I spy a patriot: the art and espionage of Patience Lovell Wright

Keep your eyes open in the remarkable colonial community of Bordentown, and you'll find the intersection of art and patriotism. Standing directly across the street from the home of composer, poet, satirist and statesman Francis Hopkinson is the former dwelling of America's first native-born sculptor, Patience Lovell Wright. Justifiably admired for her artwork, she's also rumored to have been a spy during the Revolutionary War.

Like Hopkinson, Wright wasn't born in New Jersey, but the then-colony was important to her formative years. A few years after her 1725 birth in Oyster Bay, Long Island, her family settled near the Delaware River in a community that would later be named Bordentown. Strict Quakers, her parents adhered to a rather hard-core lifestyle, demanding that Patience and her sister Rachel wear white in public and conform to a strict vegetarian diet. Nonetheless, the girls found an outlet for their creativity by molding forms from clay they made from flour and water.

Patience is said to have been a headstrong young woman, leaving her parents' home at the age of 16 to live in Philadelphia. Several years later, she married the much older Joseph Wright and returned to Bordentown. Though she later observed that her husband had "nothing but age and money to recommend himself," the couple had four children; a fifth was born not long after Joseph's death in 1769.

Left with the family house but no other allowances from Joseph's estate to support her children, Patience turned to the craft that brought her so much pleasure as a child: sculpting. The fashionable medium of the day was wax, and with the endorsement of her neighbor Hopkinson, she soon became well known for her extraordinarily accurate, life-sized renditions of human subjects.

She and Rachel opened waxworks in New York and Philadelphia, and Patience in particular drew attention for her particularly earthy work practices. One could say that she set the standard early for the quirkier American artists to come. Given the properties of wax, the medium had to be kept warm to be pliable, an especially important detail for Patience's lifelike renditions. She'd cradle the large blocks of wax under a cloth in her lap, engaging in frank conversation with her subjects as they sat for her. When she finished sculpting a bust, she'd unveil it dramatically, as if she were giving birth to it.

Following a fire at her New York studio, Wright left the colonies for London in 1771 at the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin's sister Jane Mecom. The Franklin connection was her entre to the upper classes of English society, who were fascinated by her talent and her plain-spoken, egalitarian ways, as much as they were taken by the flattery she lavished on them. It's said that King George III and his wife Charlotte even allowed her to address them by name rather than honorific. She knew how to work her audience.

All the while, revolutionary sentiment was growing in the colonies, and Wright was an ardent supporter, even going as far as reprimanding the king for refusing to granting independence. She quickly recognized that the warm relationships she'd cultivated with members of Parliament gave her access to information her fellow patriots would find useful. Using sculpted heads and busts as cover, she sent several messages to Franklin, detailing her conjecture on which influential British leaders might be persuaded to take up the patriot cause.

Wright's candor and relentlessness seem to have backfired on her after the events of Lexington and Concord in 1775. While her egalitarian manner of relating to her patrons might have been endearing to nobles and the king in the past, her strident refusal to stop talking about the Revolution made her persona non grata in society. Left without her pipeline of sources, she became less useful as a spy, even as she reportedly pleaded with Franklin to support a British rebellion against the crown.

It's not clear how she made a living during the first years of the Revolution, but a move to Paris in 1780 was largely unsuccessful. Returning to England two years later, she continued beseeching her former patrons in America for opportunities to sculpt the Founding Fathers. Some sources say that only George Washington responded favorably, but Wright died before they could arrange a sitting.

Interestingly, the only work of Patience Lovell Wright's that survives is of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, a supporter of American independence. And despite her reported desire to be buried in her beloved United States, she rests somewhere in London. Rachel had pleaded with both Congress and her sister's former supporters in America for funding to bring her remains back; her requests went unanswered.

