▓PARA ¬PAR@ ` TEXT ` ⌠Fassett, Cornelia Adele Strong
1831╨1898
painter
Born in Owasco, New York, on November 9, 1831, Cornelia Strong was married to Samuel M. Fassett of Chicago in August 1851. Her artistic training was at the hands of teachers in New York City and in Europe, where she stayed for three years. In Chicago she won a large local reputation with her paintings, but her major career awaited her removal to Washington, D.C., in 1875. There the fame she gained as a hostess enabled her to win a great many prominent sitters for portraits, including three presidents╤Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield╤as well as Vice-President Henry Wilson and many more.
In February 1877 Fassett attended and painted the meeting of the Electoral Commission (appointed to settle disputed ballots in four states in the 1876 presidential election) in the Supreme Court chamber. Her finished painting, ╥The Florida Case before the Electoral Commission,╙ was an astounding piece of work, depicting faithfully some 260 prominent Washington figures engaged in or attending the hearing. The painting was subsequently purchased by Congress to be hung in the Capitol. In later years Fassett took up miniature painting. She died in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1898.
