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Catskills Past: The Catskills Through His Eyes
By T.M. Bradshaw
DuBois Fenelon Hasbrouck was born July 1, 1860 in Pine Hill, New York. He was the fourth of eight children of Josiah L. Hasbrouck and Mary Smith Hasbrouck. His father was listed on various censuses as a farmer and as a carpenter. By the 1870s, the family was also running a boardinghouse, as it was a time of burgeoning tourism in the Catskills. When J. G. Brown, an artist with a successful career painting street urchins, stayed at the Hasbrouck establishment, Crystal Spring Cottage, he spent his time sketching and painting landscapes, a subject he preferred to his highly popular waifs. Young DuBois was fascinated. He cobbled together his own supplies—house paint, scrap lumber, and brushes fashioned from animal hairs—to try his hand at the art form. Brown was so impressed by the boy’s efforts, he gifted him with brushes, tubes of paint, and canvases.
Josiah Hasbrouck thought that his son should be paying attention to responsibilities around the farm instead of painting pictures and smashed his paint box. DuBois was not deterred by this.
Another summer boarder, the Reverend Howard Crosby, Chancellor of the University of the City of New York (now NYU), purchased a few paintings by DuBois and encouraged him to study art and make it his career. Crosby arranged for room and board in New York City, which allowed Hasbrouck to spend three months studying perspective drawing at Cooper Union in 1878, the only formal art training he would ever have. For the next six years Hasbrouck lived part time in the city and part time in the Catskills, doing photoengraving work for a living and painting for himself. On the 1880 census, at the age of 19, he reported his occupation as “painter.”
In 1884 Hasbrouck exhibited a painting for the first time, in the National Academy Exhibition. He is listed in the Academy’s exhibition catalogs through 1889 at various addresses in Manhattan, all in the vicinity of Lexington Avenue with cross streets in the 20s. One author who has written about Hasbrouck, Clara Baur, became interested in him because her husband’s grandfather, who owned a tavern on East 23 Street, owned a number of Hasbrouck paintings, acquired because that’s how Hasbrouck paid his bar tab.
Many newspaper accounts of exhibitions around the country noted Hasbrouck’s name as being among the group of artists who had sold work. Two such references appeared in a New York Times column called “Art Notes”—in November 1886 a mention that of six paintings that had sold for $150 each at the Louisville Exposition, two were by Hasbrouck; in 1895 the Times noted that of the 588 works presented at the St. Louis Exposition, just 65 had been sold, Hasbrouck’s among them. Hasbrouck also showed work at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The painting he showed there, “Winter Morning in the Catskills” sold to James W. Ellsworth for $1,500, the equivalent of about $50,000 today.
One of Hasbrouck’s commercial clients was the Catskill Mountain Breeze and Tourist’s Guide, a summer-only publication based in New York City. It listed visitors to the mountains, where they were staying, what activities were available. Hasbrouck provided the Breeze with sketches and short news snippets about resorts and boarding houses around Pine Hill—his family’s among them. The Ulster & Delaware Railroad was another client. Hasbrouck traveled extensively on the line, sketching along the way. From 1883 through 1899 his artwork graced the railroad’s tourist brochures, specialexcursion fliers, and annual catalogs, which were books of around 100 pages, generously illustrated with drawings and some photographs.
Yet another guest at the Hasbrouck family boardinghouse had a lifelong impact on Hasbrouck, Mrs. Ada B. Cook. She was twelve years older than Hasbrouck, was separated from her husband, and lived with her three children in her father’s home in New Jersey. The two fell in love; she divorced her husband and 18 months later married Hasbrouck on November 29, 1889.
Ada became Hasbrouck’s anchor. He had two significant problems that threat- ened his stability—he was a heavy drinker, possibly as a form of self-medicating to deal with his mental problems. Whenever Ada was away, Hasbrouck’s delusional episodes would take hold. He was committed to the state mental hospital in Middlebrook in April 1900 and again in November 1901, each time for a few months. Over the years, numerous newspaper items referred to Hasbrouck’s health as “much improved,” or “restored.” Each restoration, of course, must have been preceded by a period of being very unwell. His mental status was on a long-term roller coaster ride.
Hasbrouck’s U & D railroad trips had allowed him to compare and evaluate the different towns along the line. He first arrived in Stamford in 1896, and in 1898 was commissioned to paint Dr. Stephen Churchill’s new Rexmere Hotel. After a few more visits, the couple decided to settle there in 1904. Two qualities likely informed that decision—a very large summer population of monied tourists who might buy art and, some authors suggest, Ada’s belief that the “dry” status of the towns of Stamford and Harpersfield would limit her husband’s drinking. A ready market for artwork proved to be true, but as the village of Stamford and its hotels were exempt from the blue law, the location might not have had as much of an impact on Hasbrouck’s drinking as Ada had hoped.
Images of Hasbrouck’s studio on postcards sold in the village made it easy to find and Hasbrouck welcomed visitors there. It was something of a museum filled with artifacts that the painter found interesting: clay pipes, wasp nests, tomahawks, antique chairs, and Ada’s piano, because he loved to listen to her play while he painted.
Hasbrouck’s paintings show the closeup, intimate views a person might see while out for a walk in the countryside—meandering streams, collapsing sheds, finely delineated branches and leaves, footprints in the snow. His usual palette was subdued, with grays, browns, muted blues and greens, and pale frosted sunset oranges. Titles were not his strong suit; multiple paintings had iden- tical titles but for their dates: “Sugar Shack in the Woods,” Apple Trees,” “Spring,” “Winter Woods.” He was primarily known as a painter of winter, but in 1913 he received a letter about a blue sky autumn painting he had made almost thirty years earlier.
Mr. Rathbun, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in charge of the National Gallery, wrote to Hasbrouck with several questions regarding a painting that had just been donated to the museum. Could Hasbrouck provide the location in the painting? Should restrictions be placed on photographic requests? Hasbrouck replied swiftly and enthusiastically, although not with the information Rathbun was seeking:
Dear Mr. Rathbun,
Your letter regarding my picture Autumn Landscape has been received—and I am pleased to hear that one of my paintings has fallen into such good hands.
I have no idea what the subject is or when it was painted— for I have painted many Autumn Landscapes—I only hope that it is a good example of my work.
I have never copyrighted any of my work—and I know not of any having been copyrighted unless some black & white work that I did years ago for etching &c. I feel your restrictions are everything that could be desired, and I was told only yesterday by a lady from Washington that your gallery is the finest in the world. America will soon lead the world in Art—for truth must prevail and it is only proper the National Museum should secure the best that our country produces.
Thanking you for your courtesy
Sincerely yours
Dubois Fenelon Hasbrouck
Shortly after Hasbrouck wrote to Rathbun, an item in the Gilboa Monitor noted that Hasbrouck had spent the night in the woods after experiencing some sort of episode that incapacitated him. In May 1916 he suffered what the newspapers called “a paralytic stroke.” And in September 1917 Hasbrouck died from what was likely another stroke. He is buried in Stamford Cemetery, along with Ada, who joined him there in 1926.
T. M. Bradshaw shares other thoughts on history at tmbradshawbooks.com.
