Archive for Clan MacNeil
AT LAST,
the UNVEILING of the
75-YEAR-OLD
PORTRAIT BUST OF
HERMON A. MACNEIL
BY Jo Davidson
ON THIS THE 155TH ANNIVERSARY OF MacNEIL’s BIRTH
As was Jo’s custom, the front plate is signed by the sitter, H.A.MacNeil.
The back is signed by the sculptor, as hundreds of such portrait busts
all over the United States and the world
bear the same signature of this sculptor and a date,
Jo Davidson 1945
has come home
to this his website,
TODAY
February 27, 2021
the 155th Anniversary of his Birth
on February 27, 1866.
~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~
I’ve told four “Hermon & Jo” Stories in MacNeil Month 2021
Here’s the fifth one …
Early in 1945…
Jo Davidson
went back to College Point and the Studio of
Hermon A. MacNeil
where Jo first learned studio work
from the atlier of Hermon MacNeil,
with Henri Crenier and John Gregory
teasing him mercilessly as the studio boy
While Hermon MacNeil showed Jo through
the menial chores of the studio,
how to work clay, build an armature, make a mold,
and see the stages of making a plaster model
to become a piece that will be cast in bronze.
And thereby flame Jo’s natural talent & burning desire
to become a sculptor.
And through his gentle personality and kindness,
MacNeil showed Jo respect
and filled some of Jo’s early void of approval
being a FATHER FIGURE unlike Jo’s own Father,
and MacNeil also affirmed Jo’s early exhibit FIGURE of
“David”, the Jewish Boy, fighting an invisible GOLIATH.
And then decades later when
Jo Davidson’s fame and career
had eclipsed even that of MacNeil
or any of his altier assistants — John Gregory or Henri Crenier —
Jo chose to return to honor his first teacher
by sculpting him in clay
and immortalizing him in BRONZE.
AND NOW WE KNOW, THAT IS JUST WHAT
HE DID !
- On Nov. 6, 1947. Jo sent letter of sympathy to Cecelia MacNeil, Hermon’s widow expressing his heartbreak at Hermon’s passing
- Jo Davidson made this sculpture in the year 1945.
- He shares his heartbreak over the death.
- He remembers Hermon’s happiness
- He will exhibit the bust for the Art World to see & remember
- He wants Cecelia to come the Exhibition and see the bust.
- Jo and Flo invited Cecelia to their home to her to visit.
- I am DANIEL NEIL LEININGER. My middle name comes from my mother’s maiden name — “McNeil“.
- I was born in 1945 the same year this bust was made.
(June 30, 1945 Daniel Neil Leininger is born in Saint Louis, Missouri) - I am the same age as the bust. (just not as good looking)!
- I was 27 months-old when Hermon died. I never saw Hermon MacNeil’s face until this BUST arrived.
- SO did JO make this portrait Bust of HERMON in Jan to April 1945, or NOV-DEC, 1945?
- Before or after his 2nd Heart attack in San Francisco?
- April 12, 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Jo got the call at Lahaska that afternoon. Jo had known FDR since 1933 when he sculpted the first bust of him White House. He sculpted two inaugural Medals for FDR.
- April 18, 1945 Ernie Pyle killed in action. Jo made his bust in 1942
- April 22, 1945 Jo Davidson and Florence travel (fly) to Los Angeles., Says he is exhausted. Jo is distressed self-dosing on nitroglycerin tablets
- April 24, 1945 Jo Davidson has a 2nd heart attack on the opening evening of the United Nations Conference.
- April 25, 1945 Jo Davidson is in St. Mary”s Hospital in San Francisco under an oxygen tent.
- April 25, 1945 to June 26, 1945 — United Nations Organizational Conference in San Francisco
- Aug. 14, 1945 Florence tells Jo of Victory-in-Japan Day news report on radio in while he remains in hospital.
- Sept. – Oct. 1945 For the next Two months Jo was recouping at the Ranch of Ralph Stagpole in Cloverdale CA. The Stagpoles took in Jo, his nurse, and Florence and helped him get back to health.
- Oct. 1945. Jo and Flossie returned to their home in Lahaska, NY
- Nov. 6, 1947. Jo sends letter of sympathy to Cecelia MacNeil, Hermon’s widow expressing his heart break at Hermon’s passing
- Oct. 2, 1947 DEATH: Hermon Atkins MacNeil dies at his home in College Point.
- Nov. 25, 1947 BUST EXHIBITED ~~ National Institute of Arts and Letters – Retrospective Exhibition of Jo Davidson’s Work. This bust was a part of that Exhibition
- 1951 Jo Davidson’s health continues to deteriorate
- 1951 Jo’s friends Andre Gide & Robert Flaherty died … and Sinclair Lewis
- Jan. 2, 1952 Jo Davidson dies at his home in Becheron, France.
