The notebook in which I found this and a number of other drawings by Elmer S. Hill of Haydenville MA was already coming apart with some pages loose, so I went ahead and divided it up and am listing these wonderful drawings individully, a few of them—including this one—double-sided.
Here the completely filled side includes chicken, horse, birds flying toward a birdhouse with sticks in their beaks, and goat with “goat house” to his left (with fabulous weathervane!) and fair dealer D. Hill driving his horse-drawn coal cart along! And on the other side, a peacock and a robin along with the note that the drawings were done by Elmer S. Hill of Haydenville MA.
I have found a definitive record of Elmer Hill, born on 7 March 1874, in Erie, Pennsylvania, United States to David Warren Hill and Annie Pauline Goss, both from New England, and it seems in Erie only for a brief time as the rest of their lives were living in and around Northhampton, MA, including in Haydenville, which he notes on one page of the notebook, which has a date of 1887, so he was about 13 when he made these drawings. Hill married, had two sons, and died on 29 December 1973, in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States, at the age of 99!
Paper measures 8 1/16” x 6 5/8”; pencil and crayon/colored pencil on faintly lined paper. Paper has darkened a bit over time and is a bit brittle, but shows no foxing and is generally clean and very stable. There is a small tear and fold along the top right edge.
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