THE WATERCOLOURS OF CHARLOTTE HILLS BEASLEY

 THESE WATERCOLOURS of flowers, floral arrangements, and insects were painted between 1879 and 1882. They were pasted into a Scrapbook that was rescued by James E. A. Beasley on a pile of objects being auctioned from the estate of Annie Rice Davis Beasley in Hamilton, Ontario in 1938. The Scrapbook lay in a cedar trunk for years in the upstairs room over a garage at "The Pines", the Beasley country home on New Street, Burlington and came into the possession of David Beasley, who delighted in the artistry and beautiful colours of the paintings. They were painted by C.H.B., Charlotte Hills Beasley.

 Charlotte Hills was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1835 in a family that had come to New England in the 1600s and migrated to Canada in 1812. Her father Horace and his brother Albert were early builders and architects in Hamilton. When Charlotte was orphaned at age 14, she became the ward of Alexander Carpenter who built Rock Castle, where she lived till her marriage to Thomas Beasley, third son of the City Treasurer Henry Beasley. Thomas was City Clerk and Secretary of the Board of Education for over fifty years. Charlotte began an extensive garden behind their house on Main St. East, which attracted crowds of visitors and was carried on by her son, Alexander, who inherited his mother's love for flowers and plants. Charlotte died in 1906.

 Dr. David Beasley, who wrote the Introduction, has written two books on art: Understanding Modern Art; the Boundless Spirit of Clay Edgar Spohn and Douglas MacAgy and the Foundations of Modern Art Curatorship. He wrote the definitive biography of Canada's first novelist, the biography of Canada's renowned actor-manager, a political-economic history of the automobile, a best-selling book on library methodology, a travel journal through Turkey, and several novels ranging from detective to historical, one of which, Sarah's Journey, won the Hamilton and Region literary award for best fiction. His latest book, Canoe Trip, is for young adults. Charlotte Hills Beasley was his great-grandmother. He lives in Simcoe, Ontario.

 Dr. Jim Cruise, who has identified the flowers in each watercolour, is one of the most knowledgeable persons in the field of botany. He was Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Toronto and Director-CEO at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. He lives in Port Dover, Ontario. He wrote:

 "Charlotte Beasley was, without question, an extremely gifted painter. Her flowers are drawn with such accuracy and care as to make identification in most cases positive."

 This book has been bound so as to allow one to take out pages and frame them. The edition is limited to 200 copies.

 ISBN: 978-0-915317-22-6 PRICE: $90 Cdn & U.S. hard cover binding DAVUS PUBLISHING, 150 NORFOLK ST S., SIMCOE, ON N3Y 2W2 CANADA URL: www.kwic.com/davus email: davus@kwic.com Tel: 519-426-2077           

 San Francisco artist Clay Spohn (1898--1977), one of the best artists of the modern era, originated art movements of the twentieth century and painted with great beauty. Using Spohn's Notebooks, David Beasley has traced his thought and career. This book is amply illustrated with Spohn's drawings and paintings placed to elucidate the text. Many paintings are in color as Spohn used color superbly. "I consider David Beasley's monograph on the work of Clay Spohn one of the most moving documents I have read on an artist, revealing a compassion and sense of justice rarely encountered in the field of aesthetics," - John Hultberg, artist. " Although little has been written about him, Spohn was among the most influential artists of his generation," - Susan Landauer, Art Historian.

Canadian born, MacAgy was international in his influence. From a privileged student at the Barnes Foundation through innovative years at the San Francisco Museum of Art, as Director at the California School of Fine Arts from 1945-50, when he was the catalyst for the advent of American abstraction, as curator at MOMA, as the spirit behind the modern art movement in Dallas, as the introducer and interpreter of European and Russian art to America, as the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and as the installer of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, MacAgy taught the public and helped to shape our culture. MacAgy changed museums from mausoleums to happenings. He was on the cutting edge of modern art movements from American abstract expressionism to conceptualism and fought as an independent educator against the forces using art for political ends. His friends were the great artists of his day, including those as diverse as Clyfford Still and Marcel Duchamp. Only his first wife Jermayne rivaled him as an installer of art. "Douglas MacAgy will be remembered as someone bigger than the institution he so often invigorated. For he was one of those whose sensibilities were more for the artist than for the director."-R. Grove, 1973. "MacAgy has a place in history,"- George Rickey. "I consider him to be one of the great moving influences in art during the 20th century."- Elizabeth Blake, 1989. This book is awarded each year in San Francisco to the winner of the Douglas MacAgy Award for the greatest contribution to the arts.

