28 Facts About Seth Eastman

Seth Eastman was an artist and West Point graduate who served in the US Army, first as a mapmaker and illustrator.

Seth Eastman had two tours at Fort Snelling, Minnesota Territory; during the second, extended tour he was commanding officer of the fort.

Seth Eastman was notable for the quality of his hundreds of illustrations for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's six-volume study on the history of Indian tribes of the United States, commissioned by the US Congress.

Eastman and his second wife Mary Henderson Eastman were instrumental in recording Native American life.

Seth Eastman retired as a lieutenant colonel and Brevet brigadier general for disability during the American Civil War.

Seth Eastman was later reactivated when commissioned by Congress to make several paintings for the United States Capitol.

Between 1867 and 1869, Seth Eastman painted a series of nine scenes of American Indian life for the House Committee on Indian Affairs.

In 1870, Congress commissioned Seth Eastman to create a series of seventeen paintings of important US forts, to be hung in the meeting rooms of the House Committee on Military Affairs.

Seth Eastman completed the paintings in 1875, and eight still hang in the Senate Wing.

Seth Eastman was born on January 24,1808, in Brunswick, Maine, the eldest of thirteen children of Robert and Sarah Lee Eastman.

Seth Eastman was sixteen when he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1824.

Seth Eastman graduated in 1829 and entered the Army as a second lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Regiment.

Seth Eastman became an accomplished artist and used his skills in mapmaking and recording Army activities.

From 1833 to 1840, Seth Eastman was assigned to West Point, where he taught drawing.

In 1841, Seth Eastman was appointed commander of Fort Snelling and returned to Minnesota.

Seth Eastman painted and drew pictures of the Sioux villages of Kaposia and Little Crow, as well as settlements in present-day Scott, Wabasha, and Winona counties.

Captain Seth Eastman and his family settled in Washington, where their son Harry was born in 1854.

Seth Eastman began to work on what would be hundreds of pictures to illustrate the massive Schoolcraft study, published in six volumes from 1851 to 1857.

Seth Eastman's images recorded the empire's reach into the northwest and helped spur it on.

Seth Eastman was reassigned from Fort Snelling in 1832, soon after the birth of their daughter Winona.

Seth Eastman declared his marriage ended when he was reassigned, as was typical of many European-American men who abandoned Indian women and their children.

Seth Eastman married a Santee Sioux and had five children with him, dying at the birth of the youngest, later known as Charles.

Winona's eldest son Rev John Seth Eastman became a Presbyterian missionary at Flandreau, South Dakota.

Seth Eastman wrote several popular books about growing up in Dakota culture; some were translated into European languages and published on the Continent.

In 1835, while stationed at West Point, Seth Eastman married a second time, to Mary Henderson, daughter of a Southern surgeon and granddaughter of Commodore Thomas Truxton.

The couple had five children together, some born during Seth Eastman's extended assignment in the West when he returned to Fort Snelling for seven years as commanding officer.

Mary Seth Eastman collected traditional stories and legends during their time at Fort Snelling, as preparation for a later book which her husband illustrated.

Seth Eastman is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC.