Painting by Ammi Phillips
Oil on canvas

Born January 8th, 1785 to Ann Dewitt and Philip Dubois Bevier, Esther Bevier was one of their eight children and a member of one of the most well-known, influential families in Ulster County in the 1700 and 1800’s. Along with her six sisters, Hylah, Sarah, Henrietta, Anna Maria, and Elizabeth, Esther attended the Litchfield Female Academy around 1800 where she studied needlepoint, among other subjects.

“Ammi Phillips began his professional career around 1811. He traveled extensively in the New York - Massachusetts - Connecticut border area, and because of this, became known as “Border Limner”. He married Laura Brockway in 1813 and the couple moved to Troy, New York. At some point, they moved to Rhinebeck where his wife died in 1830. He remarried shortly after. Around 1829, he started painting in a new style. The works from this period were from his “Kent Period”, named thus because that was the town in Connecticut where the paintings first surfaced. He probably did the paintings in New York’s Duchess County. He returned to western Massachusetts in 1860 where he died five years later, his occupation was listed as a “portrait painter”.
~Ammi Phillips Biography (1788-1865)