By Shannon Butler

If you have been reading our blogs posts for long enough, you’ll know by now that Poughkeepsie has been home to some interesting characters. We’ve had plenty of artists, musicians, and politicians, as well as some eccentrics. Poughkeepsie has attracted great minds for various reasons, from our convenience to the train and New York City, to our picturesque river views, and our once successful industrial haven. So what inspired a world class engraver to move to Poughkeepsie? Timothy Cole was one of the last great masters of the art of wood engraving, and his pieces are still considered masterpieces. Of all the places he called home during his interesting life, he decided that Poughkeepsie would be his last home.

Born in England on April 16, 1852, his family immigrated to the US when he was a little boy. The family settled in Chicago, where 16-year-old Cole learned the art of lithography. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the family’s business, and they moved to New York City to start again. Here, Cole found work as an engraver for several different magazines including Scientific American and Hearth & Home. In 1875, he married his wife, Annie Carter, and built a Gothic cottage on Long Island where they began raising a family that included their four sons. Cole was an avid reader and “no book agent ever called at the Gothic house in vain.” He was known for buying expensive books and had amassed an impressive library.

In 1883, the publishers of Century magazine sent him to Europe to engrave the works of the Old Masters. Over the next twenty-seven years he moved his family to several different countries while engraving the works of painters like Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hogarth, and many others. By the early 20th century, he found his way to Poughkeepsie to visit a friend and fell in love with the area. The architecture of Vassar College reminded him of Europe, and he decided to purchase land and build a house on Ferris Lane, which he completed in 1917. The house was a “rectangular bungalow consisting of three rooms built around a central chimney.” There was a lovely pine tree out front that Cole nurtured as he had buried the ashes of his young son Walter there.

In his later years, he received many awards for his work, including a gold medal from the Paris Exposition in 1900, and the Grand Prix at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. In 1906, he was unanimously elected to the National Academy of Design, and in 1914, he was given an honorary Master of Arts degree from Princeton University. In 1929, he designed a book plate for Calvin Coolidge that was lauded as the “most beautiful plate,” and is housed in the New York State Library in Albany. His final honor was in 1930, when Dartmouth College gave him an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

During his life, he managed to painstakingly complete over 500 engravings.

For the last 18 years of his life, he made Poughkeepsie his home and was the talk of the town. He was happy to give lectures on art and his own career. He even showcased an exhibit of his work here at Adriance Memorial library in 1921. People would walk up to his door where they would be greeted by a sign that read “Not at Home,” even when he was at home, but did not wish to see people. However, his son claimed that he would always welcome strangers in and happily talked about and sold his work from his home.

Not long before Cole’s death, a poet by the name of Robert Underwood Johnson, wrote a poem for the New York Evening Sun in which he asked if Poughkeepsie was worthy enough to be the home of such an artist? “Fair though you be Poughkeepsie, and proud of your Learning’s fane, I give you a thought – Are you worthy of Cole of Ferris Lane?” Cole continued working and taking long walks on Ferris Lane until his death on May 17, 1931, at the age of 79.

References:

Poughkeepsie Eagle News - Feb 11, 1915, Oct 21, 1921, Feb 04, 1929, Mar 24, 1931, May 18, 1931

“Timothy Cole: Wood Engraver” by Alphaeus P. Cole and Margaret Ward Cole. The Press of the Pioneers Inc. 1935. - LH B Cole

Images –

Check out the collection of his work at Vassar College’s Loeb Gallery

https://emuseum.vassar.edu/objects/14491/selfportrait-portrait-of-timothy-cole-in-a-brown-study

Black and white photograph of Timothy Cole

Portrait of Timothy Cole at work by Alphaeus P. Cole, his son.