Designer, Commercial Artist
Sadie Farley self-portrait - (Nov. 1900)
Sadie Farley self-portrait, drawn in her journal in November 1900, during her last year in art school.
Lackawanna
County, Pennsylvania, USGenWeb
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of Sarah Farley Allan's parents, Howard N. Farley (1852-1925), left,
and his wife, Jennie A. Trimmer (1857-1940), right. Photos taken in
Jermyn, PA. |
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 Sarah
Farley Allan and
her first-born son, Phillip (1909) |
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Above:
James A.
Allan and his wife, Sarah Leona Farley - (1919) Left: Photo of Sarah Farley Allan and her son, Phillip - (1910) |
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Sadie Farley attends the Harness
Races in Goshen N.Y. – (August
24, 1899) Left: Sadie Farley self-portrait in pencil (Aug. 1899). Sadie is wearing a long dress with ruffled trim and “mermaid” bottom, with an ornately-decorated, Victorian-era hat. Together with her friend, Alfred Williams, she attended the harness races at Good Time Park in Goshen, NY (now called Historic Track). Goshen is located about twelve miles north of Warwick. The portrait was drawn into her journal in pencil on August 24, 1899, with this entry: “Mr. Williams took me to the Goshen races and, of course, I had a thoroughly good time. I picked two winners out of three races, Silver Maker and Baron H., but the race on which I bet a pound of candy, my horse finished second in each heat. The races were exceptionally good. We had supper at the St. Elmo, stayed for part of the band concert and came home by moon light.” Below: Pencil drawing of a Race Horse with harness and 2-wheeled cart (Aug. 1899)  Below: Postcard, The St. Elmo Hotel, Goshen, NY (postmarked 1900) The St. Elmo Hotel was located adjacent to the Goshen train station. It was popular with tourists for its accomodations, restaurant and entertainment.  |
 Above: Sadie Farley self-portrait (Jan 1900) Self-portrait of Sadie Farley drawn in pencil in her Nature & Hiking Journal in January 1900. She was 21 years old. Under the drawing, she wrote: “I finished my new waist and skirt and in consequence just had to go out and give them a trial.” |
 Above: Wooded Scene in pencil (Nov. 1900) |
The
Spirit of the Trees (Nov. 1900)
Sadie’s
poem, The Spirit of the Trees, demonstrates
her superb language skills in describing her sensory and spiritual
harmony with nature.
Her
eyes are closed. The woodland scene she “visualizes” is recalled from
memory. Words like cathedral,
incense, solemn and spirit give
the poem a spiritual context. Sadie’s sound
repetition (consonance) in the words shines, vines,
pines and divines draws
the reader’s attention to those sounds and images.
I
shut my eyes and see
Long
woodland vistas – faint and tenderly
Lit
with a cool, translucent green, that shines
Down
‘twixt the brawny oaks, the twisted vines.
Amid
the dim cathedral aisles of silent pines
Perfumed
by incense that the sense divines
Ein
as the solemn whispering of the breeze
Seems
something faint, intangible –
The
spirit of the trees.
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Sadie L. Farley, Warwick, NY
Right: Self-portrait, ice-skating party at Wickham Lake, Warwick, NY (Jan 1900) Sadie Farley and Sarah Benedict, and their families, were lifelong friends. In January 1900, two Benedict brothers invited Sadie to an ice-skating party at Wickham Lake in Warwick, NY. At the top of their invitation card, they wrote: An Ice Diversion or A Nice Diversion, depending on the weather and the condition of the ice. After the party, Sadie penciled into her journal this drawing of herself on skates, wearing a veil to protect against the wind, with the caption, "Enjoyed myself to the utmost with nothing to spoil the pleasure." |
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Left: Self-portrait
of Sadie Farley wearing a tasseled bicorn hat (Dec.
1900)
Near
the end of her journal, Sadie drew this striking “glamour” portrait of
herself wearing an elaborately decorated, tasseled bicorn hat with
lipstick, makeup, a necklace and pendant, and lightened hair in curled
ringlets. Her faraway, dreamy gaze is one often seen in ‘Gibson Girl’
drawings. Not sure about those objects floating away
in the background. Jars of cosmetics?
Bicorn
hats were commonly worn by American and European naval officers in the
late 1700s. They’re
often associated with French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. Popular
actress Maude Adams wore one in the role of Suzanne Blondet in the
comedy, The Masked
Ball (1892). Sadie
was only 14 when the play opened on Broadway, but
she and her friends certainly would have seen publicity photos of Adams
wearing a similar tasseled bicorn hat. Adams’
strong popularity with teenage girls and their mothers reached a
highpoint in 1905 when she played the lead role in Peter Pan at
the Empire Theatre in New York.
