John Christoper Gore (1806-1867)

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up at 8 Park Street. He was the grandson and nephew of painters. After graduating from Andover Academy and West Point in 1822, he studied art in Boston and exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum in 1828. From 1829 to 1832, he continued his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, living there at the same time as his celebrated brother-in-law, Horatio Greenough, who was a close friend. He had been a close friend of Daniel Webster, but they parted ways over conflicting opinions on slavery. He spent a further two years in Europe before returning to Boston in 1834 when he was elected a member of the National Academy and began exhibiting his portraits and landscapes at several of the most prominent galleries on the East Coast. In 1852, he moved his family to California, living between San Francisco and the Rancho El Pescadero, a 4,448-acre ranch in Monterey County that he bought for $45,000 from Maria del Carmen Barreto Garcia Madariaga. He later retired to Roxbury, Massachusetts, but his children remained in California.