Photo: Self-portrait of Charles Willson Peale

Charles Willson Peale was born on April 16, 1741, in Chestertown, Maryland. [See inside front cover for his portrait of Brother and President George Washington.] His father died when he was five years old, and his mother moved the family to Annapolis. When Peale was 13, he was apprenticed to a saddler. Making saddles was not a simple procedure; one had to learn the rudiments of several other trades including taxidermy, tooling, and design.

Upon completion of his apprenticeship, he set himself up in his own business and married Rachael Brewer on January 12, 1762. Along with his saddlery ability, he had discovered that he also had an innate flair for sketching the human form. These talents were not inconsiderable, but he wanted to improve them and sought out John Hesselius, the Swedish-American painter, and began taking lessons from him. He was a quick learner and soon realized that his real talents lay in that field. He also learned that there was an accomplished artist in Boston by the name of John Singleton Copley. He soon arranged a trip to that city where he met Copley and became the beneficiary of his advice. It was there that he also heard of the famous expatriate American painter, Benjamin West, who was then living in London. Peale took passage to London in 1768.

He met West, who not only agreed to teach him, but even took him in, and they became fast friends. Peale eventually got a commission to paint the great Englishman, William Pitt, that famous American sympathizer during the Stamp Act crisis. It will be remembered that both Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, were named in his honor.

Peale had intended to stay in England for only a year, but he became so caught up in his studies under West that he stayed on an additional year before returning to America in 1769. After his return to Virginia from England, one of his acquaintances took him on a visit to Colonel George Washington, then barely out of his 30s, at Mount Vernon in 1772. He took advantage of the opportunity to have Washington sit for him. He posed him in the Colonial uniform of the Virginia militia. During and after this visit, Peale and his wife got to know the Washingtons intimately; all this, before the outbreak of the Revolution and Washington's later fame.

Shortly thereafter, the disagreements between the colonies and the mother country began to heat up even more, and the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1774. The following year, these disagreements degenerated into armed conflict at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill in Massachusetts.

Peale's portrait of Martha Washington

It was at this time that Peale took his Degrees in Masonry in Williamsburg Lodge No. 6 in Virginia. In 1775, Peale borrowed the Lodge's portrait of Grand Master Peyton Randolph so that he could make a copy of it. In 1776, he moved to Philadelphia where he set himself up in business as a portrait painter.

After the Declaration of Independence, Peale, who had already been an active supporter of the colonists' cause, signed up as an active participant in the militia. He was elected First Lieutenant and participated with Washington at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He was then promoted to Captain of the 4th Battalion of Foot. He was with Washington at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. While there, he dined with Washington, General Knox, and other officers and painted their portraits. Many of them were Brother Masons. He also did a likeness of himself as a young officer in uniform.

He became the main portrait painter of the Revolution; other famous American painters such as West, Copley, and Gilbert Stuart spent the entire war years in Europe. In January 1779, Peale was commissioned to do a full-length portrait of Washington to hang in the State Council Chamber in Philadelphia, which became the most popular of all the 60 portraits of Washington he eventually painted.

In addition to being a painter and soldier, Peale's energy and tenacity knew no bounds. After first having been a saddler, he subsequently became involved in a host of other activities. He became a silversmith, coach maker, harness maker, watchmaker, dentist, naturalist, taxidermist, and legislator. He early on had been an avid believer in the colonists' actions against the Stamp Act. While in Massachusetts, he joined the Sons of Liberty and demonstrated with them in New-buryport against the Stamp Act. After the discovery of some ancient mastodon bones in 1801 in Ulster County, New York, he became a most enthusiastic natural history devotee, went to the site, and painted an epic depiction of the recovery process. This interest eventually resulted in his establishing "Peale's Museum," a museum of natural history, in the Old State House in Philadelphia in 1802. Later, these and other of his efforts eventually led to the establishment of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Charles Willson Peale became one of the most prolific painters of the day and was active to the end of his life. A partial list of his famous paintings includes the country's first seven Presidents from life, Martha Washington, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, John Paul Jones, Charles Carroll, Peyton Randolph, Nathanael Greene, Horatio Gates, von Steuben, Rochambeau and DeKalb. Many sat for him on numerous occasions. He first painted Washington in 1772 and the last time 23 years later in 1795. His many self-portraits must also not he forgotten, beginning with that of a young Revolutionary soldier, to perhaps his best, a most detailed one as a 63 year old, with spectacles on his forehead, looking the viewer squarely in the eye. (See image at top.) He outlived both of his famous contemporary artists and mentors, West and Copley.

Peale had great compassion for his fellowman and was an ardent believer in the equality of all mankind. Growing up in the South, he came to see slavery for what it was--man's inhumanity to man. When he became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1779, he worked diligently, seeing that laws were enacted toward eliminating this scourge from the land. One of the first acts passed was an Act for Gradual Abolition of Slavery. All this, 85 years before slavery was finally abolished in 1865.

On February 22, 1827, he became ill, and with his daughter, Sybilla, by his side, passed away at the ripe old age of 86. He had led a full and most productive life and will always be remembered for his great and unselfish accomplishments. He was buried by the side of his first true love, Rachael, in St Peter's Churchyard in Philadelphia.

Had he never been a painter, Charles Willson Peale would still have made it into the history books because of his intense concern for his fellowman and the many areas which benefited them. At the time of his death, he had been a Mason for over 52 years.

The above article is reprinted from the Short Talk Bulletin (Jan. 2002) of the Masonic Service Association of North America. The essay was originally published by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in its TROWEL Magazine (Fall, 2001) and is reprinted here with permission.