A mystery that has intrigued me for years is a time-darkened nineteenth century photograph that sat in an elaborate frame in the old family farmhouse in St. Williams, Norfolk County. On the back of the picture is written “Mrs. Frederick Mabee.” This was reproduced in E. A. Owen’s 1898 book Pioneer Settlers of Long Point Settlement repeating the name, then for a circa 1910-20 painting by Norfolk County artist W. Edgar Cantelon whose work hangs in the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe. Mrs. Frederick Mabee would have been Levinah Pelham Mabee who was born in colonial New England about 1740. She married before 1769, Frederick Mabee who with his brothers and brothers-in-law took an active role on the Loyalist side of the American Revolution during the 1776 to 1783 period. After a decade in New Brunswick, Frederick and Levinah became pioneer settlers on Turkey Point, Charlotteville Township, Norfolk County in 1793. Frederick died soon after arrival in Norfolk leaving his widow to fend for herself in the wilderness. This story is told by R. Robert Mutrie in The Long Point Settlers Journal Volume 1, Number 2.

The problem found is that Levinah Pelham Mabee died in Charlotteville Township, Norfolk County on September 28, 1823, long before pictorial representations had been invented. The only possibility would be that the picture in the old farmhouse was a picture of a painting. This would then make Cantelon’s twentieth century work a painting of a picture of a painting.

The texture in the farmhouse picture does have some indication of an original being a painting. Levinah was said in family lore to have traveled back to Niagara during the first decade of the nineteenth century to deposit some family papers so she did get to places where she might have met an artist. The original picture to the left is in the possession of R. Robert Mutrie.