The Re Institute (one day only)
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
1395 Boston Corners Road, Millerton, New York
A large clay portrait of the local legend, the boxer and later NY politician,
John Morrissey aka "Old Smoke" 1831-1878
I've created his likeness from imagination and from a few images I found on line.
The portrait is conceived as how he might have looked the day after the famous brutal fight that took place in Boston Corners ......he is some what bruised and bloodied!
Morrissey secured the bareknukkle boxing championship in 1853 in a still-legendary 37-round brawl with title-holder Yankee Sullivan at Boston Corners, New York, near the Massachusetts line. It was a fight he probably lost by most measures, but one he won on a technicality in the midst of mayhem. "Old Smoke," as he was nicknamed after a barroom fight landed him on top of smoldering coals and convinced his audience he was impervious to pain, continued to fight until 1859.
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