SHUMWAY, Henry Cotton, portrait painter, was born in Middletown, Conn., July 4, 1807. He attended the public schools; served as a clerk in his father's office until his twenty-first birthday, and at an early age produced pencil sketches, mostly portraits, of considerable promise. He attended the antique and life classes of the National Academy of Design in New York city, 1828–29; and established himself as a painter of miniature portraits on ivory in New York city in 1830, making transient visits to Washington Hartford, and other cities. About 1860 he engaged as a photographer in New York city, in addition to his miniature painting, in which he had gained a reputation that gave him the sum of$300 for a portrait upon five-inch ivory. He was a member of the New York state militia for thirty-five years: and aided in organizing the 7th New York regiment in which he wascaptain twenty-eight years. He became an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1831, and an Academician in 1832, and received a gold palette for the best miniature portrait in the art exhibition of the New York state fair in 1844. The subjects of his many portraits include: Henry Clay, Judge Storrs, Colonel Wadsworth, Daniel Webster, members of the Trumbull family, and a large head of Napoleon III., from life (1838). He died in New York city, May 6, 1884

Source Information:

Ancestry.com. Biographies of Notable Americans, 1904 [database online]. Orem, UT:

MyFamily.com, Inc., 1997. Original data: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. Twentieth Century

Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans. Volumes I-X. Boston, MA: The

Biographical Society, 1904.