Birding with the spirit of Bonaparte: our visit to Point Breeze

New Jersey has long attracted birders both professional and avocational, all seeking views of the broad variety of our avian residents and visitors. Due to our strategic position on the Atlantic flyway, the state's airspace is a virtual superhighway for hundreds of species of birds as they migrate between their summer and winter habitats. While the names of many of the early ornithologists aren't well known outside of birding circles, you might recognize those like John James Audubon and Charles Bonaparte, both of whom lived in the Garden State for a time in the early 1800s.

Long-time readers might remember our story on Bonaparte's discovery of the female Cape May warbler. We'd originally found the site of his home, Point Breeze, on our visit to Bordentown last summer, though we didn't venture onto the property. Now the home of Divine Word Missionaries' East Coast facility, access to the acreage is restricted to residents and guests who've arranged permission in advance.

Enter noted birder and Hidden New Jersey friend Rick Wright, who invited us to scout out the property with him and his wife Alison. Believe it or not, fall migration is already underway, and what better place to bid warblers a bon voyage than the former home of a man who shaped birding history? Naturally, I was also intrigued by the property's connection to Napoleon's family and their European exile, so I didn't need to be asked twice. Rick had already gained permission from Divine Word; we were set to go.

The weather was overcast and humid on our arrival; we hoped we wouldn't be rained on, at least until we'd had a chance to explore a bit.

The Divine Word grounds are well-manicured, with broad expanses of grass around the few 1950s-era buildings and a driveway. There's only one building left from the 1800s -- a small stone house built for one of Joseph Bonaparte's advisors next to the area which once held a formal garden. Hearing very little in the way of birds, we decided to check out the trees at the perimeter of the property and explore from there.

The view from the Point Breeze property.

Those trees blocked what must have been an extraordinary view at one time. Point Breeze was named for its place on a bluff high above Crosswicks Creek, which we could see in spots through the thick foliage. Fortunately we found a wider view on the southern edge of the manicured area, where trees gave way to lower brush on a steep slope that led down to a marshy valley of sorts. According to the 160 year-old surveyors map Rick had found, that expanse had been the site of a small lake created when the Bonapartes dammed Thornton Creek. The vantage point gave us what would often be an ideal view of a nice resting spot for migrants, but the pickings were rather slim. Alison spotted a distant kingfisher perched above a small expanse of water, and a couple of cormorants were visible in the creek beyond.

"Maybe we should try channeling the spirit of Bonaparte," I suggested to the chuckles of my companions. Who knows? Perhaps he'd take pity on us and help some fellow birders find a productive patch on the property.

Hoping for more success in the woods, we found a barely-noticeable break in some nearby underbrush and headed in. Again, but for the constant whirring of the usual annual cicadas, we were hearing virtually nothing but the occasional mewing of random catbirds or a complaining blue jay.

While I was jazzed about birding in the footsteps of a great ornithologist, my real interest in the woods was the potential for finding evidence of Bonaparte's presence there. Much has been made in certain circles of a tunnel system extending from the family mansion's basement to the creekside, but I was interested in finding other structures. Would we find a brick-paved path or perhaps a well?

This arch probably supported a carriage path through the
woods; it appears that a stream flowed beneath it.

Our path turned into a sandy wash, clearly the route taken by runoff from the higher elevation property. Looking for a vantage point, Ivan scrambled up an embankment that appeared too uniform not to be manmade, and noted that there might have been a path of some sort there. Sure enough, as the rest of us walked further down the wash, we found a brick arch that was built to support what must have been a carriage path.

A look toward the creek exposed some possible aquatic life, but beyond the catbirds, nuthatches and a wren or two, we weren't hearing or seeing much else at all. The day may have been a bust birding-wise, but it was a great scouting expedition and a view into a truly hidden aspect of New Jersey history. Given more favorable conditions, it definitely would be a wonderful place to find a wide variety of songbirds in migration.

And while he apparently couldn't influence the migration, maybe Bonaparte helped us out, after all. Not two minutes after we got into the car to leave, raindrops started falling on the windshield, the start of what became a persistent storm.

