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Exhibition History“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
Artist
Unidentified Artist
(American)
Related Person
Osman N. Steele
(died 1845)
Inhuman Anti-Rent Murder
Date1845
MediumOil on millboard
DimensionsSight: 12 × 18 1/4 × 3/4 in. (30.5 × 46.4 × 1.9 cm)
Object numberN0002.1978
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum.
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextOn August 7, 1845, Sheriff Green Moore, accompanied by Osman N. Steele, his jailer and under-sheriff, together with a land-owner's representative, rode to the farm of Moses Earle on Dingle Hill below Andes village, New York, to sell some of Earle's livestock in satisfaction of a distress warrant for two year's back rent.
The Anti-Renters were out in force that day and a scuffle broke out that ended in Steele's death. The Anti-Renters claimed that Steele was drunk and fired first, while his friends testified that he was shot down while quietly attending to the duties of his office.Exhibition History“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
On View
Not on view
