Dalton House
About This Tour
As you explore the two-story stair hall in the Dalton House, note how J. D. Poor discreetly signed the murals between the leaves of a sumac bush and added pink hues to his traditional color palette to depict a water and landscape scene at sunset.
The exterior of the Benjamin and Abigail Dalton House in Parsonsfield, Maine. The Dalton House is one of several houses in this town with murals painted by J. D. Poor.
About the House
The Benjamin (1780-1856) and Abigail (1786-1883) Dalton House was built around 1810 in North Parsonsfield, Maine. Benjamin Dalton’s family was early residents of the town and moved there from Hampton, New Hampshire soon after Parsonsfield’s incorporation in 1785. It was there that Benjamin’s father started a farm and on this property that Benjamin and his brother would later share a house (no longer standing). In 1806, Benjamin married Abigail Cartland, and eventually built the current house, most likely to accommodate their growing family, with funds from Benjamin’s successful business operating a store. Benjamin and Abigail
remained in the house until their deaths, when it was given to their daughter Anna. The Benjamin and Abigail Dalton House has been under the same private ownership since 1930 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
The Dalton House, especially the interior, exhibits Federal grandeur. Along with typical Federal details such as an elliptical fanlight and sidelights framing the entryway, the tripartite second-floor window in the center bay is also flanked by four pilasters with sidelights in between. Pilasters appear again inside the house, in the hallway door surrounds and in the wainscot, at the stair landing. Also note the delicate band of carvings just below the chair rail in the hall and on the stair stringer.
Poor often painted bushes like these, thought to be sumac, in the foreground of his murals. Note the “‘JDP”’ signature hidden in the bushes.
About the Artist
The Dalton House’s murals are signed by Jonathan D. Poor (1807-45) and are excellent and well-preserved examples of his work. In the town of Parsonsfield alone, there are six murals that are confirmed to be by the hand of J. D. Poor—all most likely completed in the late 1820s and early 1830s. As Poor’s parents lived in the western part of Maine, it is likely that he frequented that area to visit and found work painting there as well.​
J. D. Poor was the nephew of well-known itinerant muralist Rufus Porter (1782-1884). Poor trained under his uncle and adopted many of his uncle’s designs and layouts—in fact, for many years, many of J. D. Poor’s murals were misattributed to Porter. A closer look, however, reveals that Poor developed his own unique style and motifs (these are highlighted in the exhibit) that were distinct to his work. Poor is considered part of the “Porter School” of artists as he followed the general design specifications of Rufus Porter.
About the Painted Walls
The Dalton House murals follow the typical methods of decoration for a center hall plan house. The first floor depicts a water scene and the second floor, a landscape scene. Like most muraled walls, these wrap around the entire room and continue across its various architectural elements. A pinky red was added to this mural to define this as a sunset scene, an element found in Poor murals and not those of his uncle.
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In this photograph of the upper hall one can see how the murals were painted around the architectural elements in the room.
Poor happened to sign his name in one of his signature motifs—the sumac bush. Unlike Rufus Porter, who appears to have only signed his name to two Massachusetts murals, the Howe House in Westwood and the Emerson House in Wakefield, Poor signed his work much more frequently. The placement of Poor’s signature, however, often varied, making it easy to miss such a small detail. Before the signature was discovered in 2007, this mural was thought to have been painted by an artist by the name of Thomas Paine.
At the top of the stairs is a less common detail: a man on a speckled horse. This element makes clear the order in which Poor decorated his mural. Here, he would have painted the landscape first, then the horse detail, and finally layered the tree over it. Why might have he covered up this interesting element? Perhaps Poor wanted to give the sense that the rider is stationed behind a tree, or perhaps, he was trying to cover up an imperfection in his painting.
The roots of the trees in this orchard look like little feet, a detail typical of J. D. Poor’s style.
The “water wall“ in the Dalton House includes a stenciled Federal house and a man sailing a skiff, elements that are typical of J. D. Poor’s work.
The “water wall“ in the Dalton House includes a stenciled Federal house and a man sailing a skiff, elements that are typical of J. D. Poor’s work.
The upstairs landscape scene exemplifies Poor’s typical approach to painting trees. While Poor and Porter used many of the same motifs and types of landscapes, the trees are often a useful point of reference when determining who might have painted a wall. While the stippling here is evidence of Porter’s artistic influence, Poor’s trees are not as realistic as those painted by Porter and are typically painted with more branches and trunks. Poor’s trees in the Dalton house are especially whimsical as the branches curl in all directions. Notice here the variety of different types of trees, unlike Porter who painted mostly elms. Poor also painted many with broken limbs and extra trunks.