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If you weren’t able to attend Dr. Robert Gross’s intriguing lecture on “The Minutemen and Their World,” the link to the lecture video is below. Thanks as always to Weston Media Center for filming and editing the lecture, and for making it available online.
Amazing Butterfly and Moth Drawings on Exhibit at Town Hall
Click on any image to view in slideshow
Among the Weston Historical Society treasures are two books of colored pencil drawings of butterflies and moths done by Edward Brenton Jennings. The books are now on display at Weston Town Hall (the exhibit has moved from Weston Public Library). In all, Jennings did 421 life-size drawings of 131 species of butterflies and moths in the five years between 1934 and 1939. Each is labeled with the species name and male/female symbol. The artistry is extraordinary.
E. Brenton Jennings (1888 – 1953) was the fourth of five sons born to Edward and Ella Brown Jennings. Beginning in 1880, Edward operated a dairy business on his family farm on Glen Road. His older brother Willard operated the Glen House Hotel, part of which survives at 245 Glen Road. The dairy and hotel are discussed in the book Farm Town to Suburb, the History and Architecture of Weston, Massachusetts, 1830 – 2020 (second edition) by Pamela W. Fox.
Brenton was deaf and mute. He attended the Horace Mann School for the Deaf on Newbury Street in Boston from 1893 until his graduation in 1908. It is not known where he learned magic, but he put on evening entertainments for his grandfather’s summer hotel guests. He corresponded by letter with Henry Houdini and wrote several articles for magic periodicals. He was said to be a brilliant man, fluent in English writing. His name appears in Magicpedia, a website on magic history, which notes simply that he was a deaf/mute amateur magician who did slight-of-hand magic and shadowgraphy to pantomime. His Magicpedia page lists five articles, four submitted to Goldston’s Magical Quarterly between 1935 and 1959 (for example, “Two Good String Tricks” in Autumn 1935) and another published in Sphinx in July 1940. Jennings was said to be emotionally disturbed and was institutionalized at Danvers State Hospital for 37 years, dying there in 1953. It was during these years that Jennings wrote the magic articles noted above and executed the two books of butterfly and moth drawings now in the society’s collection.
Researchers at Weston Historical Society are looking for the link between the Jennings drawings and the Denton Butterfly and Moth Collection at the Wellesley Historical Society. William and Elizabeth Denton moved to Wellesley in 1865. Their sons Willie and Winford established Denton Brothers, a firm that sold specimens and collections to museum and collectors. Their butterfly collection won gold and silver medals at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Another son, Sherman Foote Denton (1856 – 1937) was known for his faithfully colored specimens of fish. He also developed and patented the glass and plaster mounts used by his brothers for their butterflies and invented a process to transfer the scales from butterfly and moth wings to paper. In the 1890s he used this process to produce 500 copies of his four-volume work Moths and Butterflies East of the Rocky Mountains. Sherman and his family moved to Weston in 1901, first to Glen Road and then to nearby Oxbow Road. The couple’s son, Robert Baird Denton, was killed during World War I.
Did Sherman Foote Denton befriend young Brenton Jennings when Denton’s family moved to Weston in 1901? Jennings would have been around the age of the couple’s son, who was killed in World War I, probably not long after Brenton was institutionalized about 1916. Did Sherman get Brenton started doing the butterfly and moth drawings before Sherman died in 1937? Please contact the Weston Historical Society at info@westonhistory.org if you have any information.
Image descriptions
Following are descriptions of images shown in a slideshow on this page on E. Brenton Jennings and his work. All of the pages of drawings are labeled "Life-size."
- Studio photo of Brenton Jennings performing a magic trick, holding his left hand outstretched with metal balls held between each pair of fingers, and holding a wand with his right hand.
- Sketchbook cover annotated "Sketches - 142 butterflies - 44 species. 89 moths - 31 species. 1934–1937. Total - 231. E. Brenton Jennings, Artist."
- Sketchbook page from 1935 of drawings of moths: male Eacles nobilis, female Eacles didyma, male Saturnia mendocino, and female Agapema galbina.
- Sketchbook page from 1935 of drawings of male and female Ornithoptera williamsoni butterflies.
- Sketchbook page from 1937 of drawings of moths: male and female Automeris io, male and female Paonias astylus, male Haploa clymene, and male and female Haploa militaris.
- Sketchbook page from 1937 with a single drawing, of a very large-winged female Attacus atlas moth labeled as "from the Philippine Islands," filling most of the page.
- Sketchbook page from 1937 of drawings of butterflies, showing male and female of each species: Papilio eurymedon, Euptychia euryta, and Enodia portlandia.
- Sketchbook cover annotated "Sketches - 138 butterflies - 37 species. 52 moths - 19 species. Total - 190. 1938–1939. E. Brenton Jennings, Artist."
- Sketchbook page from 1939 of drawings of nine species of small butterflies, showing male and female of each species: Epargyreus tityrus, Ancyloxypha numitor, Chrysophanus hypophlaeas, Thecla acadica, Lycaena pseudoargiolus, Lycaena comyntas, Poanes pocohontas, Poanes hobomok, and Polites taumas.
Jump into 2025 with Weston Historical Society! Join us for:
An Evening of Fundraising and Fellowship at Beechwood Stables
Friday, January 10, 2025
Open house 6:30–9 PM.
Wine and beer, hors d’oeuvres, and dessert will be served.
Party theme: Wranglers & Rhinestones
$75 - Members
$100 - Non-members
Spaces are limited.
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We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you there!
The photo above is thought to date from the 1960s or 1970s, the heyday of the 1747 Farm Horse Show, which was held on the property now the site of Beechwood Stables. (Collection, Weston Historical Society)
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