Solon Doggett was born on April 19, 1845 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He was the eldest of three sons born to Reverend Theophilus Pipon Doggett and Elizabeth Bates Doggett. His younger brother, Frederick Doggett, was a Harvard educated physician who became a well known medical figure in the Boston area. In later years, Dr. Doggett provided both care and housing for his older brother after Solon became infirm, accommodating him at his home on East Broadway in South Boston.

In August 1872, Doggett purchased land and buildings on Union Street in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he maintained an art studio for most of his professional life. On August 28 of that same year, he married Sarah Harris Otis in Scituate. The couple remained together until Sarah’s death in Quincy during 1905. She was nearly fifteen years his senior.

Doggett was widely known during his lifetime as an author and poet. Between 1881 and 1897, he published numerous works of fiction and poetry, including Seaside Idyls, Tanganika and Other Idyls, Unseen Footsteps, Jumping Judas, and Victims of Mammon. In 1881, he published The Golden Cities, which he dedicated to Benjamin Champney, the artist with whom he studied landscape painting.

As a painter, Doggett worked primarily in oil, producing landscapes and seascapes, along with occasional religious subjects. A Boston Globe article from 1895 described him as a Quincy artist who favored local scenery over foreign study, noting that his work reflected the “deeper truths one gains by studying the wild scenes in the White Mountains, the lovely tints of autumn, the smile of the placid lakes and the grandeur of clouds and torrents.”

When Doggett was asked whether he intended to study abroad to learn French impressionism, he replied that impressionism held little appeal for him, stating “No, there is enough glory in the woods of Mount Washington to keep a really true artist painting a lifetime.”

The same newspaper account described Doggett’s home studio as containing a monumental painting measuring approximately seven feet by six feet, depicting a scene representative of the White Mountain hotels. The writer also noted the presence of forty to fifty smaller canvases, as well as a large religious painting depicting the Marriage at Cana. Overall, the reporter concluded that Doggett found his greatest inspiration in the woods and hills of New England.

After a prolonged period of declining health, Solon Doggett passed away quietly on December 16, 1933. There were no calling hours or funeral services. Despite his substantial contributions to American literature and landscape painting, his work and legacy had largely faded from public memory by the time of his death.

Reference
Independent research by the authors