Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

In nineteenth-century New York, as in other American cities, a wide range of civic improvements occasioned paintings celebrating these breakthroughs and, by implication, the foresight of their inventors and investors. The Stage Coach "Seventy-Six," one of three known mid-century oils by Henry Boesé paying homage to the omnibus, portrays a festive turnout associated with the advent of this mode of transportation along Myrtle Avenue in the newly chartered City of Brooklyn.

Omnibus travel was not a novelty when the artist executed his canvas. The concept of conveying passengers in a covered, horse-drawn vehicle along a fixed inner-city route for a flat fare had been pioneered in Manhattan by Abraham Brower in 1827, with important innovations in coach design and manufacture following in 1831.¹ "Omnibuses, exceeding a hundred in number, roll incessantly over the paved streets, administering equally to the purposes of business and pleasure & forming an object of such prominent attraction, as to cause New York not inaptly to be termed 'The City of Omnibuses,'" claimed a proud writer for the New-York Gazette and General Advertiser on August 5, 1834. Yet areas lying outside these downtown routes, initially clustered around the Broadway artery running from the Battery to Bond and Bleecker Streets, did not feel the benefit of facilitated commuting until later, after veteran companies like the Knickerbocker Stage Line extended service and multiplied orders for coaches.² By 1850 entrepreneurs were financing branch lines to developing neighborhoods, thus expediting travel within and to the ever-expanding limits of metropolitan New York.

Boesé's painting depicts the Knickerbocker Stage Line's coach "Seventy-Six" -which appears newly minted -advancing along Myrtle Avenue as spectators admire it. Under ordinary circumstances, the omnibus would have been drawn by a two- or four-horse team. Here, ten well-matched horses commanded by a whip-curling driver indicate an exceptional occasion -probably the debut of a dedicated stage service traversing this section of Brooklyn, easing access to the East River waterfront and contiguous villages within Kings County. On the "Seventy-Six," up to thirty passengers could enter at the Fulton Street Ferry and exit in the northwestern neighborhood of Greenpoint. Nestled in a grove of trees at center is the Greek Revival homestead of Jeremiah (or Jeromus) Johnson, Jr., which stood on the northeast corner of Kent Avenue. Johnson, a prominent citizen and son of former Brooklyn town mayor General Jeremiah Johnson, was a co-proprietor of the new line in partnership with Thomas D. Hudson, a local merchant and alderman of the 7th Ward.³ They may be among the threesome riding atop the omnibus, an uncommon practice for routine travel but a perch well suited for honored passengers receiving salutations from their community. The backs of the other guests glimpsed inside the coach denote the use of longitudinal passenger seats that were featured on omnibuses.

By the 1840s, growing competition motivated companies to baptize their coaches with evocative names. The "Seventy-Six," probably a reference to 1776, joined a group of coaches named for Revolutionary-era American characters, such as the "George Washington" and the "Lady Washington." Owners of coach companies also vied for riders by enhancing the upholstered comforts of vehicle interiors and by commissioning decorative panel paintings to spotlight individual coaches. Boesé has taken care to illustrate the pictorial image-believed to represent a Revolutionary War battle scene -framed by drapery swags that embellished the side of the latest addition to the Knickerbocker Line.

Boesé, son of a hosiery merchant, was born in New York, and in 1860 census takers recorded him as a thirty-six-year-old married father of six. Directories list him at various addresses within the city until 1893, and exhibition records and other signed works by him (sometimes erroneously read as H. "Beese") confirm his activity as a landscape painter in the Hudson River School tradition.⁴ Despite the absence of surviving examples, Boesé was also credited as a portrait artist. The trio of stagecoach paintings that Boesé executed between 1849 and 1856 suggest that economic need may have compelled him to step outside the traditional groove of fine arts practice and supplement his income by painting omnibuses. Like The Stage Coach "Seventy-Six," Boesé's other two paintings -reportedly commissioned by Montgomery Queen, founder of King County's first efficient stagecoach lines -offer minutely observed views of the panel scenes brightening the sides of the omnibus.⁵ The artist may have intended them as coy reminders of his availability as a coach decorator, or as references to his professional oil landscapes, which he wished to publicize.

Notes:

1 Brower's initial twelve-seat coach, built by Wade and Leverich, was named the "Accommodation." It ran up and down Broadway as far north as Bleecker Street, charging a shilling's fare regardless of the distance traveled. By 1829 Brower had increased service with the addition of a second coach, the "Sociable," which featured trend-setting seats extending lengthwise and an entrance at the vehicle's rear. In 1831 a new coach financed by Brower appeared on Broadway bearing the name "Omnibus," borrowed from the mode of vehicular passenger service then popular in Paris. The new coach had been engineered by John Stephenson, owner of a recently established coach-making business in New York who quickly dominated all local competition in the design and manufacture of omnibuses.

2 The Knickerbocker Stage Company began operation around 1835 and enjoyed a brisk business through the Civil War, initially running omnibuses between the Merchant's Exchange on Wall Street and Eighth Avenue and 21st Street by way of Wall Street, Bleecker Street, and Eighth Avenue. The southern terminus was later extended to South Ferry. The company crossed the East River to Brooklyn, still a separately governed city, soon thereafter developing new passenger routes that eased commuting distances between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Stage companies like the Knickerbocker Line received serious competition after horse-drawn trolleys were introduced into service in 1854.

3 It seems reasonable to assume that the younger Johnson ordered this congratulatory painting from Boesé to commemorate both his fledgling business venture and his family residence. The provenance of the painting cannot be traced back beyond the donor, Herbert Platt, who gave it to the Museum in 1940. Edward Dechaux, whose preparator's stamp is visible on the reverse of the canvas, sometimes included Brooklyn, in addition to New York, as a service location for his nineteenth-century business.

4 Boesé's oeuvre includes conventional romantic landscapes, many depicting Hudson River Valley locales, and at least one detailed topographical view of New York City's Riverside Park, dated 1885. Additional information and citations pertinent to Boesé's painting career are found in his file in the Museum Archives.

5 See entry for Henry Boesé and his painting The Stage Sewanhackey, 1852, in the exhibition catalogue Brooklyn Before the Bridge: American Paintings from the Long Island Historical Society (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1982), pp. 47 -48, 127 -128. Boesé's 1852 The Stage Sewanhackey (a corruption of the Native American name for Long Island, Seawankacka) records the procession of a new coach operated by the Fulton Avenue and Bedford Line approaching the new Brooklyn City Hall (now Borough Hall). An accompanying inscription along the canvas bottom further explains the scene: "The Members of the Common Council / Accepting an Invitation from the Proprietor / Montgomery Queen are About Enjoying an Excursion on the 23rd of June 1852. The Stage Commanded by William Canfield / H. Boesé, Art't."


