The Puritan

In 1881, Saint-Gaudens received a commission from Chester William Chapin, a congressman and business magnate, to create a bronze of his ancestor, Deacon Samuel Chapin (1595–1675), one of the founding fathers of Springfield, Massachusetts. Since no visual record of the Deacon existed, Saint-Gaudens chose to model the head of Chester Chapin’s son, theorizing “the Deacon must have had the same square jaw and beetling brows.” He also commissioned a re-creation of a set of Puritan clothing from drawings in the Chapin family. In his Reminiscences Saint-Gaudens wrote, “The statue . . . was to represent Deacon Samuel Chapin, but I developed it into an embodiment . . . of the Puritan.”In 1887, The Puritan was unveiled on Sterns Square in Springfield. It was moved in 1899 to its present location in Merrick Park. The monumental twelve-foot bronze, set on an impressive circular base, encapsulates the energy and fortitude of the Puritan colonists as well as the religious determination that brought them to this country. The statue was so popular that in 1898 a number of reduction bronzes were created by Saint-Gaudens and cast in Paris. Shown at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, the large-scale Puritan won the Grand Prix. It was exhibited to American audiences at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. (“We Went to the Fair,” curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum August 27–December 18, 2016)