John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876)
While I was training to lead a “Homes of Portland’s Golden Age” tour for Greater Portland Landmarks, we looked at a house on State Street and learned that it was John Neal’s house and that he was America’s first art critic. That upper block of State Street was removed from the tour because of time constraints.
Later I was researching the Portland Rum Riot for a presentation and learned that after the riot John Neal condemned the actions of his cousin, Mayor Neal Dow, saying Dow should be charged with murder.
Those two pieces of information were fuzzy in my mind when I saw a post on FaceBook about the house
I went to refresh my memory on John Neal, and found out so much more about him. I think it is no exaggeration to say that John Neal is a great forgotten foundation stone of American culture.
I say “I went,” but what I did was read about John Neal on Wikipedia. The entry on Neal <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Neal_(writer)> is one of the great Wikipedia entries I have ever read. As my fascination grew, I took the unusual step of trying to learn who wrote it, and then reaching out to express my appreciation. The author’s name is Dugan Murphy. He’s a contra dance caller in the Portland area, and, having time on his hands due to the pandemic, he did a huge expansion of the John Neal article early in the summer of 2020, according to an entry on his Facebook page. I commented on the entry, but as of this writing, he hasn’t replied.
In the comments on the Facebook post, I was advised to contact William Barry. The commenter thought Barry was working on a book about Neal. I wrote to Barry at his Historical Society email address and was gratified to get a phone call from him. He’s not exactly working on a book about Neal. He talked of the challenge of writing about Neal, because every time you explore one aspect of his life it opens out into something else unexpected. To some degree that is happening with my reading, but I have a plan.
Calling someone most folks have never heard of a foundation stone of American culture is a bold pronouncement. I intend to back it up by explaining Neal’s influence on American art and American literature, his influence on progressive causes of the 1800’s, especially feminism, and his role in bringing public gyms to America. I hope that when I’m done, you will agree that he deserves more knowledge and recognition, not just in Portland, but nationally. Because this is a Portland, Maine Walking Tours blog, I’m going to sneak in evidence that Neal’s fingerprints are all over Portland, from Munjoy Hill to State Street and beyond.
As I dug deeper, I found his autobiography, Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life. In the first chapter he writes, “after having disposed of my parentage in the usual way, I propose to give my experience under different heads, just as they occur to me.” I intend to do the same.