canvas
(26.5″ x 20.5″)
Excellent condition, save for a minor “V” shape repair at upper-right corner
A wave of anti-Irish Catholic sentiment swept the eastern United States from the 1830s to the 1850s, prompting riots and attacks in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Boston; New York; Philadelphia; and other cities. One nativist group opposed to Roman Catholics and the Irish who immigrated to the United States during the Potato Famine was the Know-Nothings, a secret society that eventually established a political wing and supported candidates who shared the organization’s views. On June 6, 1854, the city of Bath, Maine witnessed the party’s violent expression of the party’s ideology. A crowd numbering upwards of two thousand attended night rallies over several days, listening to the “haranguing” against Catholics and foreigners of an “itinerant spouter” named Brown. About 7:00 PM, the mob attacked Bath’s Old South Church, which had been built in 1805 by Congregationalists and sold at auction to Catholics after the former congregation disbanded.
Using timbers as battering rams, the mob broke into the church, destroyed the interior, flew a U.S. flag from the tower, then burned the structure.
John Hilling, a house and sign painter in Bath, painted at least six pairs of paintings showing the mob attacking the church and the building in flames. Here, three canvases depict the event. The first shows the church at 4:30 PM on June 6 with villagers strolling and children playing nearby. In the second canvas it is 6:40 PM, and the mob has broken into the church and started a fire; men are pulling shutters off the windows and throwing them to the ground, and others bring an ax and a battering ram to the task. The final painting shows Old South Church a few minutes before 9:00 PM, engulfed in flames while the mob looks on with approval. In the background, the roofs of nearby houses are being hosed down to protect them from the flying embers-a threat confirmed by a report in the New York Times: “…many dwellings in the vicinity were in danger and were only saved by the indefatigable exertions of the occupants and their neighbors….”
Viewed sequentially, the paintings have a cinematic quality. From painting to painting, the clock in the tower advances and the sky changes from afternoon light to moonlight evening. Like the popular panoramas of the time, which depicted events in sequence on one enormous canvas, Hilling painted the destruction of Old South Church to unfold before the viewer. His novel presentation, depicting a newsworthy event almost contemporaneously, shows imagination and ingenuity. (Excerpted from A Shared Legacy / Folk Art in America; introduction by Richard Miller; contributions by Avis Berman, Cynthia Falk, Lisa Minardi, and Ralph Sessions).
Literature: A Shared Legacy / Folk Art in America, pp. 154 – 159.
Condition: Overall, very good; original stretchers, all display extremely well.
We will be pleased to share Hilling’s biographical information, and more.
Please Inquire
SKU 1330-10
For More Information, Please Contact David Hillier at 978-597-8084 or email drh@aaawt.com.
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