biographie de William Henry MEYERS (1815-?)

Birth place: Philadelphia, PA

Profession: Amateur watercolorist

Studied: self-taught

Work: Franklin D. Roosevelt Lib., Hyde Park, NY; Bancroft Lib., Univ. Calif., Berkeley

Comments: Painted "The Taking of Monterey on October 20, 1842" (Bancroft Library) while serving as a gunner on the U.S. Navy Cyane during the seizure of Monterey by Commodore Jones. During the War with Mexico, while serving in California on the U.S. Dale, Meyers kept a sketchbook (Roosevelt Library) in which he recorded, in watercolor, scenes of the American conquest of California in 1847. Two years later Thomas B. Glessing (see entry) of Philadelphia painted a panorama of a voyage to California based on sketches taken by Meyers. Because of illness, Meyers retired from the Navy and went to work at the naval laboratory in Wash., DC.

Sources: G&W; Am. Processional, 26-27, 243; Van Nostrand and Coulter, California Pictorial, 51; Taft, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West, 253; N.Y. Herald, Sept. 12, 1849, and March 5, 1850 (citations provided G&W by J.E. Arrington). More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California; P&H Samuels, 340.