biography of Samuel H. DEARBORN (XIX)

Profession: Watercolor and oil portrait painter

Work: Univ. Kentucky Art Mus.

Comments: Son of Benjamin Dearborn, school teacher and manufacturer of balances at Boston. Worked as a portrait painter and musician in Pittsburgh (PA) about 1804-06 and in Cleveland (OH) about 1807-09. Jones and Weber report that Dearborn committed a murder in 1811 and fled to Canada where he was captured and returned to Kentucky. He escaped and his whereabouts remain a mystery until 1818 when he was listed as a portrait painter in Boston.

Sources: G&W; Anderson, Intellectual Life of Pittsburgh: VI, The Theatre" (226), and "VII, Music" (233); Cuming, "Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country," 81; Boston CD 1818, 1820-23; Jones and Weber, The Kentucky Painter from the Frontier Era to the Great War, 46-47 (w/repros.)"