Francis M. Drexel’s Early Years

Self-Portrait of Francis Martin Drexel, circa 1817. Purchased by The Drexel Collection (Drexel Museum). The Drexel Founding Collection. Drexel University. 2003.001.0003.

A map showing Francis M. Drexel’s travel route believed to be annotated by Sarah Drexel Fell Van Rensselaer, 1914–1916. “Map Showing Route of Journeys Described in Diary,” Journal of F. M. Drexel, 1826–1830. MC.00.001 Drexel Family Collection. Drexel University Archives. 20070290086.

Francis Martin Drexel’s young life was full of uncertainty. He was born into a family who had lived in the same town of Dornbirn, in the state of Vorarlberg, Austria, for generations. His father, Franz Joseph Drexel, left behind his diminishing inherited farm and became a merchant of some success. Francis was well educated in his early years, spending two years in Italy where he expressed his interest in painting. His father’s mercantile business failed and he became an innkeeper. Francis pursued art, apprenticing with a painter for three years. Political conflict would soon send young Francis’s life into further insecurity and lead to many years spent struggling to survive. In 1809, there was a Tyrolese uprising against the governments of Bavaria and France that was ultimately unsuccessful, and young men were conscripted to fight in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. Rather than face this forced military service, Francis ran from his hometown with his father’s aid. There began almost six years spent hiding out in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. He took odd jobs as he traveled, and in 1812 began studying painting again while working as a sign painter. After Dornbirn was declared part of Austria once again and Francis returned home, he did not stay for long. The young painter wanted a larger patron base and to see more of the world. He decided to move to the United States. 

Interested in learning more about Francis? Read original research by former Drexel undergraduate student Isabella Sangaline (’20).

Francis recounted many of these early adventures in a document written for his children:

“Having frequently conversed with children born in America from German parents, who were not able to say where their father or mother were from except from Germany, an ignorance, which could not do any honor to them nor their parents; made me anxious to live [leave] this my children that at least if they wish to peruse it, find who my parents were, and where and when I was born....”

Read more of Francis Drexel’s account, from the 1901 copy made by Katharine Drexel Penrose.

Francis did not intend to remain in the United States for longer than six years. Over time that intention shifted. He met and married Catherine Hookey and his reputation as a painter earned him a job as a painting teacher at a seminary. The Hookeys were an established family in Philadelphia with English Quaker and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. This family association led to a scandal when the husband of Catherine’s sister, who clearly disliked Francis, spread rumors accusing Francis of inappropriate conduct with his young women students. It is unknown whether this accusation was true, but it was cause for Francis to sue his brother-in-law and look elsewhere for work as his reputation in Philadelphia was tarnished. In 1826 he left Philadelphia for a voyage to South America, where he hoped to establish himself once again as a portrait painter.