Portraits by George Caleb Bingham
Help Support the purchase of The Thread of Life, a personal picture painted by Bingham for his family.
We are conducting a fundraising campaign to defray the cost of the painting.
The State Historical Society of Missouri > Art Collection > George Caleb Bingham > Portrait Gallery
Robert Eaton Acock, ca. 1899-1861

Oil on canvas, 1852
acc. #1978-0206
Born in North Carolina, Acock also lived in Kentucky before emigrating to Missouri in the late 1830s. He served as representative from Polk County (elected 1838, 1840, 1852, 1854). He also served as the state senator of the Eighteenth District for one term, 1843-1847. Bingham probably executed this portrait while Robert Eaton Acock served in the Missouri legislature.
A large landowner and slaveholder, Acock also was delegate to the 1845 state constitutional convention and chairman of the 1860 Democratic state convention. He was also a member of the committee to locate the state insane asylum (1847).
This portrait was presented to the Society in 1978 by the Ralph D. Churchill family, of Dallas, Texas.
© The State Historical Society of Missouri