#2    The Job Hill Family Portrait

Many of the great things at the Peterborough Historical Society explore the relationships between home, family, and community. For our second thing of 105 Great Things at the Historical Society we have chosen a folk art painting that illuminates home, family, and community in the early 19^th century, The Job Hill Family Portrait, painted by Caroline Hill at the age of 21.  The Hill family is depicted in the parlor of their house on Summer Street, now the Aquarius Fire Museum. Painted in 1837, Caroline may have created the portrait to celebrate the family’s new home built on Summer Street that year.

This folk art painting is unusual in many ways. Created by a young woman with no known artistic training, the painting shows a family register hanging on the wall; a very early depiction of a genealogical artifact in an American painting.  The family scene also gives us a glimpse into the family’s life in town.  All of the family are dressed in 1837 fashion and have a fashionable blue and white Chinese export-style bowl on their table. Job Hill holds a letter and eyeglasses and two books are on the table, letting us know that they were literate. We know from the records of the Phoenix Mill that Caroline, her mother, and sisters were all employed at the mill. Perhaps this family industry was to support the education of her brother, a student at Exeter Academy.

The portrait has been exhibited at the Currier Museum, the Museum of Our National Heritage, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City.