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10/22/2019 04:04 PMA long-time friend of the Old Saybrook Historical Society is purchasing on the society’s behalf two portraits that have hung in the Hart House since 2011, on loan from neighbor First Church of Christ (Congregational) in Saybrook. The benefactor, who lives in Kansas and has ancestral ties to Old Saybrook, wishes to remain anonymous.
The portraits are of Amelia Hotchkiss Sheffield (1793–1869), the daughter of Rev. Frederick William Hotchkiss, minister of the First Church of Christ for 61 years, and the niece of General William Hart, who built the Hart House in 1767, and her husband Amos Sheffield (1789–1868). The paintings are thought to have been completed around 1838 and the artist is unknown.
Members of the Sheffield family in New York donated the portraits to the church, which offered to loan them to the historical society, and they’ve been hanging in the dining room of the Hart House ever since. A First Church of Christ parishioner and supporter of the historical society had both paintings restored in 2017 and 2018.
Displayed in cases on the cabinet beneath the two portraits are a short biography of Amos Sheffield and a hand-written book, found in the historical society archives, that Amelia Hotchkiss Sheffield started to write in 1849.
“She speaks of some families, different families, a little genealogy,” said Old Saybrook Historical Society President Marie McFarlin. “And she wrote a little genealogy on the Harts, which is very interesting...[The book] is in very good shape.”
The printed book about the Amos Sheffield was given to the historical society by Barbara Maynard. The copy is inscribed by Mrs. Amos Sheffield, who died a year after her husband.
“According to Barbara Maynard...[Amos Sheffield] was very popular” in Old Saybrook, said McFarlin. “And so this is the commemorative book on him that she gave us.”
Sheffield was born in Stonington; his father, who died when Sheffield was 10 years old, was Captain Amos Sheffield. Sheffield married Amelia Hotchkiss in 1824. They had six children, three of whom died in infancy.
One of their surviving children was also named Amelia. A sampler she made in 1835, at the age of eight, hangs near the portraits of her parents. McFarlin found the sampler in the attic of the Hart House.
Amos Sheffield owned a store in town with Elijah Hart, the brother of General William Hart.
“And then when Hart didn’t run the store anymore, Amos kept the store,” said McFarlin.
The anonymous benefactor who is purchasing the paintings “every year asks, ‘What’s on your wish list?’” said McFarlin. “Something that you wouldn’t necessarily budget for but you would love to do. Every year we’ve gotten something that we never could have done” without her financial help.
The woman’s ancestor, “Robert Chapman, was one of the first settlers of Old Saybrook,” McFarlin continued. “She has a very interesting genealogy and...doesn’t have any children. She has visited the historical society several times and took a trip with a historical society group to Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, England.”
This year, McFarlin considered the portraits.
“They’re here,” she said. “It would be so nice to give the church something for them. They’re probably going to stay here, anyway. I couldn’t see that they were going to take them back. It just seemed like they belonged here...The history is very tight.
“And everybody just seems to love them,” she added. “Nobody wants them to leave that spot. It seemed like the right thing to do.”