In 1839 Judge Daniel Pierce Thompson wrote his most famous work of fiction. Printed locally in 1840 and nationally in 1848, his novel, The Green Mountain Boys, served to educate the nation about Vermont’s early struggle for independence. Supposedly created from first-person accounts gathered by the author in his youth, this romantic and patriotic tale follows the fictional Captain Warrington and his trusty sidekick Selden from the land wars with New York through the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and the War for Independence. As a Green Mountain Boy, Warrington, based almost completely on Seth Warner, takes part in many of the early Vermont legends and interacts with such historic personages as Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, Ira Allen, Thomas Chittenden, and Benedict Arnold. In addition to action, the novel also features a love story between Selden and Alma Hendee, the daughter of a retired British army captain and based on the author’s own daughter by the same name. By the 1920s this book was considered a classic and the publishing firm of Thomas Nelson & Sons decided to release an illustrated version in its Honor Books line for young adults. The publisher commissioned eight illustrations from the artist Carle Michel Boog (1877-1968), who had previously illustrated their very popular edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Boog was born in Lucerne, Switzerland, but moved as a young child to Brooklyn, New York, where his father was employed painting murals in such houses as Gracie Mansion. Educated in both New York and Paris, Boog chose to live the majority of his life in the family home in Brooklyn. He is most noted for his illustrations, but he also maintained an active studio producing paintings and sketches that can be seen in a number of museums today. After the 1927 version of The Green Mountain Boys was released, the publisher donated the original artwork for the illustrations to the brand-new Bennington Museum. Though probably not the first items put on display, these watercolors on illustration board received the first official accession numbers in the museum. In our catalog they are numbers one through eight.