Thomas W. Barrett Jr. graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1926, but his energies and artwork centered on the Hudson Valley.
Barrett turned his artistic attention to the urban landscapes of cities along the Hudson as symbols of a resilient and modern American character.
During the late 1830s and early 1840s, Poughkeepsie experienced a real estate boom in response to the growth of these enterprises and the efforts of the local Improvement Party, a group of businessmen and politicians who boosted the City within the region.
[3] Virgil D. Bonesteel, an ambitious Yale graduate (Phi Beta Kappa, Class of 1827) and descendant of Red Hook's early settlers, was one of the new professionals attracted to the bright future of Poughkeepsie that was heavily promoted during the boom years of the 1830s.
[4] His first position was that of law student in the office of James Hooker, Dutchess County's Surrogate for 16 years and a dominant force in the awarding of political patronage jobs within the Democratic Party.
[5] His rise in these political and legal circles may have been assisted by his marriage in 1840 to Sarah E. Todd of New Milford Connecticut, the niece of Poughkeepsie attorney and former Secretary of the Navy, Smith Thompson who was then serving as a Justice on the United States Supreme Court.
The lot was made available by the financial collapse of shoe manufacturer Benjamin Bissell, one of the many who had ventured into real estate speculation during the ‘years of Poughkeepsie’s “Improvement Party” boom in the mid-1830s.
Well-to-do families of this period, such as the Bonesteels, expressed their taste within this restrained form of domestic architecture that symbolized a young nation's hopes for becoming the new embodiment of the purity, strength and equality of an idealized ancient Greece.
With its wide frieze of wreathed attic windows, ornamental stoop railing, two story porch with fluted Doric columns, and recessed double front door with rectangular transom, the Bonesteels’ Greek Revival townhouse embodied the quiet elegance typical of this style.
But the rough and tumble of politics derailed Bonesteel's rise when his enemies in the opposing Whig party accused him of levying “bloodsucking” fees on defenseless widows and orphans forced to settle their estates in his court.
[6] Bonesteel's seemingly extravagant personal life also came under fire by his enemies in the Whig party newspaper who sarcastically observed, “We understand that our surrogate made an excursion the other day to New Milford WITH A COACH AND FOUR.
Now it is clearly none of our business how he rides, but as he is now the leader of the party in the county, he must excuse us for feeling concerned about THE DEMOCRACY OF THE THING…”[7] Whether it was a “coach and four” lifestyle, excessive real estate speculation or some other unknown factor, Bonesteel declared bankruptcy in 1848.
In 1836, she married the much older widower, Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson and became the elegant young hostess of an elite political circle at her husband's riverfront estate “Rust Plaetz” (now part of Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery).
Wheeler's earliest years were said to have been spent at sea followed by work as a ship builder, hotel keeper and operator of a small boat on the Hudson.
Without the patriarch James Weeks, described in an 1881 newspaper article on real estate assessments as “the richest man in town,” the family began sinking into shabby gentility.
Tom Barrett began a promising career at the Poughkeepsie National Bank, following in the footsteps of his deceased brother Charles and his uncle Isaac.
Barrett's father, a banker for 54 years, was the trusted expert the community turned to when it needed a treasurer for major civic projects like saving the historic Glebe House from demolition, building St. Francis Hospital, or creating the Bowne Memorial Tuberculosis Sanitarium.
[11] Barrett began his career in the mid-1920s as a freelance commercial artist for New York City department stores and manufacturers - designing things like playing cards, book plates, wallpaper, and radio cabinets.
His depictions of the mills, fishing sheds and wharves of New England caught the attention of art critics and launched Barrett in a new direction.
A few months before his death in 1984, fellow artist Vince Walker remembered how it all began: A group of us used to meet in Barrett’s studio to do some sketching and drawing.
The following year, Tom Barrett and Vince Walker formalized this initial success by founding the Dutchess County Art Association.
[20] Barrett's sister Elizabeth, known to her family as Bet, supported her brother's efforts to grow and sustain the local arts community.
Barrett's dedication to finding a better and more permanent alternative to these makeshift arrangements even extended to planning out how his own home at 55 Noxon Street could be redesigned as an art gallery with small private quarters at the back of the house for himself, his sister Betty and his parents – if only an “angel” were to step forward with the funding.
In woodcut work, Barrett could indulge his special talent for advanced linear thinking which, back in his student days, had convinced him to major in decorative arts and design rather than painting.
[24] Barrett's brilliant woodcuts and haunting oil paintings remain important examples of Depression era regionalism in Hudson Valley art history.
Despite his extraordinary talent and determination, Tom Barrett's life was filled with challenges too great to surmount: alcoholism, a deep sense of guilt for failing to earn even a modest income from his art, and tormented feelings about a hometown he found both dishearteningly provincial and desolately beautiful.
[28] After taking ownership of Barrett House, the DCAA replaced the failing roof and equipped former domestic spaces on the first floor as galleries, maintaining interior woodwork, fireplaces, and surrounds.
Barrett House maintained this layout until 2017, when the print studio equipment on the third floor was moved to an accessible community space (the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory).