PORTAIT OF MORGAN NEVILLE (1783-1839)

PORTAIT OF MORGAN NEVILLE (1783-1839)
Oil on canvas, unsigned. Half-length portrait of a dashing man wearing a green coat with a high collar, and a jaunty cap. In its original gilt frame. 17.25" high, 14.5" wide (canvas); 23" high, 20" wide (overall). Neville was born in Pittsburgh and attended the Pittsburgh Academy. When the school became the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh), he was one of the first trustees. In 1806, Neville ventured to Blennerhassett Island to join Aaron Burr's expedition, but they were captured and detained by a Virginia militia unit. He was admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh in 1808. He worked as a cashier of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank in 1818, as editor and part owner of the Pittsburgh Gazette, from 1818 to 1821, and as sheriff of Allegheny County, from 1819 to 1822. Neville moved west to Cincinnati in 1824 and became the secretary of an insurance company and the founder and editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Register, the first daily paper published west of Philadelphia. His first foray into the literary scene was in Pittsburgh, when he published poetry in the Pittsburgh Gazette. Later, his sketches of frontier life proved very popular, especially "The Last of the Boatmen", a description of the legendary boatman Mike Fink.
Condition: Canvas is sagging, losses long the bottom, crude repair (with inpainting) on his neck.