William James Hinchey (December 5, 1829 – September 9, 1893) was an Irish-American painter, Civil War correspondent, and diarist. His work serves as a visual record of the Santa Fe Trail, the Civil War, and life in 19th century Missouri. Additionally, his journals and business records provide insight into life as a working artist on the American Frontier. While primarily a portraitist, his most famous painting today is the Dedication of Eads Bridge.
Early life
William James Hinchey was born December 5, 1829, in Dublin, Ireland to Paul Chilrose Hinchey and his wife, Mary Ann Doyle Hinchey. Paul was a devout Protestant and son of a minister and Mary was a devout Catholic, which resulted in all eight of their children being double-baptized into both churches and Mary secretly taking the children to hear Catholic mass.
A slight child, the Hinchey family physician recommended William take daily walks for exercise. Hinchey was encouraged by his family to draw and sketch, and he carried pencils and a sketchbook along with him on his walks. Hinchey's penchant for long walks and frequent sketching continued throughout his life; his son noted Hinchey kept up this habit until his death. Hinchey's parents further encouraged his artistic development by paying for painting and drawing lessons.
Hinchey began selling pencil portraits at the age of twelve. Hinchey recollects in an 1850 diary entry that at twelve he was already determined to be a professional portrait painter. By the time he was 16, Hinchey had progressed to portraits in oil and pastels. Hinchey reported he was paid well enough for his commissions to pay half of the tuition of Trinity College.
Hinchey went on to attend Oxford. During his time in Oxford he began to advocate for Irish Home Rule, participating in street protests and associating with a group of students that was responsible for minor mischief, such as breaking windows in government buildings. English authorities began to pay more serious attention when the group began organizing on behalf of Irish tenant farmers for land reform in the areas outside of Dublin. Fortunately for Hinchey his father, who worked as a government building inspector in Dublin, was tipped off that William was about to be arrested for conspiring against the crown. Hinchey quickly relocated to Paris.
While Hinchey never returned permanently to Ireland, his dedication to an independent Ireland never flagged – along with naming one of his sons for Robert Emmett, Commander of the Irish Rebellion of 1803, his last words were his wish to see Ireland freed from British rule. Despite his experience at Oxford and subsequent self-imposed exile, for the remainder of this life Hinchey continued to advocate for other progressive social and governmental reform.
Exile in France
Facing self-imposed exile from Ireland, Hinchey settled in Paris where he continued to study art. In need of funds to support himself, during this period he continued to work as a painter and gilder. By 1854, with the assistance of Dr. Mile, the head of the Irish College in Paris, Hinchey had established a network for commissions for portraits, sales of old master copies, and religious art.
While at the Louvre painting, Hinchey was approached by Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy. Lamy was the first bishop for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, whose bishopric covered the New Mexico Territory, including today's New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Nevada and Colorado. Lamy been made aware of Hinchey through a mutual friend and was on the hunt for an artist to travel back to Santa Fe with his party to help revive the Spanish missions.
At the Louvre, Lamy offered Hinchey a papal contract for what amounted to the position of artist-in-residence for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. In exchange for an all-expenses-paid (except clothing) round-trip to Santa Fe plus a salary, Hinchey would be responsible for painting religious works, repairing existing paintings, and restoring and creating frescos. The decision to accept was not hard for Hinchey. Enamored by America's progressive democracy compared to the monarchies he saw around him in Europe, Hinchey recorded in his diary:
Hinchey planned to return to Paris after the contract was over. To prepare for the trip, Hinchey returned to London from Paris, then to Ireland for a visit with his family, then back to France where he met Bishop Lamy's party. Together, they took a boat from Le Havre for New York City. After a two-week sea crossing the party took a train to Cincinnati, then to Louisville, where they took a boat to St. Louis where they switched boats for Independence, Missouri to start the Santa Fe Trail by wagon to Santa Fe.
