27 June—Today marks the day after the 231^st anniversary of the Litchfield Female Academy, one of the earlier trendy private girls-only finishing schools in the United States. It was founded in 1792 as a for-profit family business by Litchfield native Sarah Pierce in her North Street home and was in fact quite profitable. Until it wasn’t, after she gave up management in 1827. The school closed in 1863, 11 years after Sarah’s death at 84.

The site of the Litchfield Female Academy is now graced by an elegant mansion built in 1895 as a home for a capitalist (of course) who liked to get out of New York City for the summer. Can’t blame him. You wonder why he ever went back.

So the LFA’s 231^st-year anniversary [sic] reminded me of a unique etching hanging somewhere in The Hovel. Probably on a wall, I reckoned. And I was right. So I found it without much trouble, took it down, cleaned the glass, and photographed it.

I came by the etchinging in the mid-seventies at an auction to raise funds for the Litchfield Animal League. It was at the dear old Kilravock Inn, which burned to the ground not long after the auction. The LFA print was in a lot with a jejune Dali print that nobody bid on. So, as founder and president of the Litchfield Animal League, it was my duty. I can’t remember how much I paid, but I also bought some other stuff nobody else would touch.

You can probably see in the top picture that the text is reversed. That’s the original. The bottom picture is the horizontally flipped image. The picture in the middle is a portrait of Sarah Pierce by George Catlin.

I suspect the etcher, whose initials are either WALL or WALI, wasn’t too experienced in the art, which is why he (or she) rather crudely copied what was (and may still be) a painting by James Calvert Smith, forgetting that the image should have been reversed in the plate. Unless he (or she) was just having fun. The penciled signature looks something like Bernhardt or Burkhardt with an extension that could be way, wam, wall or wali.

James Calvert Smith was an engineer, born in 1878, who became a painter and illustrator. He lived in or around Litchfield for at least 20 years, until 1946, when he moved to Florida, where he died in 1962.

The text of the engraving reads: JAMES CALVERT SMITH 1932. “THERE · WAS · A · LONG · PROCESSION · OF · SCHOOLGIRLS · COMING · DOWN · NORTH STREET”. IN MEMORY OF SARAH · PIERCE. PIONEER IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN:~~FROM 1792 TO 1833.