DATE: Monday, August 25, 1997               TAG: 9708250054
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COLUMN 

SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER

                                            LENGTH:   84 lines

PAINTER OF LOCAL NAVAL HISTORY SAW ENCOUNTERS FOR HIMSELF

Any historical researcher worth his or her salt learns early on to never underestimate obscure biographical details that occasionally surface in the printed obituaries of once-famous or even lesser-known people.

Take the case of Benjamin Adworth Richardson (1833-1909), the Portsmouth-born house and sign painter who later operated a paint, oil, glass and artist's supply store on Roanoke Avenue in downtown Norfolk. Richardson was also what is known in professional art circles as a Sunday painter (an amateur), and this serves to bring up the curtain on today's column.

Little has survived from Richardson's easel, and what has was not too highly regarded until I recently discovered important details in his obituary notices that shed an entirely different and historically significant light on six of his most important remaining works.

To tell the story from its beginning: In 1954 what is now the Chrysler Museum of Art acquired a related series of Richardson's paintings that chronicle the history of the CSS Virginia (the former USS Merrimack) and the Monitor. These small canvases have recently been cleaned and framed and are now on loan to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Nauticus. Until I had a hunch that paid off handsomely, they were regarded as fanciful rather than actual depictions of the engagements in Hampton Roads that revolutionized naval warfare.

Once I got interested in them, however, I decided to do a little research. Obtaining the date of Richardson's death from the records of Cedar Grove Cemetery, I looked up his obituary notices in the 1909 Norfolk newspapers and struck gold immediately.

Not only did both death notices dispel the formerly held theory that Richardson dreamed up the six little paintings, they also proved that he was intimately acquainted with the episodes he created since he was a member of the gun crew of the CSS Virginia during both of its engagements in Norfolk-area waters.

In reporting his death, The Virginian-Pilot said: ``The deceased was one of the twenty-five members of the United Artillery who volunteered in the Confederate service under the late Capt. Thomas Kevill and fought in the Confederate ironclad Virginia (Merrimac), in both of the engagements between that vessel and the Monitor in Hampton Roads during the war between the States, and was one of the few survivors of that famous engagement.'' The Norfolk Landmark added these significant details: ``Mr. Richardson was for many years engaged in the paint and oil business in this city, and possessed considerable talent as a painter of marines, some of his best work being oils of the engagement between the Monitor and Merrimac, the details of which are said to be historically correct.''

Armed with this information, I next consulted John W.H. Porter's 1892 roster of Norfolk-area Civil War participants. This source corroborated the fact that Richardson was one of the men who helped man the guns on the Virginia on the day it sank the USS Cumberland, and later served in the same capacity when it engaged the Monitor. Therefore, not only are these detailed references convincing proof that Richardson witnessed or took part in the episodes he depicted, they also give his canvases the status of historically delineated icons rather than fanciful reconstructions.

Richardson's six paintings, executed shortly after the Civil War and later reproduced as color postcards for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, depict:

The destruction of the USS Merrimack at the Gosport Navy Yard (now the Norfolk Naval Shipyard) on April 19, 1861.

The Merrimack in the Navy yard drydock being converted into the ``Iron Battery'' Virginia.

The Virginia passing Fort Norfolk on March 8, 1862.

The sinking of the Cumberland in Hampton Roads the same day.

The Virginia engaging the Monitor in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862.

The destruction of the Virginia off Craney Island on May 11, 1862.

As a temporary crew member of the Virginia, Richardson had ample opportunity to note significant details of the two engagements. It is also highly probable that he not only witnessed the conversion of the former Merrimack into the Virginia, but also was among the thousands of Norfolk-area people who crowded the shores of Hampton Roads on the night of May 11, 1862, when the historic vessel was destroyed by its crew to keep it from falling into the hands of the Federal forces that were then in the process of retaking rebel Norfolk.

So you see, a little detective work has restored Richardson to his rightful place as a hitherto unsuspected and important Confederate naval iconographer. Fortunately, his six small but historically important canvases are still in Norfolk, so I'd like to close this column with a request.

Take time off from your busy schedule to visit the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Nauticus. Not only will you be fascinated with Richardson's paintings, as I was, you'll also see a lot more there that over the years has gained Norfolk the enviable nickname of ``The Queen of the Navy.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu