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1888 Artist HUGH BOLTON JONES Paying The (Frederick) Douglass Institute Mortgage

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 - 600.00 USD
1888 Artist HUGH BOLTON JONES Paying The (Frederick) Douglass Institute Mortgage
Black History
Check Paying For The (Frederick) Douglass Institute Mortgage in Baltimore, MD


April 3rd, 1888-Dated, Mortgage Payment by Check made for The Douglas Institute of Baltimore City, Partially-Printed Document Signed & Endorsed, “Hugh B. Jones” and “H. Bolton Jones” (1848-1927) on his personalized Check, Choice Very Fine.
This historic Printed Bank Check is from the famous Artist Hugh Bolton Jones who grew up in Baltimore, where he studied drawing at the Maryland Institute of Art. Here, he makes the check out to himself in the substantial amount of $1,517.25 Dollars for “amt (amount) of the Douglas Institute Mortgage - (Signed) Hugh B. Jones”. Also endorsed on the blank reverse, “H. Bolton Jones.” There are several violet bank deposit stamps as well as “RECEIVED PAYMENT” apparently for the mortgage payment then due. This check is bright and clean with a fine herringbone cancel with both written signatures large and clear. A wonderful Black history related item to support a Baltimore institution by one off its most famous native sons. Ex: Russ & Jane Sears Collection.
Hugh Bolton Jones grew up in Baltimore, where he studied drawing at the Maryland Institute of Art. In 1870, Jones toured Europe with his family, then six years later returned for a longer visit, traveling to France, Italy, Spain, and North Africa. He joined the artists' colony in Pont-Aven, a popular destination for nineteenth-century artists seeking a "primitive" life away from Paris, where he experimented with painting out-of-doors. Jones spent the last years of his life in New York and South Egremont, Massachusetts, creating paintings of East Coast landscapes inspired by the fragmented brushstrokes and pure colors of impressionism.

Jones began his art studies at the Maryland Institute and was later a pupil of Horace Robbins. He first exhibited in 1874 at the National Academy of Design and was a regular contributor to their annual shows for the rest of his career. Beginning in 1876, Jones traveled and painted in Europe for four years. Although the majority of his activity centered on the artists' colony at Pont Aven in Brittany, he also sketched in Spain, England, Italy, and Morocco. While abroad, he exhibited in London, at the Paris Salon of 1878, and the Universal Exposition in Paris of the same year. Upon his return in 1880, Jones shared a studio with his younger brother, Francis, in New York. He became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1881 and was elected an academician at the National Academy of Design in 1883.

A prolific painter represented in several major public collections in the eastern United States, Jones concentrated his finest efforts before the turn of the century on a series of landscapes reflecting the flat meadows of New Jersey and New England. His experiments with the palette and broken color of the impressionists during the final decades of his life did little to rescue his fading reputation.

Prior to the Baltimore Heritage - Maryland State Archives research collaboration, 210 East Lexington Street appeared to be merely a Gilded Age office building dating from 1890, the year shown on its facade. Research has revealed, however, that the building has served Baltimore in many ways: as a university, a military hospital, and most notably, a focal point for black politicians in the wake of emancipation and enfranchisement.

The Maryland General Assembly passed an Act of Incorporation in 1845, apparently making Newton the first university in the city. Newton University operated a college and a preparatory school. Advertisements in the Baltimore City Directory show that the school taught languages (classical and modern), natural philosophy, and mathematics. The University was located at 11 East Lexington, the second building on that block. Directory advertisements and Scharf's History of Baltimore date the building to at least 1847.

Equity records combined with the act of incorporation show the building was constructed in 1845. By the late 1850's, university president Harlow Heath's health prevented him from properly managing the school. He began bankruptcy proceedings in the Circuit Court while Purley Lovejoy, the principal of the preparatory school, continued to administer classes.

Lovejoy eventually purchased the property and then sold it to the Manufacturer's Bank of Troy, New York, a bank noted for its abolitionist connections. Court records list among the building's subsequent tenants the Baltimore School of Dentistry (which had a dissection laboratory on the top floor) and the Mozart Society (which used the saloon on the second floor, 22 ft. high ceiling, as a concert hall). The one thing the building was never used for was apartments -- it stood across the street from hotel stables! A floor plan of the building was recorded in the chancery case.

The Manufacturer's Bank of Troy found its most reliable tenant in the United States Army which operated a general hospital at 11 East Lexington from 1862 through the end of the U.S. Civil War (1861 - 1865). The bank sold the building to Samuel Appold, a notable Baltimore businessman in the tanning industry. Appold transferred it to the Douglass Institute after the war, but long after the Institute started meeting there.

The site's importance has been disguised by the more recent construction of the Vansant Building, but research among original records housed at the Maryland State Archives has revealed the rich heritage of 210 East Lexington.