Faith Robinson Trumbull

This location was chosen to sit for a moment and look at this silk art piece in more detail near where the Great Elm once stood. This piece is one artistic example of how colonists mixed religious ideas and politics. It was common in sermons, books, broadsides, newspapers, and even in little cartoons.

Faith was the wife of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, an artist whose mother was born in Duxbury CT. She came to Boston to learn sewing from shopkeeper Elizabeth Murray Campbell Smith Inman. The location of that shop is unknown. This particular piece is in the Art Museum at Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut. It’s called “The Hanging of Absalom”

Thought to have been created soon after the Boston Massacre of 1770, this needlework is an excellent example of how many colonists understood political events in terms of familiar Bible stories. This is likely from the many political sermons common to the day (See Black Robed Regiment)

The creator of the work saw Absalom as a patriot (hung in a tree similar to the Great Elm), rebelling against and suffering from the arbitrary rule of his father King David (symbolizing George III). The king, shown at the top left, is playing his harp, evidently oblivious to the anguish of his children in the American colonies. The figure executing Absalom--David's commander Joab in the Old Testament story--is dressed as a British red coat.

What fruitage did these spiritual leaders produce? Mt 7:15-20. Consider John 17:16 vs Acts 20:29, 30. What would Jesus have said seeing this?

-Source Links-

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel03.html