Sometime during the 1873 legislative session, Andrew Henry of Greenville, a judge and state legislator, sat for a portrait with an acclaimed Springfield pencil and crayon artist named Dennis Williams.
Williams completed the illustration, signed it and marked it with the year, then placed the drawing in a frame, on which was stenciled “From C.C. Howorth’s Picture & Frame Store. No. 14, American House Block.”
What happened next is unknown. Presumably, the portrait was displayed somewhere, maybe Judge Henry’s chambers or his home, or perhaps the home of a family member.
What is known, is that by September 2021 the portrait had made its way to a Durham, North Carolina, thrift store where it was purchased for $20 by a local art collector named Andrew Cook.
Cook was curious about the artist and the subject of his illustration. Searching online he found a brief article on the Sangamon County Historical Society’s online encyclopedia, SangamonLink.
“I think I have a large portrait…of Judge Andrew G. Henry, done by Dennis Williams,” he typed into an online comment form adjacent to the article. “I’d like to get more information about Mr. Williams and the judge as well.”
It turned out that he wasn’t alone.
A Springfield artist, author, college instructor and historian named Mary Frances had read about Williams in a 1987 book by Robert L. McCaul called The Black Struggle for Public Schooling in Nineteenth-Century Illinois. She was particularly intrigued by the mystery surrounding his death in 1889.
“I made a commitment to find out what happened,” she later said.
Frances’ research led to a much more extensive biography of Williams, which was published online in 2021, just in time for Andrew Cook to seek to learn more about the creator of the portrait he found in that Durham thrift store.
Cook and Frances got in touch and were able to verify the authenticity of the drawing. It was quite a find, as only a small number of Williams’ drawings had survived the nearly 150 years since he created them. In fact, only three signed and dated portraits by Dennis Williams had been confirmed to still be in existence.
So: who was Dennis Williams?
“Dennis Williams fascinated and intrigued people while he was alive and even now after his death,” Frances said. “African American history is sometimes difficult to know and document, yet the effort is worth it.”
Williams had been born into slavery in Mississippi on Christmas Day in 1851 and learned to develop his own artistic skill.
“When first given a primer, Dennis felt happy,” reads a profile of him in 1881’s History of Sangamon County. “The pictures of dogs, cats and other animals at once arrested his attention, and these small, if not rude pictures, first turned his attention to the life of an artist.”
At the end of the Civil War his family came to Springfield and are first mentioned in the city directory in 1865. His stepfather, John Kelsey, was employed as a plasterer. John died of tuberculosis in 1881 and Dennis’ mother, Margaret, followed two years later. Her cause of death is unknown. Both were buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, though without markers.
Dennis lived in the family home at 1109 E. Carpenter Street, northeast of downtown, for the remainder of his life. He opened a studio above a grocery store on the town square. His business cards advertised his services as those of “the old reliable crayon artist.” They featured color drawings of kittens.
At one point, when business was slow, he grew discouraged and gave up on his dream of becoming an artist, says the 1881 history. “But the artistic aspiration was in him; … he again took up his pencil.”
As word of his skill spread, famous Springfield residents sat for portraits, including Abraham Lincoln, Senator John A. Logan, and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis. In 1879 he relocated his studio to a space above a shoe store just down the street from Lincoln’s old law office.
His artwork won awards at the Sangamon County Fair and the Illinois State Fair throughout the 1870s. He was described in the papers as an energetic genius, who was intelligent, popular and perseverant. Springfield residents sought him out for portraits on special occasions like birthdays and holidays.
Williams was especially popular around the Capitol during legislative sessions, possibly how he first came to meet Judge Henry. A legislator or other prominent citizen could get a bust portrait for $10 or a full-length drawing for $14. Pre-dating Amazon by a century and a half, he would send finished portraits to out-of-town subjects with a guarantee that if they were unhappy with the drawing they could send them back with free shipping.
He did more than just portraits of people, however. His nature portraits were well known around Springfield and were even advertised in a city directory in the 1870s.
Newspapers featured as many as 100 of Williams’ portraits. “Mr. Williams is a ‘born artist,” said the Illinois State Register in September 1882, “and is not only very successful in catching the features and the most perfect expression of his subjects, but he blends the ‘lights and shades’ so harmoniously as to give exquisite tone to his work.”
His artwork was exhibited in the House chamber of the Capitol, at stores and galleries around Springfield, and even at the 1884 World’s Fair in New Orleans.
He married Olivia Bowers in 1883 and they had two daughters named Ethel and Clara, but both died as infants. They too are buried at Oak Ridge.
As a prominent local businessman, Williams was active in the Springfield community for a dozen years. He worked to improve facilities at the state fair and he sought to have a new parish created for African American worshippers in the Springfield area. He helped plan Emancipation Day events in Springfield in the 1880s.
He was also politically active. Williams helped start a Young Republicans Club in 1880 and was a member of the Blaine and Logan Club, supporting the national Republican ticket in the 1884 election. He served as secretary of the First Ward Republicans and the Springfield Central Republican Club.
He did all this while struggling with health problems for most of his life.
When his family arrived in Springfield they were “all taken sick with the fever,” believed to be malaria. He stated in an 1887 interview that he was “nearly worked down and needed rest,” and was struck down by another bout with malaria in 1888. He left Springfield for San Francisco in 1889 in hopes that the west coast climate might improve his health. But he never made it.
Williams died in El Paso, Texas, under mysterious circumstances following an incident of some kind aboard the westbound train. The local newspaper reported that he had died of tuberculosis, but there was no death certificate filed.
Dennis Williams, talented artist and friend to many prominent Springfield and Illinois statewide figures, was buried near his wife’s home in Cairo, Illinois.
His story might have ended there if not for the work of Mary Frances and a lucky find in a North Carolina thrift shop, which rekindled interest in Williams and his work.
The portrait of Judge Henry which brought Williams back to prominence was acquired by the Illinois State Museum last year and is currently undergoing conservation efforts. The Museum expects to put the portrait on display sometime in the future.
Frances is working to place a plaque recognizing Dennis Williams’ mother, stepfather and two daughters in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery, the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln and some of the prominent Springfield residents whom he depicted with his crayons.
In September, the University of Illinois Springfield will host a presentation on Williams’ life and his work. Find out more.