Below
the drawing, Sadie added this line from English Cavalier poet, Sir John
Suckling (1609-1641): “She is
pretty to walk with, And witty to talk with, And pleasant, too, to
think on.” It’s from the French
play, Brennoralt, Act ii.
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 Maude Adams in The Masked Ball (1892) |
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Entry
from Sadie Farley’s
Nature & Hiking Journal (May 4, 1899) During breaks from art school in 1899 and 1900, Sadie Farley returned to Warwick Village, New York, to be with her family. She loved going on long hikes in the mountains around Warwick with her father and Ned, her Irish wolfhound. Sometimes her younger sisters, Adah and Leah, went with them on shorter hikes. Every hike was chronicled in her journal, together with small pencil sketches. This entry was made on May 4, 1899. The group hiked up to a reservoir and back, a total of 3 miles. (Some of their hikes were 20 miles long). They raced on the way back, won by Howard, Sadie’s father. In her journal, Sadie drew five tiny, cartoonish figures running along a path (Ned, Howard, Sadie, Adah & Leah), followed by a cloud of dust. “Sun. 4th. Papa, Adah, Leah and I went up on the mountain above the reservoir, to a little spring. Stay’d until after sunset. Ned fought with Parker’s dog. Papa ran a race and beat (?) us. 3 mi.” |
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Sadie encounters a
rattlesnake. (Monday, May 26, 1899, pg 9)
This was my first meeting with a
real, live rattlesnake. Luella Colwell, Adah and I, with Ned,
started in the morning to walk to Buttermilk Falls after rhododendron.
About halfway between Raynor’s and Peter Conklin’s on the
George Hyatt farm, there is a black cheery tree by the roadside. I
stopped to eat some cherries and Ned, who was hunting around, began to
bark at something, which I thought might be a raccoon. All the time he
was barking, I heard a buzzing noise, like an August fly, but did not
think of “snake” until I went to find out what Ned was barking at. The
snake lay on the top rail of the fence, scarcely fifteen feet from
where I was picking cheeries. It was about as thick as my wrist and had
about nine or ten rattlers, according to Peter Conklin.
I sent the children
up the road and then climbed over into the field and began pelting it
with rocks, cutting a big hole in its side before it crawled down into
the stone wall. When it went into the wall I was unable to
reach it and had to give up. The snake was very horrible in
its ugliness and I was pretty thoroughly scared. We had a very pleasant
trip in spite of the scare and found some beautiful rhododendron, also
some delicious white cheeries. (10 mi.)
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 Sadie, her father and her wolfhound on a 20-mile tramp. (Friday, June 16, 1899) Papa, Ned and I
went on a tramp of about twenty miles by way of Bellvale, Mount Peter,
down through the Greenwood Lake Valley toward Monroe. When we reached
the end of the valley we came home over the mountain.
Stopped to visit an
old burying ground, then came over the mountain by a most beautiful
road. (20 mi.)
"The little
cemetery on the hill, where little Mary Ellen lies."
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 Above: Sadie Farley aiming a rifle (Sept. 1900) In her journal, Sadie Farley drew a sketch of herself, in a long dress, aiming a rifle, with the caption, “Johnny, git your gun.” She and her father, Howard Farley, often hunted together (“gunning,” Sadie called it). On another journal page, she wrote about shooting a “repeating Winchester shotgun.” Sarah, her father and her Irish wolfhound, Ned, often went on long “tramps,” as Sarah called them, in the mountains around Warwick. Her father carried her sketch block so she could make small pencil drawings that she later attached to her journal pages. |
 Sadie Farley and her father hunting rabbits (Sept. 1900) On Sept. 9, 1900, Sadie drew a pen and pencil sketch in her journal of herself and her father hunting rabbits, together with Sadie’s new bloodhound, “Beaut.” Sadie is holding the rifle. They’re looking out at a humorous figure of a rabbit, standing straight up on its hind legs with a startled look in its eyes. Sadie’s caption: “Brer rabbit – Now Heaven deliver me!” |
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Following graduation from high
school, Sarah attended the Art Students
League where, for three years, she studied under some of the top
