Artist meets ancestor at Scoville Memorial Library
Jeremy Warner examined the portrait of his ancestor Andrew Warner Aug. 1 at the Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury. 
Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan

Artist meets ancestor at Scoville Memorial Library

SALISBURY — Sculptor Jeremy Warner got a look at the portrait of his ancestor Andrew Warner and met a couple of distant cousins at the Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury on Aug. 1.

Warner is the tenth great-grandson of Andrew Warner, considered one of the founders of Hartford in the 1630s.

He found poor-quality internet images of the painting while doing research on his ancestor.

Reasoning that the images must have come from somewhere, he began a lengthy search, which took him to Boston and Hartford.

A distant cousin, Tim Davis of Washington state, provided additional information. And he started cold-calling historical societies, libraries, anyplace that seemed even slightly likely.

SML director Karin Goodell got a call from Warner and  immediately asked retired town historian Katherine Chilcoat if she knew anything about it.

Chilcoat said a portrait of Andrew Warner was in the library’s vault.

“So we sent Jeremy a photo and he said ‘Holy Cow!’”

This story was repeated on Aug. 1, as Jeremy Warner peered at the portrait, now on the wall of Goodell’s office.

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” he said to himself.

Then some more distant cousins entered the picture, in the form of Sara Warner Philips, of Vermont, and her sister Jessica Warner, of Washington, D.C.

The two had seen The Lakeville Journal article published July 27, and showed up in Goodell’s office Aug. 1.

There was a lot of back and forth between the cousins about family lineage.

Jeremy Warner plans to make 3D images of the portrait and create a bronze bust. His bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II, also made of bronze and constructed in a similar fashion, took some 800 hours to finish, he said.

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