This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| William Benton Boggs, a landscape painter who worked in oil, watercolor and pencil, was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His family had strong military tradition, and he studied in Middletown, Connecticut at Captain Partridge's Military School. He spent much of his life in the Navy and had official duties as an artist during his naval employment.
After completing his education, he worked in New York City in the late 1830s and early 1840s for the Phoenix Bank and during this period painted landscapes of New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. His painting skills were recognized with his election as an associate to the National Academy of Design, and he exhibited there from 1839 to 1844.
In 1842, he became a civilian clerk in the Navy Department in Washington DC and that same year married Ellen Williams. From 1852 to 1864, he traveled with the Navy, first commissioned as a purser. From 1852 to 1856, he served with the Pacific Surveying Expedition on the "U.S.S. Vincennes" under the command of Commodore Cadwalader Ringgold and Commander John Rodgers. On this expedition, William Boggs was one of two artists, and he made pencil landscape drawings, two that are in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC., and also watercolor sketches.
While on the Pacific survey expedition, he became friends with fellow artist Edward Meyer Kern, who gave him many of his drawings.
In 1864, he was injured in a fire on board the S.S. Mound City and returned to Washington where he lived until his retirement in 1873. He died there in 1875.
He was a member of the Washington DC Art Association and exhibited in their first annual exhibition in 1857. His work is in the Corcoran Gallery.
Sources include:
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"
Groce and Wallace, "Dictionary of Artists in America"
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The following is from Sandy Rowe:
I came across the name W. Brenton Boggs researching the name Ellen CARTER, and have noted the following conflicts:
# In the database "Washington, DC Marriages, 1826-50", she is listed as Ellen
Williams Carter, and he is W. Brenton Boggs, m. 10/10/1842.
# In the database entitled, "Encyclopedia of American Biography", another individual is listed, George BRENTON Boggs, again with the 'R' in the name - possibly a son or a nephew, given the middle name. Date of birth: Jan 8, 1844, in Somerville, NJ - less than a year and a half after the Boggs/Carter marriage. Reference to Herrinshaw's Encyclopedia of America Biography of the Nineteenth Century, page 126.
# In the database entitled, "Biography & Genealogy Master Index (BGMI): 116776 William Brenton Boggs - again with the R - 1809 - 1875, references the New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860, George C. Grove and David H. Wallace, New Haven, CT, etc.
#116777 Same reference as above, William Brenton Boggs, 1918 - many references to Canadian Who's Who and similar. Descendant?
# A Genealogy of Known Descendants of Robert Carter of Corotoman, by Florence Carlton, p 387 (last line) Ellen Carter m. W. Brenton Boggs (with the 'r') similar in the above book's predecessor, The Carter Tree, Channel Lithograph, p. 129. same entry.
My points are that while Miss Ellen may also have been known as Eleanor, in spite of the entry in the marriage register, her husband's, your subject's name appears to be William Brenton Boggs, and he may have used his middle name as a first name to the extent that spelling it correctly would seem to be important.
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William Boggs is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Painted in Latin America
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