Catalogue Entry
In the summer of 1856—soon after his late 1855 return to the United States from Europe—Johnson traveled west to Superior, Wisconsin, to visit his brother Reuben Johnson and his sister Sarah Osgood Johnson and her husband William Henry Newton. Superior was a growing town, specifically growing on land that had been Ojibwe territory; as many speculators were doing at that time, Johnson made some real estate investments. While in Superior he made portraits of family members and other residents. In 1857 he turned down a commission from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to draw a portrait of Longfellow’s daughters in favor of a second trip to Superior and the Lake Superior region, including part of what was then Minnesota Territory. As he wrote to Longfellow on June 3, 1857,
One might reasonably wonder what attraction that wild region can have for an artist, in comparison with such advantages as would result to me from your kind & flattering offer, the patronage of the most celebrated in the most refined of places. Perhaps I cannot entirely justify it, but in a visit to that country last season I found so much of the picturesque, & of a character so much to my taste & in my line, that I then determined to employ this summer or a portion of it in making sketches of Frontier life, a national feature of our present condition & a field for art that is full of interest, & freshness & pleasing nature, & yet that has been but little treated [Quoted Carbone 1999a, p. 36].
That summer Johnson set out with local guide Stephen Bunga to see and depict Ojibwe encampments and people. He created a distinct body of work including eighteen paintings and twenty-five drawings of encampments, individuals, and groups that are an important record of Ojibwe life at that time, as well as Johnson’s interests and developing style. —AM
MacGibeny, 2022: Johnson's relative by marriage, Scott Nielsen, suggests the drawing may depict his great-great-aunt (Eastman Johnson's sister) Sarah Osgood Johnson Newton and her husband William Henry Newton sitting together on the logs at the center of the picture. William was a Proprietor of the newly incorporated city of Superior, Wisconsin, who was responsible for roads and railroads; according to Nielsen they had stopped at this location during a trip on Military Road, which had been opened to connect Superior to southern and western points. The St. Paul Daily Times, January 20, 1857, reports on the frigid temperatures and Sarah’s attire: “The estimable lady of one of our first citizens came through last evening from Superior, and during the entire drive of 30[illegible digit] miles, the thermometre [sic] ranged from 10 to 45 degrees below 0. Her external dress was a pair of buffalo boots, a buffalo over-coat, a large otter cap and a pair of fur pantaloons into which she introduced herself, and enjoyed, we are assured, a pleasant and comfortable trip.” These weather conditions were the conditions in which Johnson would have made this sketch, which he inscribed “Jan. 1857.”
Detroit Institute of Arts information sheet, June 24, 2015: "A camp site in a clearing of a wood. On right, two figures shelter in a lean-to; four additional men stand in various poses around campsite. In front of lean-to a pile of felled timber. On verso: sketches of figures and equipment."
Baur 1940, p. 79: "On reverse are pencil sketches of a sleigh, an axe in a stump, a bridle and two figures. Kettle River, a small stream in Minnesota, rises about 50 miles south-west of Superior and Duluth and flows into the St. Croix."