Hiram Powers: Remembering American legacies

Powers portrays the young William Austin Wadsworth aged 15 in a military vest. The Wadsworth Family enjoyed a history of esteemed and decorated service in the Revolutionary War as well as in the War of 1812. Originally commissioned by his father William Wolcott Wadsworth (1810-1852), no one at the time could have foreseen the father’s untimely death in 1852, a mere eight years after inheriting the family seat in 1844 and six short years after marrying Emmeline Austin.

The success of his realistic bust of Andrew Jackson in 1835 brought Powers numerous commissions from such well-known figures as John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, John Marshall, John Calhoun and in our example William Austin Wadsworth. His father, William Wolcott Wadsworth, was a descendent of the largest and wealthiest landowners in the pioneering community of the Genesee Valley in Western New York State. Wadsworth would not live to see the bust he commissioned of his young son. The bust can be dated to 1862 by means of a letter that the widow Emmeline Austin Wadsworth sent to Powers in which she asked that the marble replica of her son be completed as quickly as possible.

William Wolcott Wadsworth (1810-1852) was the second son of James Wadsworth and heir to “The Homestead”, the seat of the family estate in Geneseo, New York from 
where our marble bust originated. His father James and Uncle William settled in Geneseo, New York in 1790. The two brothers were the nephews and agents for the landowner and Revolutionary War Commissionaire Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth in Connecticut. 

The two brothers had a significant impact on Geneseo, holding elected positions, and establishing a community that employed soil conservation, stock breeding, and advanced agricultural methods and public education. William Austin Wadsworth, now the young heir apparent, would go on to study chemistry at the University of Berlin after having graduated from Harvard University. He would then serve as a major in the Quartermaster Corps during the Spanish-American War. In 1901 he married Elizabeth Greene Perkins and returned to the large estate in Geneseo, New York which he inherited from his father.