Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society ; v.93, no. 3
Summary
Article in which Mr. Loose of Lancaster,Pa. challenges the claim of York County that York was the first capital of the United States since the Articles of Confederation were adopted while the Continental Congress was in session there. The Congress had moved there when the British captured Philadelphia during the American Revolution. Some residents of Lancaster believe that Lancaster was the capital of the United States for the one day it spent there before moving on to York. Loose explains his reasoning that neither city was ever the capital.
Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society ; v. 16, no. 7
Notes
Arthur Armstrongs family included Revolutionary War Brigadier General John Armstrong, Sr. (1717-1795), Revolutionary War physician, Dr. James Armstrong (1748-1828), and John Armstrong, Jr. (1758-1843), President James Madisons Secretary of War (1813-1814). Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, is named for the John Armstrong, Sr. Into this prestigious family, Arthur Armstrong was born in 1798 in Pennsylvania. His leanings were artistic and in 1820, when he was 22, he opened a studio in Marietta, Pennsylvania. On September 25, 1827. He married Harriet Groff Wentz (1808-1896). He taught younger artists, including John Henry Brown (1818-1891) and worked in the Ohio River Valley in 1839 and 1840. By the time of the death of the regions more established older artist, Jacob Eichholtz (1776-1842) Armstrong resided in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1849 his studio was in the Mechanics Institute in Lancaster. In times of economic downturn, Armstrong painted signs and constructed and gilded picture frames. But when the economy was good, he painted portraits, landscapes and historical scenes. On the second floor of his Lancaster studio he exhibited Hamlet and Ophelia and a large picture of the Assassination of Caesar. This 1845 portrait of George Gordon, Lord Byron, from a print of a British portrait by Richard Westall, would have been among the artworks on display. Armstrong died at the age of 53 on June 15, 1851. He was remembered as a genial, kindly-hearted man. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.The Lancaster Historical Society owns the preponderance of his works. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, owns a particularly lovely double portrait Two Sisters with Puppy and Flowers, 1842.