HERMON MacNEIL AS HE APPEARED ABOUT 1945

Hermon Atkins MacNeil ~ About 1945 ~ when Jo Davidson sculpted him. Seated outside of his studio in College Point, Queens, NYC. [ Credit: Kenilworth Historical Society donated by Joel Rosenkranz of Conner – Rosenkranz, LLC. ]
Happy Birthday to all you “Leaplings” out there. It’s Leap Day.
It only comes once every four years or 1,460 days, if you’re counting. Today is just another Leap Day to 99.73% of us. But to you Leapsters, it is another long-awaited actual birthday – a full 24 hour birthday. Congratulations. Celebrate being alive! Today, we will join in with you from afar.
There are approximately 187,000 of you leaplings in the U.S, and about 4 million Leaplings in the entire world. Since your actual birthdate only comes once in 1,461 days, we will give you 4 exclamation points after the usual greeting today. So “Happy Birthday, Leaplings!!!!”
My grandfather, Tom Henry McNeil, was a Leapling (or a Leapster, if you prefer), born on February 29, 1860. He was quite a man. His Wikipedia page at Thomas H. McNeil states in part:
“Thomas H. McNeil (February 29, 1860 – October 1, 1932) was an American football player and lawyer. He was the first University of Michigan football player to be the starting quarterback in consecutive years. He led the Michigan football team to undefeated seasons in 1884 and 1885. He later became a lawyer practicing in Missouri”
Yes, today is special. It’s Leap Day. But it is also special because it is another day to live. A great truth of life is that every day is special. Every day is a day for us to be truly live. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Psalm 90:12. – a verse from Sunday School. It’s sort of a prayer, asking God to: “Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.”
Oh, wise! Growing old comes kind of naturally. Growing wise takes a bit more help. It really helps to be taught that we have a heart and a soul, to be loved into growing as a human being. And to learn to listen to both and apply our hearts to becoming wiser than we used to be.
“Number Your Days” and Become Wise.
“Happy Birthday” ~ All You Leapsters!
February 29, 2020
( Edit this Post )
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY” Hermon & Tom Henry MacNeil ~~ MacNeil Month – Two Birthday’s
Posted by: | CommentsWhy do we celebrate MacNeil Month each February? Two reasons:
-
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY” Hermon MacNeil.
Hermon A. MacNeil Commemorative sketched by Artist Charles D. Daughtrey as the seventh work in his Series of Coin Designers is available at http://www.cdaughtrey.com/
- February 27 is the 154th anniversary of the birth of Hermon A. MacNeil, born in 1866. Hermon is the patron-sculptor whose work and life are celebrated at this website – HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com.
- “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” Tom Henry McNeil, My grandfather ~ And the older cousin of Hermon MacNeil.
- February 29 is the Anniversary of the birth of Thomas (Tom) Henry McNeil (my grandfather) born in 1860, one-hundred and sixty years ago.
- Tom told his daughters to address “Hermon” as “Uncle Hermon.” “Uncle” was the title of respect bestowed on their first-cousin-twice-removed.
Merry Christmas – 124th Anniversary of Hermon and Carrie Brooks MacNeil’s Wedding Day.
Posted by: | Comments
By The original uploader was TonyTheTiger at English Wikipedia.(Original text: en:User:TonyTheTiger) – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3588095
They had a wedding reception in the Marquette Building in the Studio of Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
The Brooks of Winnetka, Illinois hosted the reception for Carol (“Carrie” to her friends) and the “happiest man in the world” – her new husband – “Hermon Atkins MacNeil”.
Carrie’s father and mother, Alden F. and Ellen T. (nee, Woodworth) Brooks lived at 518 Elder Lane, Winnetka. He was a portrait painter for whom President William McKinley once sat. Hermon would later sculpt the memorial statue of William McKinley at the Columbus, Ohio Capitol Building. McKinley was assassinated in 1901 at the Buffalo Worlds Fair.
Carrie preferred sculpture to painting, though she grew up in her parents home with a great awareness and appreciation of the arts and Chicago community, and the Chicago Art Institute.

A 2019 photo of the home where Carrie Brooks parents lived when he died at 93 years of age in 1932. The home still stands at 436 Elder Lane and Woodlawn avenue, in the north shore Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois. The neighborhood appears very original and well maintained even today. They lived elsewhere in Hyde Park when they hosted the wedding reception for Carrie and Hermon 124 years ago.
Happy Christmas Memories
Merry Christmas
and
Happy Anniversary
( X 124) to the MacNeil Sculptor Couple
our favorite Christmas Coupe Today!
Invitation below…
↓
I never met Hermon MacNeil.
I never met my maternal grandfather, Tom Henry McNeil.
ALL OF LIFE and our family histories are filled with people we HAVE NEVER MET.
In 2014 I wrote an article for the MacNeil Clan Magazine,
The Galley.
I include the the pages and the text of that article below in this post:
The photos can also be viewed in this previous post.
Hermon Atkins MacNeil – American Sculptor – (1866-1947)
MacNeil Clan history, like all family history, is filled with people we have never met. One MacNeil who has always fascinated me is Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Researching “Uncle” Hermon has also led me to another amazing man, Robert Lister MacNeil. Both men were present when the Clan MacNeil Association was formed ninety-three years ago.
