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Palmer Hayden’s paintings showed the people of Harlem and the streets of Paris, but his roots were in Stafford County.
Hayden was born in Widewater in 1890, as Payton Hedgeman. His name probably got changed when he was in the Army. It’s believed an officer mispronounced it or a white man who gave him a reference got it wrong.
Either way, Palmer C. Hayden is the name he used from 1920 on—and the signature on his work.
Hayden moved to New York City, where a wealthy patron recognized his talent—and paid for him to study in Paris for four years. He returned to America and started painting scenes of everyday people.
He’s best know for 12 paintings that depict the ballad of John Henry, the steel-driving man.
He was one of the most recognized artists of the Harlem Renaissance, a period of unprecedented creativity among blacks in the 1920s and ’30s. Yet he was relatively unknown in his hometown until the late 1990s, when a local art teacher arranged an exhibit of his work.
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by clicking on the names below. |
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• Gabriel Prosser, inspired by the Bible |
• John J. Wright devoted leader, reader |
• Urbane Bass, city doctor |
• Sadie Combs, first teacher at Snell
• Philip Wyatt,
• Palmer Hayden,
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• Venus Jones, First black graduate of MWC |
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petitioning for change |
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Sources: "A Different Story" by Ruth Coder Fitzgerald; HistoryPoint.org of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library; The Free Lance-Star archives; State of Michigan Web site; African Within; The Kennedy Center; We Were Always Free By T.O. Madden Jr.; The Richmond Times-Dispatch; Life Magazine; Westmoreland County, Virginia. |
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