So many untold revolutionary stories in Salem’s history. SO MANY. I started thinking about Joseph Hiller, a soldier (Major, in fact), watchmaker, engraver, and Collector of the Port of Salem and Beverly, last week and put together a little visual sketch of his life, just to have everything in one place and illustrate how he both impacted and reflected his time. Hiller (1748-1814) was a Boston man, who came to Salem for reasons that are unclear to me, probably business. He is generally referred to as a watchmaker and sometimes a silversmith, though several sources refer to his more general “mechanical” abilities. In 1775, he became a Revolutionary player, in several ways. He is referenced as an officer in one of the Salem companies, and some sources indicate that he was at Lexington and Concord. I’m not sure about that, but his other early Revolutionary role is well-documented: he became an engraver and thus a disseminator of Patriot portraits. Just two weeks after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Hiller produced one of the earliest portrait prints of the Revolution: a mezzotint ot Major General Israel Putnam as portrayed in pastel by his fellow Salemite Benjamin Blythe. European publishers had been producing portrait prints for decades, and now Hiller was tapping into an emerging American market.
American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. More about this print, Blythe, and Putnam here.
Hiller was in the right place at the right time to engage in patriotic publishing. He followed up the popular Putnam print with one of John Hancock, based on the John Singleton Copley portrait, and possibly (several of Hiller’s prints are “possibly by” or “attributed to” as we don’t always see the definitive signatures visible on the Putnam and Hancock prints above) with prints of the martyr of Bunker Hill, Major General Joseph Warren, and General George and “Lady” Martha Washington, based on portraits made by Charles Willson Peale for John Hancock in 1776. The smoking battlefield of Bunker Hill is in the background of George Washington’s portrait, placing him at Dorchester Heights in the foreground, ready to drive the British out of Boston in March 1776. There is no dramatic/poetic narrative to attach to him, but Hiller seems Revere-sque in his commercial pursuits.
“The Hon. John Hancock Esquire” mezzotint after Copley, 1775, Christies; Major Joseph Warren mezzotint after Copley, possibly Joseph Hiller, Yale University Art Gallery; His Excellency George Washington and Lady Washington, McAlpin Collection, New York Public Library.
The uncertainty of several of Hiller’s attributions might be one reason we don’t hear more about him. Even though I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on printing, I think art historians are far more equipped to analyze the transformation of portraits into prints, and there has been quite a lot of discussion among them over the attribution of the portraits I am featuring in this post. Context and connections must be considered. For the Blyth(e) portraits, I’m looking forward to reading a recently-published book by Bettina Norton entitled Benjamin Blyth, Salem’s 18th-Century Limner at a Time of Radical Upheaval, (Tidepool Press, available here and here) as it was she who identified the Bunker Hill-Dorchester Heights George Washington connection noted above. But for Hiller, publishing is only part of the story. After the Revolution, he was appointed Naval Officer for the port of Salem by Governor John Hancock and Collector by President George Washington thereafter: from 1783 until 1802, a busy time for the port, Hiller was Salem’s chief Customs official. Don’t let Nathaniel Hawthorne’s disdain for this post a half century later color its importance: during Hiller’s time import duties represented the vast majority of Federal revenues. A portrait in the Custom House is a testimony to his tenure, and his name is on a lot of paper, generally with more famous names! By all accounts Hiller was a professional officeholder, but he was also a conspicuous Federalist, so subject to the Jeffersonian purge. After he left his post, he left Salem for various locales, eventually ending up in Lancaster, where he died in 1814.
Hiller’s portrait in the Custom House (1819) built after his tenure and death, Salem Maritime National Historic Park; Cover of 1789 letter from Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to Hiller, Smithsonian/National Postal Musuem; Crop of 1794 Sea Letter for Two Friends signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and countersigned by Hiller, Library of Congress. Hiller’s various obituaries reference Lexington and Concord, but I can’t place him there—I am always eager to find ANY Salem soldier present on that day so if you have more information, let me know! More interesting details of Hiller’s life: he was a prominent Mason and Swedenborgian convert.
