Smokehouses (Following Paul Hadley's Footsteps)

Another Paul Hadley watercolor painting on display at Mooresville (Indiana) Public Library is "Smokehouse."  (Click here to learn more about Mooresville's favorite son.)

Click images to enlarge

Where was this smokehouse?  There must have been a gazillion smokehouses scattered around Mooresville and vicinity during Hadley's lifetime, and this one was no exception.  He probably painted it during the 1920's, and it likely appeared at his 1924 or 1931 exhibitions at Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, where Hadley taught art during this period.

We've reviewed dozens of old local photographs, taken by longtime residents and professional photographers J. P. Calvert (1842-1917) and Manley Brown (1894-1968) (among other photographers), but we didn't see any smokehouses resembling Hadley's painting.

Jarvis P. Calvert (1842-1917)

Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church, Mooresville (1914)
(photo by J. P. Calvert)

Both Brown and Calvert climbed atop the Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church steeple (at the corner of South Indiana and East Harrison Streets in downtown Mooresville) to take panoramic photos of the town as it looked during the late 1880's-early 1890's and circa 1910 (Calvert) and in 1920 (Brown). That is WAAAAAAY up in the air--much too high for me.  Here's what they saw.

 J. P. Calvert's photo atop the M.E. Church steeple
looking southeast (late 1880's-early 1890's)

J. P. Calvert's photo atop the M.E. Church steeple
looking northeast (late 1880's-early 1890's)

J. P. Calvert's photo atop the M.E. Church steeple
looking northwest (late 1880's-early 1890's)


J. P. Calvert's photo atop the M.E. Church steeple
looking west (along West Harrison Street) (ca. 1910);
 MPL now stands at the end of the street on the right

 Manly Brown looking west along West Harrison Street
atop the M.E. Church steeple (1920)

 Manly Brown looking southeast along East Harrison Street
atop the M.E. Church steeple (1920)

Manly Brown looking north along South Indiana Street
toward the center of downtown Mooresville
atop the M.E. Church steeple (1920)

 Manly Brown looking south along South Indiana Street
atop the M.E. Church steeple (1920);
The Village Shopping Center now stands in the
open fields beyond the trees (upper right)

There were several small structures that resembled smokehouses (and, for that matter, outhouses, or privies) in these photos, but I saw nothing that looked like Paul Hadley's painting.  Maybe we should try our sense of smell.  Good way to differentiate smokehouses from outhouses.  Sadly, you can't smell what appears in old photos.  (The pictures themselves don't smell so great, either.)

Some of my younger readers may not know what use was made of smokehouses. Through the 1930's (and even later), there were in-town residents who, like their country cousins, raised livestock. Many had barns and outbuildings in their backyards to house these animals.  Pork was cured (preserved) by smoke in smokehouses.

So, as far as Hadley's "Smokehouse" painting hanging at the Library, we have absolutely no idea where it was located.  But wait!  Hadley painted other smokehouses, and we know where they were.  Does that count?

"Full Bloom," by Paul Hadley (1942)
(Click image to enlarge)

[Excerpted from Hardin, Becky, The Indiana State Flag: Its Designer (Biography of Paul Hadley with Anthology of his Paintings), p. 28 (1976).  Click here to find links to read a digital copy of this fine biography.]

In 1942, Omri Schooley lived in the smokehouse at 154 West Harrison Street. That's less than a block east of the Library.  Let's take a quick hike down the street and see how things look there now.

154 West Harrison Street Today

The smokehouse was at the back of the property.  In Hadley's "Full Bloom" painting, you can see the fence row and an outbuilding to the left.  You can see those today in the photo below.

The smokehouse in "Full Bloom" was situated

at the closer fence corner (in front of the white

object and automobile).  The wooden outbuilding

on the left (in the painting) is where the

tan, concrete block structure now stands

 

 

Another Hadley painting captured a white smokehouse at the Samuel Moore Rooker house, constructed in 1877 and located at 30 West Harrison Street. Rooker was the first European-descended child born in Mooresville after the town was founded, so he was named after the founder, Samuel Moore.  Rooker's granddaughter, Helen (York) Cook, and her husband, Claire Cook, lived there for decades.  

Newspaper Article About the Cook/Rooker Home

by Becky Hardin, Morgan County Historian

[Hardin, Becky, ed.  Morgan County Scrapbook, Volume I (1985).
Mooresville: Dickinson Publishing Co., p. 285.]

(Click images to enlarge)

Cook/Rooker House (2009)

The smokehouse was located behind the home, as you can just barely see in the digital scan below.  The original image of this painting (used in Hardin's book) was very faint.

 

"White Smokehouse," by Paul Hadley

and smokehouse shown attached to the

Rooker/Cook residence (1976)

[Excerpted from Hardin, Becky, The Indiana State Flag: Its Designer
(Biography of Paul Hadley with Anthology of his Paintings), p. 30 (1976).

Let's see what the smokehouse attachment looks like today, shall we?

 

Rooker/Cook smokehouse was located

inside the now-screened-in porch area

on the back of the house

Paul Hadley must have been fascinated with smokehouses as watercolor subjects--or perhaps they were plentiful within comfortable walking distance.  Hadley didn't drive motor vehicles, so he either had to walk around town to paint subjects or have his friends drive him to suitable landscape painting destinations.