The Stage Coach "Seventy-Six" of the Knickerbocker Line c. 1850 Henry Boesé (1824 -after 1893) Oil on canvas, 24 X 48 Signed lower right: H. Boesé Stamp on canvas verso: prepared by Edw. Dechaux New York Gift of Herbert L. Pratt, 40.178
In nineteenth-century New York, as in other American cities, a wide range of civic improvements occasioned paintings celebrating these breakthroughs and, by implication, the foresight of their inventors and investors. The Stage Coach "Seventy-Six," one of three known mid-century oils by Henry Boesé paying homage to the omnibus, portrays a festive turnout associated with the advent of this mode of transportation along Myrtle Avenue in the newly chartered City of Brooklyn. Omnibus travel was not a novelty when the artist executed his canvas. The concept of conveying passengers in a covered, horse-drawn vehicle along a fixed inner-city route for a flat fare had been pioneered in Manhattan by Abraham Brower in 1827, with important innovations in coach design and manufacture following in 1831.¹ "Omnibuses, exceeding a hundred in number, roll incessantly over the paved streets, administering equally to the purposes of business and pleasure & forming an object of such prominent attraction, as to cause New York not inaptly to be termed 'The City of Omnibuses,'" claimed a proud writer for the New-York Gazette and General Advertiser on August 5, 1834. Yet areas lying outside these downtown routes, initially clustered around the Broadway artery running from the Battery to Bond and Bleecker Streets, did not feel the benefit of facilitated commuting until later, after veteran companies like the Knickerbocker Stage Line extended service and multiplied orders for coaches.² By 1850 entrepreneurs were financing branch lines to developing neighborhoods, thus expediting travel within and to the ever-expanding limits of metropolitan New York. Boesé's painting depicts the Knickerbocker Stage Line's coach "Seventy-Six" -which appears newly minted -advancing along Myrtle Avenue as spectators admire it. Under ordinary circumstances, the omnibus would have been drawn by a two- or four-horse team. Here, ten well-matched horses commanded by a whip-curling driver indicate an exceptional occasion -probably the debut of a dedicated stage service traversing this section of Brooklyn, easing access to the East River waterfront and contiguous villages within Kings County. On the "Seventy-Six," up to thirty passengers could enter at the Fulton Street Ferry and exit in the northwestern neighborhood of Greenpoint. Nestled in a grove of trees at center is the Greek Revival homestead of Jeremiah (or Jeromus) Johnson, Jr., which stood on the northeast corner of Kent Avenue. Johnson, a prominent citizen and son of former Brooklyn town mayor General Jeremiah Johnson, was a co-proprietor of the new line in partnership with Thomas D. Hudson, a local merchant and alderman of the 7th Ward.³ They may be among the threesome riding atop the omnibus, an uncommon practice for routine travel but a perch well suited for honored passengers receiving salutations from their community. The backs of the other guests glimpsed inside the coach denote the use of longitudinal passenger seats that were featured on omnibuses. By the 1840s, growing competition motivated companies to baptize their coaches with evocative names. The "Seventy-Six," probably a reference to 1776, joined a group of coaches named for Revolutionary-era American characters, such as the "George Washington" and the "Lady Washington." Owners of coach companies also vied for riders by enhancing the upholstered comforts of vehicle interiors and by commissioning decorative panel paintings to spotlight individual coaches. Boesé has taken care to illustrate the pictorial image-believed to represent a Revolutionary War battle scene -framed by drapery swags that embellished the side of the latest addition to the Knickerbocker Line. Boesé, son of a hosiery merchant, was born in New York, and in 1860 census takers recorded him as a thirty-six-year-old married father of six. Directories list him at various addresses within the city until 1893, and exhibition records and other signed works by him (sometimes erroneously read as H. "Beese") confirm his activity as a landscape painter in the Hudson River School tradition.⁴ Despite the absence of surviving examples, Boesé was also credited as a portrait artist. The trio of stagecoach paintings that Boesé executed between 1849 and 1856 suggest that economic need may have compelled him to step outside the traditional groove of fine arts practice and supplement his income by painting omnibuses. Like The Stage Coach "Seventy-Six," Boesé's other two paintings -reportedly commissioned by Montgomery Queen, founder of King County's first efficient stagecoach lines -offer minutely observed views of the panel scenes brightening the sides of the omnibus.⁵ The artist may have intended them as coy reminders of his availability as a coach decorator, or as references to his professional oil landscapes, which he wished to publicize. Notes: 1 Brower's initial twelve-seat coach, built by Wade and Leverich, was named the "Accommodation." It ran up and down Broadway as far north as Bleecker Street, charging a shilling's fare regardless of the distance traveled. By 1829 Brower had increased service with the addition of a second coach, the "Sociable," which featured trend-setting seats extending lengthwise and an entrance at the vehicle's rear. In 1831 a new coach financed by Brower appeared on Broadway bearing the name "Omnibus," borrowed from the mode of vehicular passenger service then popular in Paris. The new coach had been engineered by John Stephenson, owner of a recently established coach-making business in New York who quickly dominated all local competition in the design and manufacture of omnibuses. 2 The Knickerbocker Stage Company began operation around 1835 and enjoyed a brisk business through the Civil War, initially running omnibuses between the Merchant's Exchange on Wall Street and Eighth Avenue and 21st Street by way of Wall Street, Bleecker Street, and Eighth Avenue. The southern terminus was later extended to South Ferry. The company crossed the East River to Brooklyn, still a separately governed city, soon thereafter developing new passenger routes that eased commuting distances between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Stage companies like the Knickerbocker Line received serious competition after horse-drawn trolleys were introduced into service in 1854. 3 It seems reasonable to assume that the younger Johnson ordered this congratulatory painting from Boesé to commemorate both his fledgling business venture and his family residence. The provenance of the painting cannot be traced back beyond the donor, Herbert Platt, who gave it to the Museum in 1940. Edward Dechaux, whose preparator's stamp is visible on the reverse of the canvas, sometimes included Brooklyn, in addition to New York, as a service location for his nineteenth-century business. 4 Boesé's oeuvre includes conventional romantic landscapes, many depicting Hudson River Valley locales, and at least one detailed topographical view of New York City's Riverside Park, dated 1885. Additional information and citations pertinent to Boesé's painting career are found in his file in the Museum Archives. 5 See entry for Henry Boesé and his painting The Stage Sewanhackey, 1852, in the exhibition catalogue Brooklyn Before the Bridge: American Paintings from the Long Island Historical Society (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1982), pp. 47 -48, 127 -128. Boesé's 1852 The Stage Sewanhackey (a corruption of the Native American name for Long Island, Seawankacka) records the procession of a new coach operated by the Fulton Avenue and Bedford Line approaching the new Brooklyn City Hall (now Borough Hall). An accompanying inscription along the canvas bottom further explains the scene: "The Members of the Common Council / Accepting an Invitation from the Proprietor / Montgomery Queen are About Enjoying an Excursion on the 23rd of June 1852. The Stage Commanded by William Canfield / H. Boesé, Art't."