Label
Miniature Portrait of Samuel Crafts (1768-1853), circa 1810
Oil on ivory
Museum Purchase, #1999.45.1
Samuel Crafts and his father, Ebenezer, purchased land grants from Vermont in the town of Minden in 1781. In 1790 the town’s name was changed to Craftsbury in their honor and a year later they moved from Massachusetts to the town. Samuel, a graduate of Harvard College, became a prosperous farmer and was elected town clerk. He served in the Vermont House of Representatives and in 1817 was elected to the U.S. Congress. He became governor in 1828 and was in that office until 1831. A man of many talents, Crafts considered himself a farmer, surveyor, and miller. While in Washington he participated in the reconstruction of the White House, which had been burned during the War of 1812. He used that experience when he served on the commission to build Vermont’s second State House in the 1830s.