Appraiser Andy Richmond begins his evaluation of "Silence." One of the Library's most prized possessions is a marble statue titled "Silence," sculpted by former Mount Vernon resident Joseph Mozier in Rome in 1859. Fifty years after it was created it was donated to the Library by Mrs. Maria Butler of New York, who had also grown up in Mount Vernon. We were recently asked to consider the possibility of lending the statue to the Ohio History Connection for display at the Ohio State House. One of the first steps in that negotiation is to have the artwork appraised, so we called on a former Library employee, Andy Richmond, who now owns his own appraisal business, Wipiak Consulting & Appraisals. Andy came and spent several hours examining "Silence" and three other objects of artistic, historical and cultural interest that belong to the Library. Most prominent among them is an impressive bronze casting of a piece by Hermon Atkins MacNeil entitled "A Chief of the Multnomah Tribe." The last two objects are less prominent but equally interesting: a hand-drawn watercolor map of the original plat of Mount Vernon from the early 19th century and a ticket to the hanging of Will Bergin on December 7, 1877, the only execution that ever took place in Knox County.
Care to guess what any of these items is worth? Stay tuned. We'll be sharing more facts and trivia about each of them in future blog posts. Each one has its own unique and fascinating story, and they all have connections with times, places and people far removed from the present-day Mount Vernon/Knox County community. We'll explore some of these stories in more detail as we continue to probe the histories of the artifacts in our collections.
Care to guess what any of these items is worth? Stay tuned. We'll be sharing more facts and trivia about each of them in future blog posts. Each one has its own unique and fascinating story, and they all have connections with times, places and people far removed from the present-day Mount Vernon/Knox County community. We'll explore some of these stories in more detail as we continue to probe the histories of the artifacts in our collections.
 |  |  Andy inspects the Chief. |
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