Exploring a Forgotten Artisan of the Bluegrass and a Rare Surviving Lincoln Portrait
by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar
When the distinctions between art and pop culture become blurred in a "symbiotic fusion" of iconographic imagery, it is easy to become desensitized. Artistic representations that have been duplicated “en masse” for long periods of time, even generations, become a part of society’s collective consciousness. This is especially true of the faces of political power through the ages, those whose images become symbolic of whole eras and movements in history. Such is the case of the classic profile of Lincoln.
By the time of the War Between the States, northern industrialism was dawning with mass production its offspring. Political campaigns of the day became among the first to reap the benefits of inexpensively produced images intended to brand a face and name on the minds of the people. The goal was a success. Abraham Lincoln became the most widely photographed president at that time, with his image spread across the country and the world through cheap studio photographs, tokens, buttons and badges.
Perhaps the most prolific version distributed of Lincoln's face was the bust in profile, cast in relief in a variety of medium. Popular especially after Lincoln’s assassination, these “sculptures for the masses” are copied to this day as affordable historical souvenirs. That being the case, and considering the eclipsing fame of name-recognized 19th century celebrity artists, it is no surprise that our collective “art memory” has lapsed regarding the naive, perhaps untrained, Kentucky sculptor who first imagined what devolved into this icon of classical kitsch.
3.5" h x 2" w bronze relief profile (6" diameter wooden mounting)
signed in ink on reverse William Thomas Bausmith and dated 1863
William Thomas Bausmith never set out to design a tourist trinket. The native of Maryland was a trained, versatile mechanic turned artistic sculptor. He modeled his famous Lincoln profile at the height of the war in 1863, long before mourners would begin clamoring for a keepsake of the "martyred" president after his death at the hands of another Marylander, John Wilkes Booth, just two years later.
22" relief bronze by Franklin Simmons 1865
There is striking similarity between Bausmith's small, simple rendering and the better remembered, even famed "from life" profile accomplished by renowned Maine sculptor Franklin Simmons (1839-1913) on contract for William H. Miller and Sons Foundry of Providence, Rhode Island in 1865. And to be fair, the 22" diameter disc-form bronze plaque by Simmons, which was displayed alongside a collection of such bronze profiles of other Union generals and dignitaries throughout many northern cities in the days after Lincoln's assasination, likely was the true proto-type for many copies and variants of this very likeness. It is just fortunate that the surviving casting by Bausmith so carefully recorded the year it was created to help substantiate it pre-dates the Miller and Sons commission and that he didn't simply copy the later Simmons version. The question remains as to whether Bausmith could have possibly created his Lincoln profile from life as Simmons had done, or if he merely utilized the plethora of photographs and engravings so commonly available during Lincoln's presidency.
Little is recorded of the early life of Bausmith in the bustling industrial port city of Baltimore. He was born there on the 15th June 1840 to Phillip and Amelia Bausmith. Phillip (b. ca. 1807) was a native of Alsace-Lorraine who had immigrated to Maryland in the 1820s and continued his "old world" trade of tailor. Phillip married Amelia Huffman in 1838 in the Zion Lutheran Church and they became the parents at least 3 sons. (i)
Of those three boys virtually nothing is known of the early years of William Thomas, our subject. No documentation has yet surfaced regarding William’s artistic inclination or training, but in his teens William was likely apprenticed by his father into the foundry trade in which he certainly excelled. By his early 20’s Bausmith was in business for himself, taking a relation for a partner in the firm of “Bausmith & Bauer.” He had married Naomi Ann Gilbert in Baltimore. They would become the parents of six surviving children.
A unit of the Maryland First Light Artillery U.S.
In the 1864 city directory for Baltimore the partnership of "Bausmith & Bauer" was listed as brass founders on Uhler’s Alley between Charles and Hanover. Shortly thereafter, on March 23rd, 1864, William T. Bausmith enlisted as a private in Co. D. of the Maryland 1st Light Artillery (U.S.). He served until the end of the war, mustering out on June 24th, 1865. (ii) It was sometime just prior to his documented military service that Bausmith modeled his classic rendering of sitting President Abraham Lincoln. His hand-inked notation on the reverse of the mounting of his own existing model indicates that he created this original casting in 1863.
