Category Archives: Paintings

Who is Mary Julia Churchward? Part 2

Posted on February 15, 2026 | Comments Off

In part 1, background information on James’ legal wife (and my great-grandmother) was presented.

When I visited Joan Griffith late last century, she gave me three things. (I gave her my copy of “Books of the Golden Age.”):

Photocopy of the entire original My Friend Churchey and His Sunken Island of Mu
A copy of “Egypt” – a collection of Egyptian deity drawings penned by James
A badly damaged drawing by James that was filed away until recently rediscovered.

James wrote an article for Recreation magazine in March of 1895 entitled, “Indian Joe, A Tale of the Thousand Islands.” This was presented in another blog posting in 2010 and was accompanied by the following illustration:

The recently rediscovered (and badly damaged) painting is below:

Anyone familiar with Florida will recognize the drawing was stored in an unsealed garage for some time.

In my research, I discovered that Mary Julia also had illustrations in the same edition of Recreation magazine, unfortunately unsigned. Although we do have two known examples of how she signed her drawings.

Now the initials/signature at the bottom of the ‘Too Bad’ drawing look at a whole lot like the one Mary Julia used in our examples. Also, I have never found a newspaper article or other document that showed James had a middle initial. Census documents show his two elder brothers had middle initials, but not James. I have seen videos where he has been awarded a middle initial, but his parents never gave him one and that is what counts.

The initials at the bottom of James’ Silver Hook painting (link 2):
(signed by James on the back of the painting.)
In the 1927, Books of the Golden Age, many of the drawings have the following:

In the 1930 painting “Seaside Cove,” the initials look like:

There is no flourish on the “J” in the initials or signature of James’ other paintings.

So my perplexing issue is “What is the “M” doing in the initials/signature on paintings identified as being by James Churchward?”
Is there some explanation other than the possibility Mary Julia did the painting instead of James or maybe James wanted to either provoke or compliment his estranged wife. In 1895, he had yet to marry anyone else, could he have tried to attempt to return to her good graces?

Tell me your theory in the comments or send along an email.

Have a great day.

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Posted in James' life apart from the Lost Continent of Mu, Paintings

Who is Mary Julia Churchward? Part 1

Posted on February 8, 2026 | Comments Off

Mary Julia Churchward

James Churchward married Mary Julia Stephens on December 18, 1871 in Kensington at St. Georges Church. Mary Julia had inherited her father’s tea plantations in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon.)

Shortly thereafter in the October 15th 1872 Edition of the ‘Overland Ceylon Observer’ announced under Domestic Occurences, Births:

“At Parragalla Estate, Gampola, Oct. 9. Mary Julia, wife of J. Churchward. Esq., of a Son.”

The son mentioned is my grandfather, Alexander Churchward, whose obituary is shown below:

The sad facts I have been able to put together are:

James and Mary Julia were estranged after 1881.

James lost his wife’s tea plantations, was arrested by the authorities, and escaped dressed as a “coolie.” (the term used in the correspondence)

James’ brother Albert helped support Mary Julia and my grandfather.

My father told me that James was persona non grata at his home and not even mentioned (and Mary Julia lived in the same house for six months every year.)

Mary Julia was an artist as well and made her living from it. The following are examples:

Here is a closeup of her initials at the bottom of her drawings:

This presentation of initials actually raises some perplexing issues which I will cover in the next part.

As an aside, James resided with the Haier family (Mother Carolin and daughters Harriet, Pauline, Minnie and Louise) beginning in 1907. Later James received a large patent infringement settlement and “Mrs Louise (Haier) Churchward” purchased 7.22 acres on Lake Wononskopomuc in Lakeville, Connecticut in July 1914 where James, Louise, Harriet and her son, Howard Keresey lived until 1922. That year they moved to Mount Vernon, New York.