Learning the social graces at Bordentown Female College

As we're closing 2012, I've been thinking about the places we've gone this year and the discoveries we've yet to share. Our summertime visit to Bordentown, for example, yielded a ton of great locations and potential Hidden New Jersey stories. Some were relatively easy to get to the bottom of, while others stayed frustratingly obscure.

The Bordentown Female College is one of the obscure ones. All that's left of it is a plaque and memorial fountain downtown, at the corner of Farnsworth Avenue and Crosswicks Street, a few blocks from Clara Barton's school. There's no other explanation or context nearby, nor is there a structure attached to it, so I had to do a little digging.

Women-only education has an interesting history in America, with some of the earliest examples being "female seminaries" in the early and mid 1800s. Some focused on the type of higher education we're familiar with, while others were basically finishing schools that prepared young women from wealthy families for their entry in polite society. Literature and cultural arts may have been in the curriculum, but the primary purpose seems to have been turning out nice young ladies who were equipped to have a decent conversation at a dinner party.

Bordentown Female College seems to have been more the latter than the former. Founded as a boarding school by Methodist minister Rev. John Brakely in 1850, it was advertised as "an excellent school, in a healthy and accessible locality, under wise administration and reasonable in its charges." An 1880 brochure outlined its purposes as "1st. To make thorough, practical students. 2d. To improve their manners, morals and health. 3d. To provide a pleasant home." Parents were also comforted by the fact that "The young ladies enjoy the personal supervision and maternal care of the wife of the President, whose modest and amiable qualities command the affection of all."

The school was well-regarded among its peers, attracting a student body that drew largely from New York society. A July 1869 New York Times article on that year's commencement noted that "essays read by the young ladies evinced talent and culture, the music was artistic and all of the performances of the occasion were conducted in good taste..."

BFC's tenure was relatively short, as the school fell victim to the financial panic of 1893 and eventually closed altogether. One might also wonder if the gradual growth of nearby women's colleges like Bryn Mawr and its Seven Sisters counterparts might have drawn potential students away, as well. Either way, it appears that its alumnae regarded their Bordentown experience with fond memories, as their lovely 1914-era fountain still graces downtown.

Francis Hopkinson: bringing wit to the Revolution

The dry history lessons of our school days often did a disservice to some really cool and interesting people. Without checking out the stories much further than we did in grade school, we often miss the true spirit of some dynamic, clever and even fun people who shaped the world we live in.

Hopkinson's Bordentown residence, where he
presumably wrote his satirical ditties.

Take, for example, Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and resident of Bordentown during the Revolution. As we found out during our August visit, he was a bit of a renaissance guy, having also designed the state seal while dabbling in science and the performing arts. He's acknowledged to be the composer of the earliest surviving secular song written in the United States, and he invented a floating lamp.

Interestingly, the plaque on his house also noted that he was a 'great satirist,' a designation you don't often see on historic markers. During the Revolutionary War, he wrote several poems to tweak the British, one of which memorializes an act of harassment on the Delaware River that started in Bordentown and ended in Philadelphia.

It all started on January 6, 1778, when a substantial number of ships in the British fleet were located in the Philadelphia harbor. Working at the behest of several patriots, a cooper in Bordentown constructed several kegs which were then loaded with gunpowder and outfitted with trigger mechanisms. These makeshift mines were then floated down the Delaware, intended to detonate and damage British ships which were assumed to be at anchor in the river.

The scheme didn't go quite as planned. Due to icy conditions in the river, the Redcoats had docked most of their ships at port, leaving little opportunity for the kegs to collide with them along the flow of the river. Only one of the incendiary devices exploded, killing four crew members who'd attempted to haul it up onto a British barge.

In response, British officers ordered their men on shore to fire at any mass floating in the river. Given that it was nighttime, soldiers couldn't differentiate between the kegs and other flotsam, leading them to fire wildly at ice floes and logs as much as the explosive barrels.

