Born in Missouri in 1843, William Samuel Parrott came west with his family to Oregon in 1847, and moved with them to Washington in 1859. By 1867 he had established himself as a painter in Portland, where he would maintain a studio for twenty years

Parrott painted throughout the West from California to Idaho, but is best known for his paintings of the major peaks in the Cascade Mountains, especially Mount Hood, which became his specialty. Another well known Oregon painter, Eliza Rosanna Barchus, who would also specialize in depictions of Mount Hood, took lessons from Parrott in Portland in the early 1880s, shortly before embarking on her own professional career.