"Charmingly written," EXPLORERS JOURNAL

Today when travel has become impersonal, we find in this book a personal account. Here are fresh and highly individualistic impressions of the Turkish people living in the wilderness of the Isfendyar Mountains on the coast of the Black Sea. Starting in complete ignorance and with no preconceptions David Beasley and through him the reader experience the warmth, generosity and touching enthusiasm of the Turks for contact with a foreigner. Through Paphlagonia With A Donkey is an awakening of a Westerner to an Eastern culture on the one hand, and an amusing, sometimes sympathetic appreciation of the independent personality of the donkey, Bobby, on the other.

Full Review

"Rankin's Roles" comprising every role Rankin played with play and theatre from 1860 to 1914 is available below.

 “RARELY HAVE I READ A ‘PORTRAIT’ OF ANY PERSONALITY THAT HAS BEEN SO DEEPLY RESEARCHED AND WELL-WRITTEN AS YOUR BIOGRAPHY OF MCKEE RANKIN. IT IS A REMARKABLE ACCOMPLISHMENT ON YOUR PART”—DIRK SUMMERS, FILM WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER

Review

RICHARD BEASLEY AND EARLY DAYS ON BURLINGTON HEIGHTS; a talk given to the MacNab Circle at Dundurn Castle, Hamilton, Ontario on February 19, 2007.

and

THE POLITICAL EDUCATION OF RICHARD BEASLEY; a talk given to the Waterloo Chapter of the PA German Folklore Society at the Community Centre, New Dundee, Ontario on April 26, 2007.

 Burlington Heights overlooking Burlington Bay and Lake Ontario at the head of the lake was a meeting place for American Indians through the centuries, the site of a fur trading post and later estate belonging to Squire Richard Beasley, the central nerve centre and headquarters for troops during the War of 1812, and the stage for many dramatic, violent and colorful scenes in the half-century that Richard Beasley lived there before he lost the land to Allan MacNab who built Dundurn Castle there.

 As a magistrate and Colonel of the 2nd York militia, Richard Beasley experienced a political vendetta from the Tory oligarchy that began when he tried to help Chief Joseph Brant bring settlers into Waterloo County and, as speaker of the Upper Canada House of Assembly, worked with the liberal element for the benefit of the settlers. Historical characters such as Reverend John Strachan, Colonel William Claus, Major Titus Simons and the Honorable Richard Cartwright infiltrate Beasley's life to give him a political education.

ISBN: 978-0-915317-23-3                     PRICE: $5.00

RICHARD BEASLEY AND THE GERMAN COMPANIES: A TALK BY DAVID BEASLEY to the members of the Waterloo Historical Society on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 and at the Erb St Mennonite Church, Waterloo, Ontario and to members of the Markham Historical Society on Monday April 11, 2005 at the Baptist Church at the Markham Museum, Markham, Ontario. (18p. 2 illus)

This talk follows the talk by David Beasley in 2002 printed in the pamphlet Richard Beasley, the Character of the Man and his Times, (Simcoe, ON and Buffalo, N.Y.:Davus Publishing: www.kwic.com/~davus)  which dealt with the influences of Albany, N.Y. and the American  Revolution on Richard in his efforts to build a new civilization from  the Upper Canadian wilderness and his political career. This second  talk concentrates on Richard Beasley's experiences as a land speculator  in the 1790s and the first decade of the 1800s. He was unjustly blamed  for misleading the settlers when the real culprits were government  officials who schemed to control the Indian nations and who feared, not  without cause, the republican intentions of American speculators to  expropriate parts of Upper Canada in conjunction with Napoleon's French  agents who planned to sieze Lower Canada (Quebec). The main protagonists in these political machinations were  Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, William Berczy, Chief Joseph  Brant, William Claus of the Indian Department, and Aaron Burr,  Vice-president of the United States.