illustrators and painters in the country. The Farleys relocated to Jermyn, Pennsylvania in late 1900, and moved into a home that was once the borough’s oldest schoolhouse and site of its first election in 1870. In December 1902, Farley set up her art studio in Scranton in two third-floor rooms in the Odd Fellows Building at 209 Wyoming Avenue. For the next five years she continued to live with her family in Jermyn, commuting to and from Scranton on the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad. Most likely, her father, who worked as a dispatcher at the Laurel St. station in Jermyn, gave her a train pass. Taking a morning train from Jermyn, Sarah would have arrived in about half an hour at the Central New Jersey Station on West Lackawanna Avenue. Her studio was a short walk or trolley ride away. Soon after arriving in Scranton, Farley wisely connected with the business community through the Board of Trade. She offered services in advertising, illustrating, cartooning and cover designing, and soon secured commissions from The Scranton Times for her cartoons and essays. She also illustrated book covers for the Laurel Line and Ontario & Western Railroad. On multiple occasions, Farley exhibited her original pen drawings, book covers and oil paintings at the YMCA and Century Club, together with landscape painter, John Willard Raught and illustrator, P. W. Costello. She taught art classes at the YWCA and presented papers to the art department at the Century Club, located in the parish house of Saint Luke’s Church. On September 1, 1907, Sarah Leona Farley married James Angus Allan in the Farley home on Main Street in Jermyn. James Allan was department manager and designer for the Goldsmith Bazaar Dept. Store, and also a skilled writer and poet. The Allans purchased a home on Ridge Row, in a picturesque section of East Scranton, where Phillip and John were born, the first two of their four sons. |
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Sarah
Leona Farley. Landscape in oil. 1906. 14 x 20”. Owner: Sarah Allan Krycki, granddaughter of the
artist. As a
student at the Art Students League in New York City from 1897
to 1900, Sarah
Farley-Allan learned
landscape painting from two of the leading artists in the United
States: Kenyon Cox (1856 – 1919) and
John Henry Twachtman (1853 –1902). American
Tonalism flourished
between 1880 and 1915,
overlapping Sarah’s years in art school. Impressionism followed.
The tonalist style originated in France in
the Barbizon School,
with its emphasis on tone, shadow, soft forms and loose brushwork, and evolved in America
through the work of James
McNeill Whistler, George Inness, Thomas
Wilmer Dewing, John Twachtman and
others. John Twachtman taught Farley-Allan tonalist painting
in the classroom. Kenyon Cox was her primary mentor
during and after
art school. He taught her illustration, sculpture and painting.
According
to an Allan family member, Cox also traveled to Jermyn, PA, to
work with
Sarah. The woods and farms around Jermyn, Mayfield and other
towns
provided ideal settings for teaching landscape painting in a
tonalist style. This oil
painting (untitled) is a rare view of Farley-Allan’s
extraordinary expertise in another medium and genre. Created
in 1906, it
was likely shown at a YMCA exhibition in October. According to The
Scranton Truth: “The display includes some of the finest
creations of the
foremost modern artists…Among the paintings of Scranton artists are
canvasses
by John Willard Raught, Miss Jennie Brownscombe and
Miss Sarah L. Farley”
(October 18, 1906, pg. 11). Reflecting
common qualities
of tonalist paintings, Farley-Allan’s
landscape is spatially narrow in focus; the lines of trees, bushes, a
haystack,
dried grass and wild flowers are soft-edged and blurred; the scene is
colored in
muted earth tones of brown, gray, orange, red and green; the sky is a
billowing
mixture of light and dark grays. Sarah skillfully captured
the energy of
an approaching storm. It’s early fall, late in the day. The whole scene
is in
motion…ominous, enveloping clouds, and wind-bent trees and
grass. At the
center of the sloping landscape is a haystack, parted by the wind, and
a patch
of plowed earth in the background, remnants of a farmer’s harvest
labor. There
is no sign of human or animal life. Landscape
artist, Robert Bissett, describes
a tonalist painting as “an intriguing visual poem…in
which there is
no effort to communicate a message or a story.” To art historian, David Adams Cleveland, “there is a spiritual dimension inherent in Tonalism… it is an art for the contemplative spirit, a balm for body and soul." Farley-Allan’s painting stirs the senses and emotions of the viewer; it blends the natural and the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical.Photo of painting by John Hauschildt, Rum Doodle Studios, Newmarket, NH. Copyright 2020. Bottom left is an enlargement of the signature and date ('06) from the painting above left. |
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“Ridge Row”
oil painting by
John Willard Raught (1920). Following their marriage in 1907, James and Sarah Farley Allan moved into a home at 1019 Ridge Row, a street located in a picturesque section of East Scranton, near Nay Aug Park. A few years later, they moved into a larger home at 1039 Ridge Row. Two of their four sons, Phillip and John, were born during those years. John Willard Raught (1857-1931), was a renowned landscape painter from Dunmore, PA. Raught’s impressionistic “Ridge Row” was painted in 1920, seven years after the Allans moved to Vermont. Homes were built along one side of Ridge Row, ensuring visibility of the Lackawanna River and the park to the east and south. The landmark D. L. & W. Railroad Station is visible in the background. Photo courtesy of the Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA |
 Photo
source: City of Lebanon, NH Property
Database
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ALLAN
