Portrait of a Bostonian 

The John Singleton Copley painting of John Erving is part of the artist's significant body of work in Boston portraiture in the pre-Revolutionary period. Copley painted Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. He also painted several of the Erving children and extended family. His talents were in demand among the elite of Boston.

The Erving portrait was included in the Erving Town History published in 1983; if other images of him exist, they are not widely known. A small copy is framed in the Erving Town Hall. The original painting can be seen "up close and personal" in the Smith College Museum of Art, side by side with the portrait of his wife, Abigail.

Erving was approaching 80 when he sat for this painting. He had lived more than 10 years since Abigail's death, and would live more than 10 more. He had accomplished much, and would soon navigate the revolutionary period, and come out with his fortunes reasonably intact. The wig and fine clothing he chose for this portrait speak of wealth and British style. He is respected, about to pick up his quill and answer an important letter.

His grandchildren were growing up in Boston, Connecticut, and Maine in the 1770s, and by the time he died at 94 there would be descendants in England and Scotland as well. They would include merchants, men of science, and diplomats. John Erving outlived a son, two daughters and two sons-in-law, in addition to one daughter who died as an infant. Though still living, two sons who evacuated to England at the start of the Revolutionary War would never return to Boston.

John Erving made his fortune in shipping and in real estate. He was a very wealthy and powerful man. His position in the colonial government gave him the ability to purchase undeveloped land in western Massachusetts. The land he bought that would eventually bear his name, the Town of Erving north of the Millers River, remained nearly untouched until after his death. He made a profit on land he acquired in the towns of Wendell, Orange, Royalston, Granville and Gardner, and passed some to his heirs.

We can gain some insight into John Erving's state of mind as he drew to the end of his life by the words of his son, William, who would have been a witness to his father's decline. William wrote this request to his executors in his own will:

"whereas our Family have been known for a long time to have laboured under a severe Nervous Disorder which terminated for some time before previous to their Death in a Depreciation of their reason and Understanding. Item. And whereas I am at Present visited with all symptoms of that disorder that used to attend my Father, and as I have no reason to suppose but that my mind will be like an old worn out Lock as his was previous to his death and as I have all the reason to suppose that my mind will relapse into the same way. It is my will that if it should so happen and that in consequence of it, in my behaviour I do nothing Injurious to myself or fortune that they would consider me as a human being and indulge me in all things that may be requested to my comfort and Happiness."

John Erving's will mentions several valued servants, whom we may believe insured his comfort and happiness.