YOUNG MANHOOD, 1790-1793: WORCESTER, POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK, ALBANY WORCESTER, Massachusetts, was the scene, and 1790 was the time, of the artist's earliest recorded activity. This record is found in the first of the artist's three Account Books which together cover, intermittently, the period from 1790 through 1834.* These books and sixteen small Expense Books which cover the period, also intermittently, from 1799 through 1826, constitute the chief sources for his chronology. As records of his work, the Account Books are not complete, for in them the artist does not list a large number of portraits he is known to have painted during the period they cover. Because of these omissions it seems evident that he did not record any work for which he received immediate payment. But he was eventually paid by nearly all his patrons, for he indicates payments received on all but a few of his entries. On the front wrapper of the earliest Account Book which covers, in unchronological fashion, the period from May 1790 through July 8, 1797, and includes several entries for 1800 and 1802, the artist has inscribed the name of the town "East Sudbury." However, the names of all but two of the first nine patrons listed (the second and seventh) appear in the first Federal Census of 1790 as residents of Worcester Town. The second patron, a "Mr. Buckminster," may be either the Thomas or Lawson Buck- minster included under Framingham Town which adjoined East Sudbury Town. The name of the seventh patron, entered as "Seymore," does not appear in the census list for any of these three towns.1 It seems highly probable that the artist first recorded his craft and artistic work only after he moved to or obtained his first jobs in Worcester. 15-53 of this volume. NYHS Quart., Jan. * For a full description of the Ac- 1951. count Books, with a transcript of the x U. S. Dept. Comm. & Labor, Census, entries which refer to paintings, see pp. 1790, Mass., 141, 244, 245. 237