August 2010

Around Town

Fall Exhibition Planned on
19th-Century Family

An exhibition planned for this fall at the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum celebrates the achievements of the Reverend Robert (1788–1857) and Anne Jay (1793–1859) Bolton and their children, a fascinating and vibrant Anglo-American family whose life on two continents emphasized religious, intellectual, and artistic pursuits in a warm and lively family setting.

Robert Bolton left the sultry, moss-draped squares of Savannah, where he was born, for the elegance of Regency England. In the 1830s, he brought his family to the woods and farmland of Westchester County, New York. Bolton was at times a wealthy cotton merchant, a gentleman farmer, a devout clergyman, antiquarian, and teacher, and a close friend of Washington Irving (1783–1859). Robert’s English wife, Anne Jay Bolton, was the daughter of the Reverend William Jay (1769–1853) of Bath, the influential dissenter. Robert and Anne were the parents of thirteen children (all but one born in England), most of whom were extremely gifted artists, writers, clergymen, and educators.

The family became neighbors of the Bartows when they moved to Pelham, New York, in 1838. Here, inspired by English medievalism, they designed and built the Priory, one of the earliest Gothic Revival houses in this country, filling it with collections of rare volumes, paintings, suits of armor, antiques, and curiosities. In 1843, the Reverend Bolton built Christ Church, which houses the earliest figurative stained glass window made in America, designed and crafted by his son William Jay (1816–1884). Pelham Priory, William Rickerby Miller (1818–1893) Watercolor on paper; 1856, Collection of Catherine Boericke.

Programming for the exhibition includes a Boltons of Pelham Priory Lecture Series: Pelham Town Historian Blake Bell on The Boltons of Pelham Priory, Thursday, September 16 at 4 p.m. Author Willene B. Clark on The Stained Glass Art of William Jay and John Bolton, Sunday, October 3 at 4 p.m. (this talk will be held at Christ Church, 1415 Pelhamdale Avenue, Pelham, with a reception to follow at Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum) and Local Architectural Historian Arthur Scinta on The Reverend Robert Bolton: A Gothic Missionary, Sunday, October 17 at 4 p.m.

For more information visit www.bpmm.org.

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