As we can conclude that Bausmith was residing in Baltimore until at least late in the war, it is interesting to speculate what prompted the design of his bronze profile of Lincoln. The most logical conclusion, correlating with his own notated date, is that Bausmith made his preliminary designs around November 18th -19th of 1863, when Lincoln would have been passing through Baltimore on the way to the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. Many Marylanders were in attendance, in fact, so it is highly plausible that he saw Lincoln first-hand either at the Baltimore station or at the dedication itself. (Interestingly, Rigby’s Battery “A” of the Maryland 1st Light Artillery fought with the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. (iii) Perhaps the devastating losses there prompted his later service with his fellow Baltimoreans.)
Maryland Institute where Lincoln Spoke
But for this single trip, there is no record of Lincoln having been anywhere else near the city that year. (iv) Lincoln did, however, visit Baltimore the following year, but that was on the 18th April 1864 following Bausmith’s enlistment. On that visit Lincoln delivered his “Freedom Speech” at a fair to benefit Union troops at the Maryland Institute College of Art. (v) This brings up the question of whether Bausmith might have been a student or member of the Institute prior to the War. Since his unit was primarily left in the city for the defenses of Baltimore, Thomas Bausmith could very likely have attended Lincoln’s address, especially were he a student there. Though this is a speculative theory, it would help explain just how and why someone finding their vocation in operation of a brass foundry could evolve into such a clearly talented sculptor. The documented visits of Lincoln also provide ample opportunity for Bausmith’s life model of the President.
Institute Interior 1864 where Lincoln Presided over opening ceremonies
of the event for soldier relief
The years immediately following the War found Bausmith residing in Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, where he expressed his continued mechanical ingenuity if not his artistic endeavors. (vi) The exact date of his removal from Maryland to Kentucky is unknown, but it was after 1875. (vii) He was certainly living in the Commonwealth of Kentucky by 1877 when his son, Frank Leon Bausmith, was born (viii) in Ludlow (Kenton County) Kentucky.
View of Ludlow, KY ca. 1908
Mr. Bausmith was still residing in Ludlow, Kentucky in 1883, as he filed a patent in that year for a compound to strengthen sand to more cleanly remove castings. (ix) This would likely indicate a return to his involvement in the sculptural arts with cross-over application to industrial applications as in Bausmith’ s early days in Baltimore. His address would change over the next two decades, for we find him in nearby Bellevue in 1897. Here again we find some proof of his occupational transformation, for he is listed in the city directory as a “molder” at 35 Ward Avenue. (x) It would seem by this perioed he earned his living more closely to his calling as sculptor, likely in one of the firms like Verdin’s of Cincinnati.
There is no record of Bausmith’s retirement from the bronze casting industry in southern Ohio, but we know he remained a Kentucky resident, and in his later years, like many Union veterans, became active in the G.A.R., serving in 1904 as Commander of the Department of Kentucky, Grand Army of the Republic. (xi)
So, was William Thomas Bausmith a mere Maryland mechanic, or a forgotten Kentucky artist? I would contend the evidence proves both. Sadly, we have no body of work, only a single existing bronze to document Bausmith's talents.
(I) Phillip and Amelia Huffman Bausmith were the parents of William Thomas, Charles, and Phillip Jr., but may also have been the parents of Frederick. As records indicate William and Frederick Bausmith were the same age & served in the same unit of the Md. Artillery, they may have been twins or at least 1st cousins.
(ii) “Maryland Volunteers; War of 1861-1865”
(iii) The Civil War Archive- Union Regimental Histories (Maryland)
(iv) Monthly/Daily events of Lincoln’s life as recorded by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency via the “The Lincoln Log”
(v) MICA History; 1826-Present
(vi) Files of the United State Patent Office #112886 from March 21, 1871- Bausmith files a patent for an improved window sash mechanism.
(vii) Bausmith’s son William Penn was born in Baltimore County, Maryland 11/20/1872. W. P. Bausmith moved later to Northern Kentucky as well and worked early in the 20th century as an architect. A daughter, Ozella Amelia Bausmith, died in the city of Baltimore on 2.24.1875.
(viii) 5/8/1877
(ix) U. S. Patent Office files #270625
(x) Bellevue 1897 City Directory; A-D, Williams & Co. Publishers (Brother Frank was listed in the same household as a clerk.)
(xi) Archives of the Kentucky G.A.R.- list of commanders
