Note: John M. Poythress (Maynard) began investigating the portrait of Lt. William Poythress by the early 1990s. This message recounts some of his early correspondence (circa Feb. 1992) about this image with Barbara Poythress Neal. Researchers will find additional contributions and a high resolution scan on this site. The Poythress message archives (1995 – present) can be searched here.
From: Barbara Neal
Subject: [POYTHRESS] Lt William Poythress portrait source-info via Maynard1992 (John M Poythress)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 23:23:15 -0600
The portrait drawing of the profile-view of head and chest of Lieutenant
William Poythress in American Revolution uniform is something that Maynard
already had a photocopy of, before he and I first snail-mailed letters to
one another in February 1992 — introduced by a lady then-working for the,
now-defunct, then-Flowerdew Hundred Foundation in Virginia.
I’ve pored over a number of lengthy letters from Maynard [John M.
Poythress, referred to below as “JMP”] to pull out any bits about the
portrait, and to put them together here.
It was MUCH later, quite some time after these mentions, when Maynard
succeeded in getting the professionally-made Copy of the portrait, which we
can see was done by a Louisville, KY photographer who signed it “Hess.”
Below, anything that I’ve added for clarity is in square brackets [like
these]; anything in parentheses was typed that way by JMP.
21 Feb 1992 JMP’s letter sent a poor-quality photocopy of a photocopy, etc,
of the Lt. William Poythress portrait. Though his letter failed to mention
the portrait, on the left edge of the portrait’s photocopy, it is clear
that he photocopied it from a page in a “comb-bound” book. He did not
mention or identify the book. On a Post-it affixed to the
portrait-photocopy’s upper right corner, JMP handprinted: “I just found the
guy in Louisville who owns the original. I’m trying to get it & have color
copies made to frame just for fun. If successful, I’ll send you a copy – MP”
4 Apr 1992 JMP’s letter included a copy of a 1-page handwritten 11 Mar
1980 letter to JMP’s brother David from Pastor Charles Atnip [a Wynn /
Winn descendant; Atnip died in 2008 at age 82]. This is the pertinent
paragraph from the Pastor’s 11 Mar-80 letter: “Peter and Henry Wynne
(grandsons of Mary Poythress Wynne) and their two Poythress cousins, George
and William, migrated to old St. Georges Parish (now Burke County, GA) in
1756. George Poythress married into a wealthy family in GA. I have some
military records on William.”
[Note re “some military records on William” from Bpn, when compiling
this info in Aug 2017: we should retrieve the later Poythress-List
archived emails in which we obtained info from Florida’s State Archives
about FL Territory Indian War participation by various Poythress-surnamed
men; perhaps one of those was William and could account for this mention of
“some military records on William.”]
11 Apr 1992 JMP’s letter enclosed an info-copy of a letter he wrote that
day to Pastor Charles Atnip [Wynn / Winn descendant, who had written JMP’s
brother David in 1980; Atnip died in 2008 at age 82]. JMP’s letter to Atnip
noted that among enclosures he was sending him was “copy of a portrait of
Lt. William Poythress is enclosed. The Few family here in Louisville has
the original. If I can persuade Mrs. Few to accept my first born as
surety, I plan to take the original to a commercial art operation and have
color copies made that are suitable for framing for no reason other than I
think it would be fun for all of my growing correspondent crowd to have a
copy. I will certainly send you one if you are interested. I wonder if he
is the ‘William’ mentioned in your 1980 letter to my brother.”
10 May 1992 in JMP letter to Bpw with copy to Bpn & Earl: “Oh, I’ll tell
you and by copy tell Bpn and Earl because it completely slipped my feeble
mind earlier. I went by earlier in the week and met Sarah Few who owns the
portrait of Lt. William Poythress. [Bpn note: yesterday I found online that
Sarah Few died in 2015 in Louisville, KY.] Sarah owns a ‘by appointment
only’ antique shop and is also on the Board of Directors at the [Speed] art
museum where my wife Jean ‘works’ [as a volunteer Docent]. Sarah obviously
ain’t in the antique business for the money. She owns the portrait and her
cousin (also with Poythress roots) here in Louisville owns William’s
sword. I think I must have done a halfway decent job of schmoozing because
[Sarah said] ‘just as soon as Joe Durham (the cousin) gets back from his
winter Florida home we just have got to get together for dinner, etc,
etc.’ You two gals are both from the South so you know that could mean
everything or nothing. Anyway, I’ll persevere.”
In that same 10 May 1992 letter, JMP also mentioned a supposed Poythress
signature on Bill of Rights: “One really neat thing from Sarah: she says a
Poythress signed the Bill of Rights. I said great as long as …. I just
opened my mouth on that one out of reflex and from the look on her face I
might have lost a couple of those schmooze points if there were any there
in the first place. [paragraph break] Remembering that Philip Morris
[Company] had the original copy of the thing [Bill of Rights] on tour last
year I immediately phoned a friend of mine here in Louisville who works for
Philip Morris and can make things happen. I asked if it was like the
Declaration of Independence with all the guys signing at the bottom and if
so I’ll take four copies (he owes me). He cynically said hell, he didn’t
know about the signing because he wasn’t there but that he would lay his
hands on four of the copies PM was mailing to all the school kids if that
was what I wanted. I’ll keep you all posted. [Bpn has no recollection of
this subject arising again]
19 May 1992 handprinted letter on lined paper. JMP: “This in mail today
from Sarah Few [a copy of her Colonial Dames application she had recently
signed]. She actually paid for it. Values (Possible): 1. A lot of sources
& page numbers cited. 2. Looks to me like it says guy who married Lt.
William’s daughter Elizabeth took her off to Jessamine Co, KY. That is
just south of Lexington …” [Her application includes these dates for Lt.
William Poythress: born 1737 in Virginia; married Elizabeth ___ 1758; died
1783 Virginia.]
11 Jun 1992 in a lengthy letter, JMP acknowledged getting from Bpn a copy
of an article re Preacher Francis Poythress in KY; found it very
interesting; said he would mail a copy to Sarah Few.
Bpn
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