Collections
| Back New Search Tips |
Houghton, Merritt Dana
| Last Name: | Houghton |
|---|---|
| First Name: | Merritt Dana |
| Dates: |
*1846 (Date of Birth)
*1919 (Date of Death)
|
| Biography/History: | Merritt Dana Houghton was born May 31, 1846 in Otsego, Michigan (Allegan County). His father was from New York and his mother from Canada. He was one of the younger children in a family with at least eight. He died in March 1919 in Spokane, WA of the Spanish Flu. Most information about Houghton dates from post-1875, when he and his wife arrived in Laramie, Wyoming. Houghton was a twenty-nine year old school teacher and professional photographer (specializing in scenery and regional ranches and mines) at that time. His time in Wyoming was spent moving between small towns and Laramie, working primarily as a schoolteacher. In October 1878, he was elected superintendent of public schools for Carbon County. He did not begin his sketching career until 1890, while teaching school in southern Wyoming. As with his photography work, he visited area ranches, mines, and forts, sketched them and spoke with local residents to incorporate historic details and information into his sketches, such as his 1899 sketch of Fort Laramie as it appeared in 1836. His method involved making an initial pencil sketch from a distance, then sketching in details from close range, and finally going over the sketch in pen and ink, and sometimes watercolor. Houghton's artistic skill was first professionally recognized in 1899 when he was hired to provide historical view sketches of Wyoming sites for the book "History of Wyoming" by C.G. Coutant of Laramie. These sketches included several sites along the Overland trail. Ida Purdy Harrell, a Laramie neighbor and close family friend of the Houghtons, discussed the couple in a biography she compiled for the WPA Writer’s Project. The couple never had children of their own, though they adopted a boy, Charles, whom they never spoke of later in life as he “did not turn out well.” Merritt Houghton was known as a very well regarded and sought-after teacher and hard worker; Harrell describes him as “a rather small man” who was very moral, and did not drink, smoke, or cuss. From 1902-1904 Houghton created over 100 sketches and compiled many of them into two books. He also worked professionally, doing scene engravings for sale. At this point in his career, he became known primarily as an artist rather than as a school teacher. Most of his sketches during this time are of the Encampment mining region in the Sierra Madre. The newspaper The Grand Encampment Herald contracted with Houghton to publish a volume of his sketches of the area, which sold very well – enough so that he followed the first edition with a second, that was somewhat less successful (likely due to market saturation). Around 1907, Houghton and his wife “headed north” to live near his brother in Washington State (this brother was apparently a superintendent of a “Pacific Northwest high school”), making sketches as they traveled, including one of Mullan, Idaho, now in the collection of the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (MAC 2005.1). [“In 1907, he obtained a commission for a European syndicate to provide illustrations of various western mines in Idaho and Montana. Later he did illustrations of mines in Washington State.” http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/ghost3.html, accessed 11/25/2015.] He and his wife settled in the Hillyard neighborhood in Spokane, WA, and Houghton had a successful sketching career in Spokane, producing bird’s eye views of Green Acres (privately owned by Marlene’s Restaurant/Sweet Old Bob’s, 3243 E Trent Ave Spokane, WA 99202 509-534-4843) and Five Mile Prairie (said to be in MAC Collection), and a topographical view of the Empire Coal and Coke Company properties (also said to be in MAC Collection). Around 1911 he and his wife moved to Morgan’s Acres Park Addition in Spokane. “Interestingly, all of the Spokane properties are listed in Mrs. Houghton’s name,” (see Polk directories: 1911, p. 597; 1912, p. 644; 1914, p. 594). Other works of Houghton’s in the MAC collection include a valentine of an “Indian Maiden” (2005.3), "Wyoming Ranch" (2005.2), and in MAC Archives, Drawer 14, “Bird’s Eye Drawer”: Five Mile Prairie (Folder 3: Spokane & Vicinity), Sunset Farms in West Spokane (Folder 3: Spokane & Vicinity), and Empire Coal and Coke Co. topographical sketch (Folder 6: Coal & Coke Companies). Houghton and his wife both contracted the Spanish Flu in Spring 1919 and died within hours of each other on March 7th of that year (Spokesman-Review March 9, 1919). [WA Death Records list his death as 5 March, 1919; spouse May Francis Houghton, mother Elgina Abel.] Compiled by Errin Edlin, Nov.2015 from historian Michael A. Amundson’s article “Pen Sketches of Promise: The Western Drawings of Merritt Dana Houghton” in Montana: The Magazine of Western History, vol. 44, no. 4 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 54-65. (accessed via JStor 11/28/2015; stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4519730). |
| Related Objects: |
2005.1 (Drawing, Drawing of Mullan, Idaho, 1907, 1907)
2005.2 (Painting, Wyoming Ranch, 1900)
2005.3 (Drawing, Valentine, 1900)
|