Photo: Gibbystuart, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gilbert Stuart was born in 1755 in a house beside the Mattatuxet River in Saunderstown, in what is now North Kingstown. His father, a Scottish immigrant, ran the first snuff mill in the American colonies on the ground floor.
The family moved to Newport, where young Gilbert started painting.
Becoming a portrait painter
Stuart went to London and studied with Benjamin West. He became a successful portrait painter in London and Dublin before returning to the United States in the 1790s.
He painted George Washington several times. The most famous, the unfinished Athenaeum portrait from 1796, is the source of the image on the one-dollar bill. He painted the first six presidents and many leading figures of the time.
The birthplace
Stuart died in Boston in 1828. His birthplace in Saunderstown is now the Gilbert Stuart Museum. Visitors can see the restored house, the working snuff mill, and a grist mill next door, set on a mill pond where herring run each spring.
The museum hosts events through the season and is a stop on many tours of North Kingstown history.
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