John Steve Clow

American, 1810-1892

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John S. Clow was born in England in 1810. He had seven children born in Nova Scotia, Canada between 1834 and 1848. He was an artist in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1855 when he married Sarah Layton, his second wife, who was also from Nova Scotia. They were in Madison, Wisconsin the following year where he may have been a colorist for the Johnson & Fuller studio. An ad for the studio in which he attests to the quality of their work describes him as "recently from Boston, Mass., and formerly an ivory miniature painter in England, and who has had much experience in coloring Photographs." He was an artist and photographer in Madison into 1859. Between 1860 and 1866 he appeared in Milwaukee, alternately as a photographer or artist. He had retired to farming in Lyle, Minnesota in 1870, but owing to health, sold the farm in 1873 and left for California. He had settled in San Francisco by 1877. He appeared intermittently in the city directory there, though his wife, a dressmaker, is listed when he is not. He was alternately an artist or photographer. She died in 1887, aged 56, and he moved into the Old People's Home by 1890. He died there March 13, 1892.