Mary Fish Silliman

Mary Fish Noyes Silliman Dickinson (1736 - 1818) Oil on canvas portrait, ca. 1795 shows seated figure from waist up; right arm leans on reddish brown table on which rest two books; Chippendale chair visible behind her; holds small volume in left hand; wearing dark grey dress, white kerchief, and black lace shawl, (the latter possibly made in Ipswich, Mass.), and a tall, stiffened white cap trimmed with white ribbon.;Hillside and Seaside) Mary Silliman(1736-1818) wife of militia Brigadier General Gold Selleck Silliman, was an eyewitness of the burning of Fairfield n July 7th and 8th, 1779. The British had kidnapped her husband prior to their invasion, when approximately 2,000 British Loyalists and Hessian soldiers marched on Fairfield, destroying the entire town center. Moulthrop probably painted this portrait in New Haven in 1794, four years after General Silliman's death.