MacNeil kinsman.
On May 26, 1921, the Clan MacNeil Association of America was organized in New York City. Central to that moment were Robert Lister MacNeil, (The MacNeil of Barra – 45th Chief of the Clan), and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, a sculptor, who served as the clan’s first president. At that time, Robert Lister was 32 years of age, a practicing architect in New York City, and a veteran of the First World War. He had succeeded to the chiefship of the Clan MacNeil just six years earlier. His dreams of the Isle of Barra and restoring Kisimul Castle (as told in his book The Castle in the Sea) were but faint hopes that would await decades and the efforts of many MacNeils for their accomplishment.
Dan “Neil” Leininger in a MacNeil kilt at Kisimul Castle, Isle of Barra, Scotland 2014. WHAT A TOUR it was!!!
His other kinsman was Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Hermon was the older of the two, an accomplished sculptor, also practicing in New York City, he had already created a myriad of statues, sculptures, monuments, as well as, the U.S. Standing Liberty Quarter first minted in 1916. Although these two MacNeils were 23 years apart in age, they were both trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, a school for architects and sculptors in the Classic Greco-Roman styles. A lasting bond between them formed through their shared artistic talents, professional skills, and years of Clan MacNeil activity.
Hermon MacNeil designed a bronze plaque that was unveiled and dedicated on May 28, 1928 on the campus of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs, NC. The plaque commemorated the 1735 landing of Neil MacNeil of Jura, Scotland with 350 followers. This group made up mostly of clan members landed at the Cape Fear Settlement in North Carolina. The plaque was placed on a red granite stone and marked another clan project shared by these two men.
In his later years, Robert Lister stated: “Hermon was an outstanding sculptor and one of my dearest friends all the rest of his life.” In 1970, six years after publishing those words, Robert Lister MacNeil died at the age of 81. Twenty-three years earlier (in 1947), Hermon Atkins MacNeil had died, also at the same age of 81. All of the above was discovered as I “searched for Uncle Hermon.” I never met either of these two MacNeil men. The more I learn of them both, the more striking I find the parallels in their lives.
MacNeil roots. The third MacNeil man that I never met was my own grandfather, Tom Henry McNeil (1860-1932). Whenever my mother spoke of her father or of her “Uncle Hermon,” I would see a certain smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye. Emotionally, recalling her McNeil memories seemed to take her to “a very pleasant place.” On the MacNeil family tree, her father and Hermon MacNeil were first cousins. But “Uncle Hermon” was what the whole family always called him and what he always considered himself to be. Though she did not share them often, my mother’s stories instilled in me a sense of “wonder” about these two “MacNeil” men.
Genetically, my mother gave all of us six children her MacNeil biology, but when I first realized that my parents also gave me the middle name of “Neil,” I felt some extra portion of my Scottish ancestry. That feeling has only grown as I get older. My grandfather McNeil died before I was born. I was just two years old when Hermon MacNeil died. Now as an old man myself this MacNeil heritage and my memories of the sparkle in mother’s eyes have expanded my interest in these three MacNeils, and in the many other MacNeils that I have yet to meet.
MacNeil pursuits. So I am pursuing my MacNeil Clan interests in several ways. In 2010 I formally began searching for “Uncle Hermon” by building a “digital gallery” of the life and work as a sculptor. I built HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com, a website dedicated to making his sculpture and career available to the world. A web search of the name “Hermon MacNeil” will take you there. His sculptures, statues, monuments are scattered from Washington, DC to Portland, Oregon, and from New York City to Gallup, New Mexico. Now this virtual gallery features over 500 photos and 125 stories of Hermon MacNeil’s life and work. There you can see his statues of George Washington from Washington Arch, NYC; Ezra Cornell at Cornell University, William McKinley at Columbus, Ohio; Abraham Lincoln at Champaign, Illinois; Pony Express at St. Joseph, Missouri; Pere Marquette in Chicago; and monuments in Philadelphia, Charleston, Albany, and Flushing, and dozens of other cities.
In 2013 I became a member of the Clan MacNeil Association of America. I did not know its existence until I saw the 1928 news story of the MacNeil plaque dedication in Red Springs. For the last three yearsI have shared “MacNeil stories” at our annual family reunion of my siblings and our children and grand children. In August 2013 I went to my first Highland Festival. My nephew in Colorado told me about the attended the Longs Peak Scottish Irish Highland Fest in Estes Park. What a great celebration of Celtic pride and heritage.
Donna and I have booked our spots on the 2014 MacNeil Clan Tour of Scotland. We reserved our passage before I received the Fall/Winter issue of The Galley with Rory MacNeil’s invitation to the World Gathering of the Clan MacNeil on the Isle of Barra from August 4-7, 2014. We hope to meet some of you there this summer.
- I joined Clan MacNeil Association I have attended the 2013 Estes Park Highland Fest
- I have booked spots for Donna and I on the 2014 MacNeil Clan Tour of Scotland
- I continue to research HAM