The pamphlet may be ordered from the Davus Publishing at its Simcoe or Buffalo address. The price is $4.00 Cdn with no GST . Please add postage of $1.25. Please make cheque payable to David Beasley.

Richard Beasley: the character of the man and his times; a talk to the Friends of the MacNab Circle at Dundurn Castle on February 19, 2002 (Simcoe: Davus Publishing, 2003) by David Beasley. Pamphlet of 24 pages contains 22 illustrations. Price $3.95 CDN

Richard Beasley (1761-1842), the first settler at the Head-of-the-Lake, now Hamilton, Ontario, in the 1770s, grew up in Albany, N.Y. The pre-revolutionary influences of the social and political events he experienced as a boy guided his work as fur-trader, magistrate, great landholder, politician, militia commander and reformer in Upper Canada as hehelped to form a civilization out of the wilderness. His stand against authoritarian government brought him trouble and eventually he lost his homestead on Burlington Heights to Allan MacNab who built his Dundurn Castle on the foundations of Beasley's home.

As a trader in furs, Richard partnered Richard Cartwright(his cousin with whom he had the famous Cartwright-Beasley correspondence) at Kingston, Robert Hamilton at Queenston, Tom Barry in Toronto and Peter Smith in Port Hope. He knew Chief Joseph Brant (who was 18 years his senior) growing up and had a close association with him and the Mohawks who frequented his tavern on Burlington Heights. Richard, as agent for Brant, brought Mennonite settlers to Block Two (Waterloo County) and encouraged settlement elsewhere on the behest of Lt.-Gov. Simcoe. Richard formed the militia, built grist and saw mills (re: the Ancaster Old Mill), and tried to reform the paranoid restrictions of the Family Compact against settlement. As speaker of the Assembly in 1804, he prevented Reverend Strachan's bill for establishing common schools under Anglicans, a step toward making Anglicanism the state religion, although he himself was Anglican, and earned the hatred of Strachan who worked secretly against him for years. Richard was the most prominent Canadian to support Robert Gourlay's reforms and consequently after 1820 suffered reprisals from Lt.-Gov. Maitland and the Strachan-inspired Family Compact - to which the talk refers, adding new details in footnotes.

By 1826, the British colonial office began siding with the political reformers in correcting the corrupt land practices, and Richard, in the Assembly, gained his magistracy back. As a moderate reformer he worked with those such as William Lyon Mackenzie who later became radicals to bring about change. Government land policies and the still influential Strachan working through his former students such as Allan MacNab and John Solomon Cartwright combined in 1832 to undermine him financially.

Richard had witnessed the horrors of the American Revolution, the fighting from Fort Niagara, the battles of the War of 1812, in which he was the Colonel of the 2nd York regiment, the swift development of wilderness into a metropolis and the eventual triumph of reform government - in all of which he played a major role. This talk touches upon all these aspects.

The MacNab Circle, formed in 1969, honours Sir Allan MacNab with a birthday dinner, Feb. 19, every year, accompanied by a lecture or dramatic presentation directly related to his life and times.

The pamphlet may be ordered from the Davus Publishing at its Simcoe or Buffalo address. The price is $3.95 Cdn with no GST . Please add postage of $1.25. Please make cheque payable to David Beasley.

It is available in the museum bookshops in and about Hamilton, Ontario, such as Dundurn Museum, Science and Technology Museum, Ireland House, Brant Museum in Burlington, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Mount Hope, and the Hamilton Regional Arts Council Office in the Jackson Square Mall, Hamilton, Eva Brook Donly Museum, Simcoe..

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