The Origins of the Long Painting

The painting of Mr. Long is currently in my office in New York City.  People stop in and ask, who is that? Where did it come from?  We've already addressed who (Joseph D. Long) is in the painting, but I suppose there are two ways to go about answering the question of from where did the painting come.  We could start at the beginning, looking at Mr. Long's apparent age at the time of painting, perhaps 35-45 years old, which puts the time of painting somewhere between 1827 and 1837.   We know that Mr. Long moved to Macon County, Illinois around 1837 from Dayton, Ohio.  Dayton was larger and more established than any Illinois town at that time.  Coincidentally, 1837 was the same year the city of Chicago was incorporated.

We could also look back in time.  The painting arrived in Decatur with its prior keeper, Mr. Long's granddaughter, Margaret "Maggie" Camp (1869-1965).  Maggie Camp was the sister of Lindamood Home builder Francis Marion Camp, and known affectionately as Aunt Mag.  Aunt Mag apparently received the painting from her mother Emily Jane Camp, upon her passing in 1909.

Aunt Mag, spending her last days at the Lindamood Home in 1965. 

Aunt Mag had been living in Los Angeles, which is where the painting spent some 30 years.  Eventually old age and the need for care, which was provided by Nellie Lindamood, brought Aunt Mag back to Decatur, where at the age of 96, she died in the Lindamood Home, just like her brother Francis Marion, some 26 years earlier.

Maggie as a young woman.

A telling account of Aunt Mag's strong-willed personality is offered by her other brother, Steven Camp (1865-1967), in this 1950 letter to Nellie Lindamood.