Margery Eva Lang Hamilton (1907/8-1997), American
Injun Joe and Molly Looking out over Joe's Pond, 1934
OIL ON PANEL , 63 ½ x 206 inches (irregular)

Funded by a grant from the Public Works of Art Project of the Civil Works Administration

This mural is believed to portray the local legend of a St. Francis (Western Abenaki) Indian who was injured and therefore left behind by his tribe when they fled arriving set­tlers. Taken in by the settlers for the winter, Joe returned their kindness by warning them of impending danger, for which he was expelled from his tribe. Joe spent the rest of his days on an island in what came to be known as Joe's Pond in Danville, Vermont, until his death in 1819. In Lang's depiction, Joe and his wife Molly, look out from their island toward the setting sun, a common theme in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art symbolizing the gradual demise of Native American civilization.