Santa Fe & The Santa Fe Trail
Hinchey's diaries and sketchbooks created on his trips to and from Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Trail resulted in the creation of an important written and visual record of trail life. Hinchey's trips took 47 and 39 days. While no major disasters befell Hinchey on either trip, his diary records snowstorms, windstorms, rainstorms, sentry duty for raiding parties, and prairie fires alongside the day-to-day work of a wagon train collecting firewood or buffalo chips, hunting, and caring for stock. In what reads today as almost a parody of life on a frontier trail, Hinchey records the status of the Bishop's party at Westport on Friday the 22nd of September 1854, after only 12 days of camping waiting to start the trail:
Hinchey's time working for Bishop Lamy in Santa Fe would be short. He arrived in Santa Fe November 19, 1854 and had decided to leave by January 20, 1855, eventually leaving on February 29, 1855, well short of the year stipulated in his papal contract. While Hinchey disliked Santa Fe, more broadly life on the American frontier had failed to live up to the egalitarian and democratic idyll he envisioned. Hinchey's diary records his frustration with economic injustices like locals selling or pawning their possessions for food and other basic necessities and takes scathing aim at shop owners benefitting off of the impoverished. After witnessing an assault on a local man in the town plaza, Hinchey wrote a letter to the editor of the Santa Fe Star Gazette, published on February 24, 1855, calling out the hypocrisy of Americans for throwing off one oppressor (Britain) while trying to become the oppressor of another:
Nor does Hinchey's diary spare his Catholic coworkers in Santa Fe scorn when they failed to live up to his standards. The day after arriving in Santa Fe, one of the clergy traveling in the Bishop's party died. Hinchey's diary for Sunday November 19, 1854, records his incredulity:
Life in Missouri
After leaving Santa Fe, Hinchey wasted no time settling into Independence, Missouri. Within days of arriving, he was advertising himself in the paper as a portrait painter, although his diary records that he also took other work painting signs and banners. Hinchey filled his life in Independence with many mid-nineteenth century American staples: lyceum lectures, debates, and attending Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Mormon religious revivals. Hinchey abruptly left Independence on May 30, 1856 – one day after finding out a woman he was courting was engaged to another man.
In August 1856 Hinchey was living in St. Louis at the Planter's Hotel, where he met Reverend Jerome Berryman who asked him to teach art and French at his newly established Acadia Valley Seminary, located in the Arcadia Valley of Missouri. William agreed to a one-year contract. While teaching, he met and married one of his students, Lucinda Jane Holloman on August 8, 1857. Lucinda's family was well-established and prominent in Missouri: her father was a state representative and later a judge. The couple initially settled in Alton, Illinois, with Hinchey travelling to his St. Louis studio several times a week before they settled in St. Louis. The couple had six children between 1859 and 1875 — five sons and, finally, one daughter.
By the 1880s, Hinchey was prosperous enough to build a large, Eastlake-style house with a wraparound porch in De Soto, Missouri. The family took portraits on the front steps and played croquet and tennis on the lawn.
Civil War and Work as a War Correspondent
During the Civil War, Hinchey continued to work as a portraitist as well as taking on work as a war correspondent for Harper's Weekly, New York Illustrated, and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. As an Irish citizen, in 1861 Hinchey secured letters of passage from the Union Army that permitted him to move about Eastern Missouri, sketching and recording what he saw. Hinchey's work was then engraved and published. While Hinchey's diaries note that he was generally well treated, he was captured at least twice and almost shot as a spy on one occasion due to his detailed notes and sketches of battles, troop numbers, and encampments. During this period in Missouri, Hinchey recorded the Battle of Pilot Knob, the Battle of Fredricktown, and the Battle of Cape Girardeau.
Hinchey continued to work as a portraitist, focusing his efforts on the new market of officers and enlisted men. At first, Hinchey planned to sell portraits in oil on paper at low cost to recently enlisted soldiers, but by January 1862 Hinchey was complaining that many soldiers were running out of money. In May 1862, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to see if the demand for war portraits was greater in the capital. To avoid travel in the border states, Hinchey routed through St. Louis, Chicago, Ft. Wayne, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg. Hinchey remained in the capital for three months until early August. During this time, Hinchey had a studio in a room inside the Capitol Building across from the Senate Chambers.
Death
On September 7, 1893, Hinchey was riding the streetcar at Broadway and Poplar streets in downtown St. Louis when he attempted to exit the car and was sucked under, severely fracturing both legs requiring double amputation. Hinchey died in City Hospital two days after surgery, likely from blood poisoning. He was buried in De Soto City Cemetery.
In reporting on Hinchey's accident and later on his death, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat summed up Hinchey as "...an honorable and high-minded gentleman, liberal, large-hearted and true, and has many friends here who will hear of his misfortune with great sorrow; we sincerely hope that he may survive this accident."
Working Practice as an Artist
Hinchey operated in a commercial reality – he was not independently wealthy and needed to sell to survive. By the time he arrived in St. Louis, Hinchey had already spent a decade successfully selling work. By the late 1850s, Manuel Joachim de Franca and George Caleb Bingham were already established and successful painters in St. Louis, with de Franca the city's leading portraitist for the upper classes. However, Hinchey's arrival did not start a rivalry as St. Louis was large and prosperous enough to support several working artists and Hinchey courted a less affluent market segment than either of these established painters. Instead, Hinchey's connections to St. Louis’ artistic community and his relationship with de Franca likely helped him secure commissions. Within a few days of arriving in St. Louis in June 1856, de Franca commissioned Hinchey to make a portrait of a young boy. When de Franca approved he commissioned another, this time having Hinchey work from a daguerreotype. When de Franca died in 1865, Hinchey was already a well-established option for the city's merchant middle class.