History of Sandy Hook, (Fairfield County) Connecticut United States of America

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William Hamilton Gibson, artist and author, was born in Sandy Hook, Conn., Oct. 5, 1850; son of Edmund Trobridge Hastings and Elizabeth Charlotte (Sanford) Gibson of Boston, Mass.; and great-grandson of Chief-Justice Richard H. Dana of Cambridge, Mass He was educated at The Gunnery, Washington, Conn., and at the Polytechnic institute of Brooklyn, N.Y., and in 1870 determined to devote himself to illustrating. He was self instructed in art, receiving his first encouragement in this direction from Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, but was discouraged by Mr. Parsons, head of the art department of Harper & Brothers. He finally obtained a foothold as a specialist in botanical drawing and became connected in this capacity with the American Agriculturist and the Hearth and Home. He also illustrated botanical articles in the "American Cyclop?dia" He was for a year engaged on the Art Journal, was one of the illustrators of "Picturesque America" and also illustrated for Harper's Magazine. He contributed regularly to the Water-color exhibitions after 1872. He was married in 1873 to Emma Ludlow, daughter of Charles Augustus Ludlow Blanchard of Brooklyn. N.Y. He became a member of the Water-color society in 1885, receiving the prize for his painting "Evening Red" in the exhibition of February, 1885. He was also a member of the Art union, the Salamagundi, Barnard and Authors' clubs and the Century association. His Autumn Study was exhibited in London in 1873. He illustrated, among other books, The Heart of the White Mountains (1882); Nature's Serial Story (1885); Pictorial Edition of Longfellow (1875), and ln Berkshire with the Wild Flowers. He had a winter studio in Brooklyn, N.Y., and one in summer in Washington, Conn. He wrote and illustrated Camp Life in the Woods (1876); Pastoral Days (1881); Highways and Byways (1883); Happy Hunting Grounds (1886); Sharp Eyes (1890); Strolls by Starlight and Sunlight (1891); My Studio Neighbors (1896); and Eye Spy (1897); and an illustrated botany, left incomplete. His lectures on "The Mysteries of Flowers" were illustrated by mechanical charts invented and patented by him which exhibited the insect entering the flower to gather the honey and coming out decorated with pollen to be carried to anothter flower. He painted A Brook Meadow; Washington Valley; The Edge of the Woods and other studies from nature. He died in Washington, Conn., July 16, 1896. His biography was written by John Coleman Adams (1901).

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Sandy Hook, (Fairfield County) Connecticut

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