Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-10-20
AMONG THE STAMP COLLECTORS
News of the Phatec World Its Interests and PeopRevew of
The Stamp Press-List of Local Meetings
By James Waldo Faucet.

ment commemorative" which goes
on sale at the Worlds Fair postal
station, Flushing, N. Y, today, will
serve to introduce to q new gen.
Grafton of his countrymen the
sculptor who created the "Emanci-
patton" monument in Lincoln Park,
adapted as the motif Of the stamp
design.
His name was Thomas Ball, and
he was born at Charlestown, Mass.
June 3, 1919. Both parents were
interested in music. Indeed, they
met at q singing society meeting.
The father, Thomas ST., was house
and sign painter, "a man Of more
artistic temperament than his hum
BILE lot would indicate" while the
mother, Elizabeth Wyer Hall be-
fore her marriage, was the subject
of O painting with which the boy
won a medal at an exhibition Of
the Mechanics Association, Boston
an incident which confirmed him
in his ambition to be an artist.
Meanwhile. after five years in a
school, which he found disagree
able" and whose teachers he thought
terrifying" small Thomas, jr., had
been learning the more important
lessons of life-the lessons which
make boys men too soon, but not
without purpose. When his father,
long i'll from lead poisoning, finally
died, the lad was ready to labor in
a grocery store for a dollar a week,
then to serve as messenger for a
tailor at little better wages, all to
the end that the younger children
of the family might eat at regular
intervals.
A more congenial job young
Thomas at last discovered in the
so-called New England Museum,
somewhat resembling q sideshow
at a circus" There he cut silhou-
cites, played the violin and sang for
the customers, using his scanty
leisure to copy portraits and casts
in the superintendent studio. An
engagement with the choir Of St.
Paul's Church helped him to earn
expenses. His earliest paid commits
sion as a painter was an order for
two lifesize portraits and three
miniatures, the latter at So each.
His success with the sketch Of his
mother prompted him to lease a
studio for his picture business"
During the next dozen years he
created a number of religious can
vases, including THE Holy Family"
and Christ in the Temple" A por-
trait of Mrs. Richards Of the Tran
script, now in the Boston Museum,
dates from those times-a period
which closed when an unhappy love
affair led Ball to attempt another
art. He became a modeler Of dimi-
nutive busts. One of these efforts
represented Jenny Lind the singer.
Copies of it sold readily. Commits
sions poured In. When Daniel Web
ster was dying. he made life-sized
study in clay Of the great orator
for which he received $500.
Continued devotion to music
brought him happiness of several
different kinds. He had the salts
faction of singing the title role in
Mendelssohns Elijah" at its first
American performance in 184s. In
one of the choirs to which he be-
longed he met the mother Of Ellen
Louisa Wild and thus made the
acquaintance of the lady who be-
came his wife on October 10, 1854.
The day after the wedding bride
and groom sailed for Italy. In Flo
renee they made home which Ball
supported with works rejecting a
patriotic spirit which was charac-
teristic of his genius Bas-reliefs
Of the signing of the Declaration Of
Independence and Of the signing OF
the Treaty of Peace in Paris were
his premier public commissions. The
second Of these he modelled during
visit to America which lasted nine
years. While again in Boston he
also executed busts Of Ephraim Pea
body, president lord Of Dartmouth;
Rufus Choate, William H. Prescott
and Henry Ward Beecher. But the
sculptor more particularly was con-
cerned with his greatest work.
an equestrian statue Of Washington
for Boston's Public Garden. The
model in plaster was completed in
1864. 1t was cast and set up in
1859.
In the interim Ball, with his wife
and little daughter, returned to
Florence. They were in Munich in
April, 1865, when news Of the as
sassination OF President Lincoln
reached them. The shock stirred
the erstwhille grocer's boy as he
never had been stirred before. His
grief found expression in the monu-
ment which, reproduced on post
age stamp rs years later. insures
his own Immortality. Not only is
his name revived. It happens that
"for the figure Of the slave he him.
self posed in front Of a mirror at
the same time that he continued