During the summer of 1876, Archibald Willard, a relatively unknown and "commercial and " artist, painted a picture which he called and "Yankee Doodle and ". When it was exhibited later that year at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, it took public imagination by storm. Almost overnight it became probably the best-known, best-loved painting in the country. Modern youngsters will relieve this exciting summer through the story of thirteen-year-old Will Colver, who lived at the Willard home in Cleveland during the weeks when the painting was being done, and who traveled to Philadelphia to see the picture hung at the exhibition.Will was a born newspaper man who, even at thirteen, ferreted out dramatic details in this magnificent story. In later life he became one of the founders of the Scripps-Howard newspapers.The author of Yankee Doodle Painter is the daughter of Will Colver, and has gathered most of her material directly from members of her own family. and "The Spirit of '76 and " in the Selectmen's Room of Abbot Hall in Marblehead was painted by Archibald M. Willard of Ohio. This painting symbolizing the spirit of the American Revolution, was exhibited at the nations 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and "stirred the heart of the nation and ". It was sent on tour of several major cities and then purchased by General John H. Devereux and presented to his native town, Marblehead, and " . . . whose history is so interwoven with Colonial and Revolutionary times and whose patriotism shone forth in every epoch . . . and "