Cornwall Historical Society: The Scoville Farm and James Henry Moser's Cornwall Sketches

James Henry Moser, Cream Hill, March 1882
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

The Scoville Farm dates back to the 1700s. Ralph Ingersoll Scoville (1829-1887) ran the farm during the second half of the 1800s. In 1870, it was one of the largest dairy operations in Cornwall, with 27 cows producing 12,500 gallons of milk for sale.

Sketch of Ralph I. Scoville (1829-1887) by James Henry Moser, 17 April 1883
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

Ralph Scoville’s son, Samuel R. Scoville (1866-1927), took over the farm’s operations during the 1880s. The farm’s dairy operations continued, along with other activities such as raising sheep. “Farmer Sam,” as he was sometimes called, was active in town and county organizations, serving as a charter member and officer of the North Cornwall Grange in the 1880s and as vice-president of the Litchfield County Farm Bureau during the 1920s.

James Henry Moser, "Barnyard and Lake (Father Scoville)"
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

The Scoville farmhouse hosted gatherings of illustrious figures during the late 1800s. The Scoville family was connected to national affairs—Ralph Scoville's nephew, Rev. Samuel Scoville, married the daughter of Henry Ward Beecher (and niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe); and their daughter, Martha (1857-1941), married artist James Henry Moser (1854-1913).

James Henry Moser, "Scoville Barns and Corn Crib, January Thaw Series," 1896
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

Moser was born in Canada, moving to Ohio when he was 10. He traveled extensively and worked as a freelance illustrator for national magazines, including Harper's, Century, Leslie's, and Atlantic Monthly. Moser, along with Frederick S. Church, illustrated the first edition of Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus, published in 1881. Later in his career, Moser was art critic and illustrator for the Washington Times, and then the Post and Herald. He also taught watercolor painting at the Corcoran School of Art. Moser is today best known for his paintings of life in the South.

James Henry Moser, "From January Thaw Series"
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "January Thaw Series - Moon set from the studio door"
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

In 1877, Martha Scoville was in Toledo, Ohio, visiting her cousin, Lydia Brewster Hubbard. Hubbard was also an artist, and she helped arrange for Moser to give art lessons to Scoville. It appears to have been love at first sight, at least on Moser's part: two months after they met, Moser asked Scoville to marry him. She was reluctant, but in 1883, they finally married. The wedding was held at the Scoville home in Cornwall.

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall - Where we spent six years neighbor to Grandma Scoville
when the girlies were little," October 1891
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

During the spring of 1884, the Mosers returned to Cornwall, where James Moser painted and sketched the countryside. The couple made numerous trips to Cornwall, staying with Martha's parents on the Scoville farm. Some of Moser's sketches of Cornwall were preserved in an album he gave to his wife in 1892, now in the collection of the Cornwall Historical Society.

James Henry Moser, "Scoville Farm Looking Toward Sharon," October 1891
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

An article written by Moser, published in The Times (Washington, D.C.) in 1900, described Cornwall as follows:

     ...By train, Cornwall seems a howling wilderness of rocky mountain-side covered with birch and scrub pine. The wonder to the stranger ever is that these pretty little villages mentioned should exist in this wild and isolated place, where there is scarcely a single city block of approximately level ground.
   The houses cling to the mountain side on little benches apparently scooped out to make a foothold. There are good, much-used roads in sight, but the way out the reason for their being is not clear. It is only when one leaves the river and reaches the interior some 900 feet above it that the lovely, rolling upland meadows and beautiful farm homesteads appear. Then one discovers a fertile country intersected by broad stone walls that tell of endless and patient toil in clearing these rock strewn "hills of Cornwall."
   ...Proud and prosperous farms they are now, but if those walls were back where they came from these broad acres would never be reclaimed--at least not for a thousand years! For farming, strictly speaking, is no longer the profitable business it once was in Cornwall. People may get so numerous one of these days that they will have to take up the pavements in the cities and grow corn there; then the floodtide of prosperity will return here, perhaps....
     Cornwall is a town of beautiful farm homes. The money that supports them is not made in town, but here. The summer boarder has arrived.... He slips into his niche in the family circle and enjoys life, while the haying and other farm work go on, indifferent to his presence. ...
     ...There is a background of wooded hills surrounding the plains and farm houses and barns set in picture meadows. Brooks and a pine forest scarcely excelled in beauty and grandeur by the Cathedral Woods, at Intervale and Cream Hill Pond, three miles away, call forth universal praise. They are a pride of Cornwall. ....
      ...Cream Hill... is a huge hemisphere containing four or five square miles of highly cultivated ground. It is the garden spot of Cornwall.... This beautiful mound, with its graceful sweeping lines and patchwork of fields, is the work of time and the contented home builder. For 200 years one generation after another has raked the rock from its surface, till now it presents that flawless look of French or German farming country--with the added charm of clustering houses and barns within neighborly distance of each other. These tell of the blessed individualism which exists in Cornwall. No one owns it all and corrals his workers in a village miles from the fields they till.
     .... Beautiful as the cultivated fields are here in Cornwall, the uncut and still unappreciated jewel--the feature of the town over which the artists go wild with joy--is the neglected, rocky, bush-grown pasture land.

James Henry Moser, "On Scoville Farm," 1888
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall Pasture," 1902
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall Sunset"
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall Pasture," 1902
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall, Conn."
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall," Xmas 1878
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Cornwall Road"
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Rogers' Barns," 1880
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, Cornwall, Ct., July 1884
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, Cornwall, Conn., September 9, 1908
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

James Henry Moser, "Experiment in Corot's Manner, Old Apple Tree, Cornwall, Conn."
Martha's Album, Collection of Cornwall Historical Society

Moser continued to add sketches to Martha's Album for more than a decade after giving it to her. The final pages contain a series of sketches done at "The Old Home" on Cream Hill in August and September, 1905.