FAMILY HOME, West Lebanon, NH In November 1913, the Allan family moved from Scranton, PA to White River Junction, VT, where they probably lived with James Allan’s parents. The following year, they moved to West Lebanon, NH, on the opposite side of the Connecticut River. For a short time, they lived on Crafts Ave., then bought this house at 8 Seminary Hill Rd., in an area with a rich history. West Lebanon was the site of Lebanon’s first settlement in 1761. (Now the address is 9 Seminary Hill Rd. It was changed in 1958, the year the town of Lebanon, NH was incorporated as a city. Even and odd sides of West Lebanon streets were reversed to align with Lebanon’s house numbers). According to Lebanon property records, the house was built in 1800 on one-half acre of land. Interior living space comprises 2400 square feet. In 1920, the Allans built behind the house a 440 sq. ft. barn with a loft. They owned a car in the early 1920s. The house has a unique architectural style with its four steeply-pitched cross gables, dark-stained wood siding, two chimneys at center, and simple, double-paned windows. All second floor rooms have sloping walls. Its color and rectangular ground floor give it the look of a log cabin. Sarah Farley Allan lived in this house with her husband, James, and their four young sons (ages 3 to 14), from 1914 until her untimely death in September 1923. She was 45. Her funeral service was held at the house. During the service, shades in the stores along Main Street were drawn as a mark of respect. In 1928, James Allan married Dorothea F. French, a landscape architect and, later, a teacher. They had one child, a daughter, Jean A. Allan, born August 13, 1930. James Allan died in April 1939. For some years after, Dorothea Allan, and her daughter and stepsons, continued to reside in the house on Seminary Hill Rd. |
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Watercolor painting by Sarah Farley Allan, 1911 The Allans’ first-born son, Philip, was two years old when Sarah painted this image of him holding flowers and enjoying a panorama of color in their backyard garden. At the time, the Allans were living in a home at 1039 Ridge Row, now part of the University of Scranton’s campus. Sarah loved gardening. She created gardens in most of the places where the family lived: Warwick, Jermyn, Scranton and West Lebanon. In her Nature & Hiking Journal, she wrote about finding wild flowers on hikes in the mountains around Warwick and replanting them in their yard on South Street. For thirty-five years, Philip Allan worked as a biologist for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. According to his son, Jim, he also created drawings and paintings, as did his younger brother, David. Phil was 74 when he died in 1983 in Ithaca, NY. |
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“The North American” by Jim Allan, March 2015. Painting of a dog sledding team, in watercolor and acrylics. Jim Allan is the son of Philip Allan, and grandson of Sarah Farley Allan. He is a graduate of the architectural school at the University of Michigan, and is a licensed architect in California and Alaska. In addition to architecture, Jim is also skilled in art, carpentry and commercial fishing. Except for a few workshops, Jim is a self-taught artist who sees his grandmother as the source of his talent. He often paints landscapes and wildlife, and sells his work through a local gallery in his hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. Jim studies an art method, then works to develop that method on his own. As he describes it, “I developed the use of combining watercolor and acrylic because I can get very soft backgrounds with watercolor and sharper detail in the foreground with acrylic.” His painting of a dog sledding team is an impressive example. His hazy backdrop of trees, in layered gray and brown watercolor, contrasts with vividly detailed acrylics in the foreground - highlighting the power of the surging dog team. “The North American” is an annual, three-day dog sled race held in March in Fairbanks, Alaska. Organized in 1944, it’s the oldest and longest consecutively run sprint sled dog race in the world. The race attracts teams of dog mushers from villages throughout the state of Alaska, and from Europe, Asia, Canada and other parts of the U.S As Jim Allan describes the race, “it is very important as the pride of various remote villages is at stake. The first two days the dogs run 20 miles and on the third day they run 23 miles. The dogs average about 20 miles per hour. They are real athletes!” When Jim watched the 2015 races, the inspiration for his painting, he said the temperature was about 35 degrees below zero! |
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WEST LEBANON
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 18 Maple St., West Lebanon, NH Photo of the West Lebanon Congregational Church and Meeting House, built and dedicated in 1849 with 44 members. The congregation first gathered in 1768 and built a Meeting House on Seminary Hill in 1773. When Sarah died in September 1923, her funeral services, held at her home, were conducted by Rev. Leland G. Chase, pastor of the Congregational Church. He also presided over her burial in the family lot in West Lebanon Cemetery. Photo Source: Lebanon (NH) Historical Society (taken in 2020 by Fran Hanchett) |
