Condition:Very Good - Portrait documented - Alabama Portraits Prior to 1870, complied by the Colonial Dames in the State of Alabama, published in 1969.
Description:Black suit and stock, high collar, Dark eyes and hair, high forehead. Looking directly at artist.
History:Painting has been professionally cleaned. Frame has one small piece missing at bottom. Family speculation was that the portrait hung at too great an angle and the bottom piece broke from too much pressure. Painting hung in the home of The Rev. and Mrs. John Bell Hamilton of Columbia, Tennessee. The home is located on Williamsport Pike and is now known as Kennedy Place. Painting was inherited by Hamilton's nephew and adopted son, Thomas Hamilton Williams, then his daughters, Irene and Carrie Williams, then their niece, Emily Irene Williams Cater, then her daughter, Alleen WIlliams Cater.
Notes:Hamilton came to Tennessee from South Carolina by 1807. Primarily a Methodist minister, he owned farmland in Maury County valued in 1860 at $50,000, plus farmland in Alabama. Highly educated, he served as Clerk and Master of Chancery Court and was licensed to practice law in Tennessee. He raised a company of cavalry for Second Tennessee Battalion, later First Tennessee regiment, CSA. After the war he invested in railroad development. He had substantial holdings in real estate and stock at his death in 1887. See The Civil War Papers of John Bell Hamilton and Thomas Hamilton Williams, Alleen Williams Cater, 1971 (original papers at Tennessee State Library & Archives).
