Ceremony will honor artist and abolitionist
On Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017, at 10:30 a.m., there will be a dedication and unveiling ceremony for a newly-erected historic roadside marker located at 5 South Skaneateles Street, in the village of Jordan, New York.
The historic marker is being erected to commemorate the former home of Sheldon Peck, the renowned Early American folk artist and portrait painter, who was also an ardent abolitionist.
The public is invited to attend the dedication event, which will take place rain or shine, and is to be followed by a brief reception at the nearby Whitely Memorial Building (Jordan Library) at 15 Mechanic Street.
The dedication event will begin with a welcome by Village of Jordan Mayor Richard Platten, to be followed by other speakers who include: Jack Horner, Village of Jordan Historian; Marianne Balazs of New Jersey, a leading expert on Sheldon Peck; Richard Miller of Plainfield, New Hampshire, who is writing a book about Sheldon Peck; Sarah Richardt, of Lombard, Illinois, Executive Director of the Lombard Historical Society, caretakers of the Sheldon Peck Homestead, a museum in Peck’s former Illinois home; and Lynn Fall of Syracuse, a former Jordan resident who conducted the property research in 2016 which ultimately led to finding the exact location of the former Peck property in Jordan, which had become unknown for many decades.
The historic roadside marker was funded by a generous grant from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. A representative from the Pomeroy Foundation, Susan Hughes, will also speak at the event about the Foundation’s historic roadside marker grant program.
Sheldon Peck lived in the village of Jordan for eight years— from 1828 to 1836. At the age of 31, Peck and his family moved from Vermont to the young but growing village of Jordan. He purchased a 1/4-acre lot on South Skaneateles Street, where the Peck family lived until 1836, at which time they moved to Illinois. (The house which currently stands on this lot was built in 1868, after Peck had left Jordan.) In Illinois, Peck continued to paint, and he also became very active in the Underground Railroad, up until his death from pneumonia in 1868 at age 71.
Peck began painting portraits in Vermont during his twenties. While living in Jordan, Peck continued to earn a portion of his livelihood by painting portraits of central New York residents. In fact, many of his best-known works were painted during the time that Peck lived in Jordan.
Although the name “Sheldon Peck” is not a household name, his portraits are extremely popular among museums and private collectors of Early American folk art. For example, a portrait of a young woman which was painted around 1830, during the time Peck lived in Jordan, was auctioned off in January 2017 for $187,500 by Sotheby’s, the high-end New York City auction house. In November 2001, Sotheby’s auctioned a rare Peck double-portrait of an Illinois couple for $835,750.
According to Lynn Fall, “Sheldon Peck is an ‘unsung local hero’ who is unquestionably one of the most famous people who ever lived in the village of Jordan, although most current and former residents of Jordan have never even heard of him. My hope is that the new historic marker will help to remediate this long-standing, though unintentional, oversight.”
Paintings done by Sheldon Peck during his New York period are historically significant because he was able to capture the likenesses of many Central New York residents before the advent of photography, which didn’t become widely available until the 1840’s. Adding to the allure of his paintings is the fact that none of Sheldon Peck’s over 100 known portraits (or those attributed to him) are signed. For this reason, previously unknown Peck paintings occasionally surface—to the astonishment and delight of the current owners of the artwork. A characteristic 3-stroke brushstroke pattern on fabrics or lace often helps to identify a Peck painting.
Sheldon Peck lived in Jordan during a very dynamic and exciting time in the village’s history: the Erie Canal had recently opened in 1825; the Town of Elbridge (which includes Jordan) was incorporated in 1829; Jordan’s first two churches were built in 1830-31; and the Village of Jordan was incorporated in 1835.