While the keg plot itself was a failure, Hopkinson saw the episode as opportunity to promote the hapless British response. When you need fodder for propaganda, nothing bolsters the spirits quite like your opponents' miscues. The Battle of the Kegs is a spirited ditty when sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, though Hopkinson cheated on the meter a bit by including far too many "sirs." By tweaking the poor judgment of the British on that chilly evening, it demonstrated that the Americans weren't cowed by their opponents' military might.

Had Hopkinson been born 250 years later, he might have used his talents on Saturday Night Live. Instead, his poems and songs traveled by word of mouth, encouraging his fellow patriots to continue the fight and consider independence a wholly realistic possibility.

History at every turn: strolling through Bordentown

Fresh off our Clara Barton discovery, Ivan and I drove to downtown Bordentown to see what other treasures were there for the finding. What we found was a quaint downtown, more of a 19th century feel than Burlington or Mount Holly, but still a throwback. Bank buildings were large and stately, the streets were wide and welcoming, and the architecture is Colonial with a mix of Classical and European influence.

Some of the yards were fenced off with very cool wrought iron.

Oh, and there were some cute shops and eating places, too. It's a nice place to stroll and browse on a summer afternoon.

Important to us, sites of note were clearly marked. Bordentown is clearly proud of its heritage, both as a hub of transportation and as home to a cast of characters who might be considered rabblerousers of the Revolution. Starting in colonial times, the town's location made it a key spot for travelers between New York and Philadelphia, so it was a natural base of operations for revolutionary notables.

Since it's the kind of place where we could reasonably expect that the attractions listed in the WPA Guide to New Jersey still exist, I took it with me after we parked the car. I didn't want us to miss anything important. Within walking distance, we found a wealth of history:

• Thomas Paine, the noted patriot and author of Common Sense, lived in Bordentown when he wasn't in France. You may recall that we first ran into his New Jersey exploits at New Bridge Landing, where Washington's 1776 retreat inspired Paine's classic, The American Crisis.



Francis Hopkinson's house.

• Lawyer and artist Francis Hopkinson stayed in town after marrying the daughter of the man for whom Bordentown is named. Hopkinson not only signed the Declaration of Independence, but was a talented satirist and is credited with designing the New Jersey state seal. He's definitely a subject for a future Hidden New Jersey post, but for now we'll say that his poems and jingles inspired patriots both to fight for independence and to have a good laugh at British military.
• The tracks of New Jersey's first railroad, the Camden and Amboy run on the bed of a sub-surface cut through downtown. Just a mile away, the state's first steam locomotive, the John Bull, was built and tested in 1831.
• The Delaware and Raritan Canal's western end is at the base of a steep embankment just outside the business district.
• The home of Patience Wright, who was America's first sculptress of note, well, when she wasn't spying for the colonists in London.

We also found a bit of fun in the shops around town. Crammed with all kinds of pop culture musts, Randy's Man Cave lacks for floor space to walk on, but more than makes up for it with Beavis and Butthead bobbleheads, loud music and Quisp cereal (really!). There was a bit too much Phillies memorabilia, but given the location, I guess that can be forgiven.

Apparently the entrance to Bonaparte's estate.
We heeded the sign's direction.

The marquee explorer's site in Bordentown, of course, is Point Breeze, home of the exiled Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and Naples. Much of the site is overgrown and foreboding, with the remainder taken over by the Divine Word Seminary, so we left it unexplored, regrettably. Given the dense vegetation and the connection to noted ornithologist Charles Bonaparte, it would have been a kick to do some birding there.

A one-room revolution: Clara Barton in Bordentown

Having checked out the wonders of Mount Holly and done some reconnaissance on potential nearby birding sites, we decided that maybe it was time to head back home. That, however, was a short-lived plan. We'd just made it onto the Turnpike from the Pennsy Pike extension when we ran into a massive traffic jam. Rather than sitting there, we decided to exit at Interchange 7 and take our chances with Route 206.

