Son of a Scottish immigrant, David G. Blythe was born May 9, 1815 in a forest clearing near East Liverpool, Ohio. At 16 he was apprenticed to a Pittsburgh woodcarver, later moved on to New York to enlist in the Navy as ship's carpenter. As a boy he had been good at drawing funny likenesses of his neighbors. When his enlistment was up he drifted back to his home town, set up as an itinerant portrait painter. In those pre-camera days that meant a steady living, a free & easy life.
Tall, lanky David Blythe...
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