Chesterfield Historical Society - Chesterfield New Hampshire


Chesterfield New Hampshire Historical Society

The Snow Angel

The Snow Angel

Dawn on New Year’s Day 1856 was clear and very cold in Brattleboro, Vermont. The few folks out on the snow-covered streets were soon glad that they had gotten up early.  They scurried home to wake up family and friends with exciting news.  An angel had appeared over night, as if by magic, on the corner of Linden and North Main Streets.


It was an eight-foot-high statue with feathered, folded wings, a flowing robe, and a peaceful expression on its face.  Most marvelous of all, it was made entirely of snow and ice.  It was immediately nicknamed the “Snow Angel”.  Because the figure held a pen and a notebook in its hands, some thought it represented the closing of the old year’s records and the opening of the New Year’s ones.  Others thought that it looked to be marking down all the sins and misdeeds of the local townspeople.   Thus, it was also called the “Recording Angel”. 

Whatever they called it, all admired the angel’s wondrous beauty and workmanship. It was so lifelike, it was said that schoolboys, who rarely spared any object, refused to make it a target for their snowballs. An elderly man, who never bowed to anyone, was seen to tip his hat to the statue in respect as he passed. Numerous newspapers carried its image, spreading the story throughout the country.

 

But, what amazed the townspeople the most was that it was created by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr.  He was the son of a prominent local lawyer, and was known to be a very bashful boy. They thought he spent much of his time alone, sketching flowers and trees. But it was known, he had tried his hand at sculpture. 

 

At the age of 19, Larkin had gone to work in the local Brattleboro hardware store. When he wasn’t sweeping the floor, weighing out nails, or wrapping up store goods for customers, he passed the time by carving a pig out of a piece of marble that he kept behind the counter. One day a vacationing artist entered the store and saw Larkin carving. He told Larkin that he had talent, and subsequently helped him secure a position as a student to a New York City sculptor. After two years, Larkin ran out of money and had to return home. Unfortunately, there was no work for an artist in the area other than giving drawing lessons at town hall. 

 

On the last day of December in 1855, when Larkin was 21 years old, he decided to use his talents as a sculptor to pull a practical joke on the townspeople. As soon as it was dark, he set to work by lantern light. With two close friends, Edward and Henry Burnham, whose father owned an iron foundry close by, he began to make the angel. The brothers brought him snow to add to the figure. When the boys got cold, they fired up the oven in the Burnham Foundry to warm themselves and began to melt snow. 


At times, in order to mold a part more accurately, Larkin would make it separately. Then, he’d attached it to the figure with wet snow. Slowly the angel took shape. In order to give it an icy sheen and make parts appear translucent, the brothers would carefully douse it with melted snow. 

 

Larkin’s Snow Angel lasted two weeks, coming to the end during the January thaw. But, its fame spread and it became the landmark in Larkin’s life. It launched him into a life-long career as a renowned neoclassical sculptor.  A replica of it is now on display in the Brattleboro Public Library.


(Larkin was born in Chesterfield, just across the river from Brattleboro. See his biography in Notable People to learn more about his life and his famous works of art.)

 

(Portions of this story were taken from a Vermont History Website Story,

Larkin’s Snow Angel, however it is no longer available)

Some Mead Family History

The sculptor Larkin G. Mead Jr. roots ran deep in Chesterfield. Below is an excerpt written by his father another Larkin G. Mead when he was 27 and published in Farmer and Moore’s Historical Collections, at Concord, N. H. in 1822.


The author's father, "Capt. Levi Mead, came to Chesterfield in 1801 from Lexington, Mass., where as a boy he had carried a powder-horn on the fateful 19th of April, 1775, afterward enlisting for the war. He built the tavern in the village at Chesterfield, which, — kept by his two sons, Bradley and Elias, after him, was locally famous as “The Old Mead Tavern” for half a century."  (Pictures of the Tavern can be found in Historical pictures.)


From The History of Chesterfield by Randall:  "The senior Larkin G. Mead was educated at Chesterfield Academy and Dartmouth College and became a prominent member of the Cheshire bar. He was a man of rare public spirit, active in the cause of education and universally respected both in Chesterfield and in Brattleboro, where he spent the last half of his life. Four of his nine children were born in Chesterfield. Larkin G. Mead, Jr. was the eminent sculptor, Charles Mead was the president of the Stanley Rule and Level Company of New York, Eleanor Mead was the wife of William D. Howells, well-known architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White in New York." 

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