Henry Jackson Ellicott
Henry Jackson Ellicott, from National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1904).
BornJune 22 or 23, 1847
Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.
DiedFebruary 11, 1901(1901-02-11) (aged 53)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Education
Known forArchitectural sculpting
Notable work

Henry Jackson Ellicott (June 22 or 23, 1847, in Annapolis, Maryland – February 11, 1901, in Washington, D.C.) was an American sculptor and architectural sculptor, best known for his work on American Civil War monuments.

Biography

The son of James P. Ellicott and Fannie Adelaide Ince, he attended Rock Hill College School in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. He studied at Georgetown Medical College, and may have served in the Civil War.[1]

Ellicott's plaster of Abraham Lincoln in the Capitol Rotunda, 1866

At age 19, he completed a larger-than-life plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln – likely an entry in the Lincoln Monument Association's competition for a marble statue – that was exhibited for two years in the United States Capitol rotunda. The competition was won by sculptor Lot Flannery, whose statue is at District of Columbia City Hall. The fate of Ellicott's Lincoln statue is unknown.[2]

He studied at the National Academy of Design, 1867–1870, under William Henry Powell and Emanuel Leutze; and later studied under Constantino Brumidi.[3]

His first two commissions were for monuments at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lothian, Maryland (1870) and Greenwood Cemetery in Laurel, Maryland. He was the likely modeler of an Infantryman statue for J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc. of New York City, that was mass-produced and used in numerous municipal Civil War monuments. Company records list the sculptor's name as "Allicot."[4]

He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and modeled architectural sculpture on buildings for the 1876 Centennial Exposition.[5] He remained in Philadelphia, and exhibited occasionally at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1878 and 1891.[6]

Ellicott was appointed Superintendent and Chief Modeler for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1889, responsible for all federal monuments. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he lived until his death.

Personal

In 1883, he married Lida Dyre, of Maryland,[7] a woman eighteen years his junior.[8] They had no children.

Selected works

General George McClellan (1891–1894), City Hall, Philadelphia

Civil War monuments

Portrait busts

George M. Dallas (1893), U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Attributed works

  • Infantryman, zinc, modeled by "Allicot" (Ellicott?) and mass-produced by J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc., New York City, from ca. 1875 to 1927. Examples in Saratoga, New York (1875), Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1878), King Ferry, New York (1882), Arcadia, Missouri (1886), Norwalk, Connecticut (1889), Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts (1890), Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (1891),[17] Pottstown, Pennsylvania (1893), Berlin, New York (1906), Iola, Kansas (1909), and North Kingston, Rhode Island (1912).
  • Charles Evans, bronze, Charles Evans Cemetery, Reading, Pennsylvania.[18] The undated statue is signed "ELLICOTT SC." and was cast by Bureau Brothers Foundry in Philadelphia.[19]
  • Statuette of Franklin Pierce, bronzed composition metal, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, New Hampshire, c.1896, height: 27 in (69 cm)[20] Likely Ellicott's entry in the 1896 design competition for a statue (unexecuted) for the New Hampshire State House.[21]

References

Media related to Henry Jackson Ellicott at Wikimedia Commons

  1. ↑ An 1896 New York Times article implies that the 16-year-old Ellicott was present at the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.
  2. ↑ Louis A. Warren, "The Curious Story of Ellicott's Lincoln," Lincoln Herald, vol. 48-49, 1946.
  3. ↑ Charles Edwin Fairman, Works of Art in the United States Capitol Building: Including Biographies of the Artists (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 22.
  4. ↑ Fiske Infantryman from JAIC online.
  5. ↑ "Henry Jackson Ellicott," Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Rossiter Johnson, ed. (1904).
  6. ↑ Susan James-Gadzinski and Mary Mullen-Cunningham, "Henry J. Ellicott," American Sculpture in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), pp. 106-07.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Henry J. Ellicott Buried," Washington, February 1901.
  8. ↑ "H. J. Ellicott Dead," The Legacy: Newsletter of the Howard County Historical Society, vol. 50, no. 2 (Summer 2013), pp. 1, 3.
  9. ↑ Closeup of the building from Boston Public Library via Flickr.
  10. ↑ Company Timeline from New England Mutual Life Insurance Company.
  11. ↑ John Sartain from PAFA.
  12. ↑ General Spinner
  13. ↑ General Spinner from SIRIS.
  14. ↑ Holyoke Soldiers' Monument from Library of Congress.
  15. ↑ Colonel Cameron
  16. ↑ George M. Dallas bust from U.S. Senate.
  17. ↑ Martha's Vineyard Infantryman from The Washington Times.
  18. ↑ Charles Evans from USGW Archives.
  19. ↑ Charles Evans from SIRIS.
  20. ↑ Sculpture from New Hampshire Historical Society.
  21. ↑ Michael J. Connelly, "The Franklin Pierce Statue Controversy," The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, vol. 12, no. 2 (April 2013), pp. 234-259.
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