RSW's Diary Comments

"Painted in about 1941. The painting of an old N. E. colonial house, high on the hill of the little village of East Dover, beyond Wilmington, Vt. This rare old house used to be a roadside inn or tavern. The ells have long since tumbled down since the canvas was painted. The old house is owned by a Yale professor and his wife who have a summer home on a high hill nearby - I think Prof. Andrews and I think Higley Hill."

Beside the Road in Dover, 1936
This pastel did exhibit at the SVAA in 1936, so why
not the oil? Is there some omission in the brochures?
Note that the pastel above has kids reading on the
porch and shows more of the front yard.

Comments on the back of a sepia print:

In studio for sale. House, faded yellow. Old faded yellow house in Dover, Vt., with iridescent old glass window panes, a pearly gray sky. Mr. Frelinghuysen owns the chalk drawing (or pastel) of this house of which he is very fond.

Editor's Note:

This is a late summer painting and a distinctly Vermont scene and yet... there is NO record of it exhibiting at the So. Vermont Art Association's (SVAA) annual exhibition. This painting is exactly the sort of subject Woodward specifically made special for the SVAA. However, we are missing the 1936 SVAA exhibit brochure leading us to suspect that it probably did hang that year but the record have been lost. For now, we will cite the year c. 1938, because the 1939 Vose show was in May— another odd fact, confusing the matter. Why would the artist wait so long to exhibit it?

This painting is now privately owned.

The Yale professor mentioned in RSW's diary comments could possibly be Charles McLean Andrews a very famous historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author. Prof. Andrews is reported to have had vacation homes in Jupiter, FL and East Dover, VT. Prof. Andrews retired from Yale in 1942 and died September 9, 1943, two years after this artwork was painted.

For more regarding Charles McLean Andrews and his work, click any of the following links:

Wikipedia: Charles McLean Andrews

Yale University Library: Charles McLean Andrews papers

Answers.com: Charles McLean Andrews

Mrs Adaline Frelinghuysen as a student
at Bryn Mahr College- the only photo we have.

As of June 2024, we know that Mrs Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen had purchased over 30 paintings from Woodward spanning a 21 year period of time. Most of those paintings were pastels, her favorite, most likely due to her mother's friendship with artist Mary Cassatt who once made portraits of her, her sisters, and mother in pastel when she was a child. Adaline's sister Electra Havemeyer Webb is the founder of the Shelburne (VT) Museum and her father was sugar magnet Henery Osbourne Havemeyer. The Family's famed art collection is one of the crown jewels of the Metropolitan MFA in New York City. Adaline is also the mother of a Senator and grandmother of a Congressman, both of New Jersey. Below is just a few of her oil paintings...

• December Window
• Four Maple Trees March
• Geranium and the Mountain
• Hill Road
• Mary Lyon's Church
• Proud Elm
• Snowing Outside
• Up the Winter Valley
• A Winter Day