You’ve probably never heard of Joseph Michael Gleeson – but a hundred or so years ago, he achieved a fair amount of fame for his artwork.
And for a time, Gleeson lived here in Ashburn in a cottage on the banks of the Goose Creek. It’s also where he died.
We went on a deep dive trying to find out more about this local man, but, sadly, a century later, details are few and far between.
Our first stop was Wikipedia, the only sometimes reliable online encyclopedia. As it states, we can confirm that he was an American painter and illustrator.
We can also report that he did indeed illustrate one of the early editions of the book “Just So Stories” by the famed English author Rudyard Kipling. He also reportedly did illustrations for Kipling’s most famous work, “The Jungle Book.”
In a letter from 1912 that Kipling wrote to his U.S. publisher Frank Doubleday about the latest version of “Just So Stories,” he stated: “I thought Gleeson’s illustrations were good when I saw them in proof, but in the book, they look even better.”
To read more about this mysterious artist’s life – and death – click here and head over to get the full story at the Ashburn Magazine website.