Part 2: Colonel Henry Stanley Todd, The Priory, and the Nazarene

When we left off last week, Colonel Henry Stanley Todd was garnering great acclaim for his artwork, “The Nazarene.” 

In the April 17, 1933 issue of Time magazine, he was described as “by no means an obscure country gentleman.  The Pope knows of him.  So does the Bishop of Liverpool, the King of the Belgians and many a U.S. clergyman.”  Colonel Todd invited the world to his home in Dix Hills, “The Priory,” for an Easter dawn service and viewing of the famous painting.

With Todd’s permission granted, Long Island churchmen began planning a sunrise service on the south meadow of the Priory for Easter Sunday. An article in the March 17, 1933 Long-Islander described the location: “The broad south meadow at The Priory rises in a gentle slope northward, affording ideal conditions for a Sunrise Service. During the World War its level portion served as an airport, but this in no way impaired its pastoral quality. It is this quality that makes it a singularly appropriate setting for the commemoration of the Resurrection of Our Lord in that far off pastoral land nearly two thousand years ago.” 

The service for Easter Sunday, April 16, 1933, was scheduled to begin at 5:29 a.m., just as the sun began to rise. “The ‘Sunrise Easter Service Special,’ a special train for those coming from New York and Brooklyn, arranged for by courtesy of the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads is scheduled to leave Pennsylvania Station and Flatbush Avenue Station, Brooklyn, at 3:45 a.m… special weekend rates of $1.65 have also been arranged for… Huntington buses will meet the train, and convey guests to and from Dix Hills,” as reported in the April 7, 1933 Long-Islander. 

Hundreds of singers, many of whom were locals who volunteered, joined in with several trumpeters to rejoice in Christ’s resurrection.  After the ceremony, all were welcomed to view “The Nazarene,” which was on display in Colonel Todd’s studio, where it had been painted. The painting would remain on view until 2 p.m.  A guard would always be the painting, which was insured at $50,000.

A few days before the ceremony, on April 14, the Long-Islander announced that “private relief in the town of Huntington, the Federation of Churches of Greater New York and the Federation of Churches of Brooklyn will profit from the funds collected at the Easter Dawn Service….”  (The event was free to all, but an offering was collected.) 

This statement was part of a larger address that Colonel Todd made to the town board in which he invited the members of the town council to attend the service as guests of the Todds and to join them for breakfast afterward.  The town board accepted the invitation. 

At the same town board meeting the traffic plan for the service was unveiled.  There was extensive police coverage all over the town of Huntington.  And some police were mounted on motorcycles so they could go on a moment’s notice if a traffic snarl developed somewhere along the route.  Everyone was to be at his or her post no later than 4:30 a.m. 

It was planned and executed to great success, and the April 21, 1933 Long-Islander declared: “With a setting which is hard to visualize from mere word description, an Easter dawn religious service was held at ‘The Priory’… and it was attended by thousands of residents from Long Island, and other sections of New York State and surrounding states.” 

The article goes on to discuss the Nazarene painting and the “new conception of Christ” it portrayed. Finally, the article outlined the program for the service, which began with “The Call of the Dawn,” done by trumpeters form Huntington and Cold Spring Harbor.  The author concluding that it was a triumphant success and inspiration to everyone from all spiritual tenets.  The sunrise service was repeated in 1935.

“The Nazarene” had become such a phenomenon that it was put on display at the Chicago World’s Fair Hall of Religions, and black-and-white prints of it were sold. The September 11, 1933 Time magazine, in a critique of the lack of innovative religious displays at the fair, singled out “Colonel Henry Stanley Todd’s virile portrait of Christ” as a notable exception. Todd followed up his success with a second painting of Christ called “Immortality.”  That painting was first put on view in Hollywood, CA at the Roosevelt Hotel for the benefit of the Will Rogers Memorial Fund, according to the December 12, 1935 Suffolk Daily Island News.

Just two years later Colonel Todd decided it was time to leave Dix Hills, and the April 18, 1937 New York Times reported that “the 102-acre estate, known as the Priory, of Colonel H. Stanley Todd, portrait painter, on Old Country Road at Dix Hills, Huntington, LI, has been placed on the market through J. Edward Breuer, Inc.  A two-story early American farmhouse, a barn converted into a studio and several outbuildings are situated on the property.  A large lake, bridle paths, orchards and gardens are other features of the estate, well known to churchgoers for the Easter dawn services held there.” 

So what happened next to the Priory, to Henry Stanley Todd, and to his paintings?  Tune in next week to find out!