"I have a feeling we'll run into something really good," Ivan said, confidently. If past experience could be our guide, he'd be completely correct. Exit 7, of course, serves Bordentown, a place I'd long wanted to check out. The closest I'd gotten was finding out the Bonaparte connection... but never knew quite why the town would hold any interest for an exiled 'royal' family. 

Per Ivan's prediction, it didn't take long for us to find something interesting. As we drove down Crosswicks Street, we came upon a small building with one of those glorious blue historic markers. "Clara Barton School."

Many don't know this, but before she became known as a leading health advocate and founded the American Red Cross, Barton was a schoolteacher. She was a Massachusetts native but came to teach in Bordentown after a visit to a friend in Hightstown. At the time, the custom was for teachers to bill students at the end of each term, a practice she sought to change in favor of a free public school supported by funding from the town. In her estimation, far too many children weren't getting an education because they couldn't afford private school tuition.

Her popularity with students and parents helped to push the idea forward, and in 1852 the town allowed her to start her new school in a one-room building that predated the Revolution. As more and more children learned about the availability of free education, the school quickly swelled to a student body of 600. More teachers and more buildings were pressed into service to manage the demand.

Unfortunately, it appears that Barton's success planted the seeds of her undoing in Bordentown. According to the Bordentown Historical Society website, a lengthy bout with laryngitis caused her to miss a few months of school, and in that time, local officials replaced her with a male principal at a salary reported to be twice what she was being paid. She was also deemed to be his assistant, a position she found distasteful. She resigned her position and moved to Washington D.C. for higher-paid employment.

Barton made an indelible impact on Bordentown and New Jersey in just over two years. She'd founded one of the first free schools in the state at a time when free education, while provided by statute, was rarely provided to any but the indigent. Children all over the state joined forces in the early 1920s to honor her work by restoring the one-room schoolhouse, and today it stands as a picturesque reminder of the dynamic woman who brought knowledge to those who might not ordinarily have had the chance to study.                                                      

Cape May Warbler: a bird with a Napoleon complex?

Birds are given such interesting names that one wonders how the nomenclature is decided. Physical attributes are often the key, but place names also come into the mix with some frequency. That’s how the Cape May Warbler came to get its name, as explained by the 1917 classic, Birds of America:

“A male Warbler, captured by George Ord in 1809 in Cape May, NJ was described by Alexander Wilson and named by him the Cape May warbler.”

Okay, fair enough, and mildly interesting. The description goes on to say,

Cape May Warbler, blissfully NOT afflicted
by a Napoleon complex.

“Not until 1825 was a female taken, and this by Charles L. Bonaparte at Bordentown, N.J. This tan eared Warbler has ever since been eagerly sought, joyously welcomed, and enthusiastically praised.”

Bonaparte? As in the French military leader and emperor who sacrificed his name so the rest of us could attribute a complex to short guys acting like martinets? Napoleon Bonaparte?

Sort of. Charles Bonaparte was his nephew, born in 1803 out of wedlock to Lucien Bonaparte and his mistress. It seems that Napoleon didn’t approve of Charles’ mother and wanted his brother to marry the widow of the king of Etruria instead. One thing led to another, Charles’ parents got married, and after a series of movements around Europe, several members of the family ended up in Bordentown. I suppose that after all of that tzimmes, the quiet Burlington County town made a nice respite.

Somewhere along the line, Charles became an avid birder, delivering several papers at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Some say that before leaving Italy, he’d discovered the Moustached Warbler, and that he collected specimens of a new storm petrel on his voyage to the United States. He eventually befriended John James Audubon, their ornithological talents complementing each other. While Audubon was highly skilled in finding specimens in the field and committing their images to paper, Bonaparte was more adept at taxonomic classification and nomenclature.

Bonaparte lived in New Jersey for only a few years before returning to Europe, but I’d like to think that he found the state to be as fascinating a field for study as birders do today. Whether it’s the Cape May Warbler or the Bonaparte’s Gull, or even the Zenaida genus of doves he named for his wife, his influence lives on.