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DEATH OF J. B. STEARNS.
THE WASHINGTON SERIES AND OTHER PICTURES THAT HE PAINTED.
Junius Brutus Stearns, of Brooklyn, who was thrown from his carriage Thursday evening, died before morning. The accident happened about dusk. Mr. Stearns was driving along the boulevard near Classon-avenue, when a carriage, containing Mr. and Mrs. Henry Johnson, of No. 398 West Fifteenth-street, this city and Mr. James Sanderson, of No. 246 West Forty-third-street, approached from the opposite direction. Neither driver saw the other team in time to avert a collision, and the two carriages came together with a crash. Mr. Stearns was thrown violently upon the pavement, and his skull was fractured. Mrs. Johnson was also thrown out, but escaped with slight injuries.

Mr. Stearns was a native of Burlington, Vt., where he was born on July 2, 1810. In his early years he showed a precocious talent for drawing, and at the age of 17, when he came to this city, friendless and alone, he determined to make art the profession of his life. He began as a portrait painter and did such excellent work in this line that he had all the orders to which he could attend. The invention of the daguerreotype, however, was a great blow to portrait painting for the time being, and Mr. Stearns began to turn his attention to historical subjects. In 1847 he went to Europe, where he spent three years in Paris, London, and Rome, painting a series of pictures, for which he had made studies in this country. This was the well known Washington series, which drew forth great commendations from French, English, and American critics, and are now embraced in the Brandreth collection. Five pictures constitute the series, representing Washington as a citizen, at his wedding; as a soldier, at the defeat of Braddock, at the battle of Monongahela; as a farmer, overseeing the workmen on his plantation; as a statesman, taking the inauguration oath as President, and as a Christian on his deathbed. These pictures were lithographed, and the artist received a large royalty from their sale.

During his visit to Europe Mr. Stearns also completed a painting representing Gen. Harrison's treaty with the Indians. Upon his return he took it from the stretcher, rolled it up, and sent it to his stateroom on the steamer which sailed from Havre. On reaching New-York the painting was gone, and in its place was found a chart. Twelve years after Mr. Stearns received a letter from the American Consul at Paris stating that a shipping firm of Havre had found a painting bearing his name rolled up among its charts. The picture had been substituted by mistake for a chart on the steamer, and had lain concealed for all this time. Dr. Brandreth, to whose order it was painted, was so much pleased at its recovery that he paid for it the original price agreed on, with interest.

Mr. Stearns was one of the founders and for many years a member of the Council of the National Academy of Design, and enjoyed the titles of N.D. and N.A. He was for several years the commander of the Twelfth Regiment, New-York Militia. For the last 30 years he had resided in Brooklyn, where he was identified with the class known as the "old Williamsburgers." He leaves a daughter and four sons, one of whom——Raphael C. Stearns——was formerly a Park Commissioner of Brooklyn and is commander of Harry Lee Post, No. 21, G.A.R. The funeral will be held from the late residence of the artist, No. 106 South Second-street, Brooklyn, Eastern District, to-morrow afternoon at 2 o'clock, and the interment will be at Cypress Hills.
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over our place the other side of Chestnut St. this afternoon discussing its laying out and the changes which might be made but they involve money and the chance of selling any thing there seems so
remote that I hardly care even to discuss it. I wrote to Alice this afternoon giving her an account of my visit to Clinton. I cut this notice of Stearns' death from the Times of yesterday. He was a leading artist when I was a pupil with Church but has almost sunk out of sight as an artist for many years past.

Monday Sept. 21" 1885. My sore finger has been troublesome today so that I can do little with my left hand. I wrote to Downing giving him an account of my visit to Clinton and a note to Mrs. Conkey who asked an introduction to Julia Dillon. I also wrote to Whittredge asking him if he would not like to meet me at Shokan any day this week to take a ramble up the stream which comes down from the Wittenberg. Girard came in just before noon to say that he and Isaac North would go fishing and that North would be here at half past 12. Sara was getting my father's room ready for winter, putting down the carpet which used to be in my mothers room and having the wood stove put up but with my sore finger I could be of very little help. We drove out to Leggs Mill through clouds of dust, the wind blowing it after us and reached there a little after two and fished until after five. North caught all that were caught except that Girard and I each caught one. As Norths people were all to be away tomorrow he gave them to me fulfilling the precept "the last shall be first." North told us confidentially a great deal of the hostilities between Coykendall and Carnell. They seem to be utterly at variance and I should think it impossible for them to do business together. Men were at work on the rail road below Leggs Mill filling in the great sink in the road bed which occurred there a few days ago.

Tuesday 22". Something of a lonely day to me. Sara and Mary went with the Baptist Sunday School to Price Hill. It has been a grey and sober day indicating rain. They came home having had a very pleasant day, somewhat too warm for walking, while here I thought it cool and had a little fire in the parlor in the afternoon. I spent a part of the forenoon unmounting a couple of little pictures in passepartout which had given way, the drawing by McLenan and the little oil sketch of the Wallkill Valley. After dinner I sat in the Parlor and wrote to Jannette and Emily. Girard and I dined together. My father preferred to remain in bed until four o'clock when I dressed him and he came down stairs. I think he felt the loneliness of the house. When he left his room he halted a moment and pushed the door aside to look at the little portrait of my mother I painted just before she died. Sara says he always looks at it before coming down stairs. Little Dwight 

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