author
Henry Kelsey Devereux
1859–1932
Best remembered as the drummer boy who inspired part of the famous painting The Spirit of ’76, this Cleveland-born writer left behind a vivid firsthand account of the artwork and the people around it. His life also reached well beyond the canvas, touching railroads, business, and harness racing.
1 Audiobook
"The spirit of '76": Some recollections of the artist and the painting
by Henry Kelsey Devereux
About the author
Born in Cleveland in 1859, Henry Kelsey Devereux came from a prominent family and was educated at Brooks Military Academy before graduating from Yale in 1883. He was the son of railroad executive and Civil War general John H. Devereux, and he went on to work as a civil engineer and businessman.
He is most closely linked with Archibald Willard’s patriotic painting The Spirit of ’76, having served as the model for the young drummer boy. In 1926 he published The Spirit of ’76: Some Recollections of the Artist and the Painting, a short, personal book that preserves details about the painting’s creation, its models, and its cultural afterlife.
Beyond writing, Devereux was active in Cleveland business and became especially well known in harness-racing circles. That mix of memoir, local history, and lived connection to an American icon gives his work an unusual charm: he was not just writing about a famous image, but about a moment he had helped bring to life.