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September 01, 2007
Westmoreland Museum of American Art Brings Important Gilbert Stuart Portraits to Greensburg for Westmoreland County Courthouse Centennial Celebration
Contact: Judy L. Ross
 GREENSBURG, PA - The Westmoreland Museum of American Art brings portraits of two prominent Westmoreland County residents painted by Gilbert Stuart (1755 – 1828), one of the leading American portrait painters during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The pair of portraits, Judge John Young and Maria Barclay Young of 1794, will be on view at the Museum from September 5-30 and featured at the Westmoreland County Courthouse on September 14 for the Centennial Celebration Gala. The paintings are on loan to the Westmoreland Museum from the collection of Mrs. William A. Purdey of Colt's Neck, New Jersey. John Young emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia in the early 1780s and married Maria Barclay in 1794. Following their marriage, the couple established residence in Greensburg where Young would become one of the first sitting judges of Westmoreland County.
About Judge John Young and Maria Barclay Young
Gilbert Stuart painted the portraits of newlyweds John Young (1762 – 1840) and Maria Barclay (1772 – 1812) in Philadelphia shortly after their marriage in 1794. John Young had first arrived in Philadelphia from Scotland in the early 1780s. Following their marriage, the couple moved west to establish a permanent residence on land that Young had purchased in Greensburg.
In a 2006 article by Greensburg native Arthur F. Humphrey titled "Greensburg: Johnny Appleseed's Spiritual Nursery," for Westmoreland History, John Young and his wife Maria Barclay Young were instrumental in introducing John Chapman (a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed) to the religious doctrines of Emmanuel Swedenborg when Chapman came to Greensburg in the late 18th century to meet with Young.
Humphrey's maternal ancestors, Maria Barclay, her aunt Hester Barclay, and stepfather Francis Bailey, were among the first converts to the Swedenborgian religion in America. According to Humphrey, Swedenborgianism was a new interpretation of Christianity popular in the late 1700s. Its "extremely intellectual" theology combined with a mystical focus on the "spirit world" appealed to many people yearning for a more scientific explanation of the Bible and the connection between material and spiritual things.
About Johnny Appleseed
As Humphrey writes: "In 1801 Johnny began his annual westward journeys into Ohio and Indiana, planting apple seedlings throughout these new territories. In those days, early homesteaders were required to have a productive apple or peach orchard in place within 3 years after their arrival. Johnny's on-site "nurseries," grown from seeds he collected in Western Pennsylvania made it simple for them. These Pennsylvania seeds, grown into seedlings in Ohio by Johnny, were sold to settlers. Every fall, Johnny returned to Smithton, West Newton, and Belle Vernon areas of Westmoreland County to collect seeds from the pumice of cider mills. Appleseed continued his tree planting until his death in Ft. Wayne, Indiana in 1845.
About the artist:
Gilbert Stuart was one of the leading American portrait painters during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Some of the artist's most ambitious portraits serve as a visual record of the country's most important citizens: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, among other luminaries of the young republic. In fact, Washington was the subject of numerous portraits by Stuart, including his most famous image illustrated on the one-dollar bill.
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