Alban Jasper Conant

A member of the Conant family and a descendant of Roger Conant, Conant was born in Chelsea, Vermont to Caleb and Sally () Conant. His father was a sign and house painter. He married Sarah Mahala Howes in New York in 1845. The couple had four daughters and four sons, of whom only three of the daughters survived to adulthood. ==Career==

He graduated from Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary in 1844 and later took a degree from Madison (later Colgate) University in Hamilton, New York. In 1857, he and his wife moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he helped to found an art gallery. The Western Academy of Art was opened in St. Louis in 1860 as a fine art gallery. In addition to painting Abraham Lincoln, he also created portraits of some of Lincoln's cabinet officers; Attorney General Edward Bates and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Well-known portraits of his include portraits of Henry Ward Beecher, James McCosh, John Gilbert, General William Tecumseh Sherman and Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter. His portraits are owned and displayed by a number of American institutions. They can be found at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, United States Department of Justice, the Missouri Historical Society, Colgate University, Princeton University, Amherst College, Dickinson College, the State Supreme Court of New York, the New-York Historical Society, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. ==Works==

• "Switzler's Illustrated History of Missouri, 1541-1877" (1877) • "A Commonwealth of Missouri; A Centennial Record" (1877) • "Foot-prints of vanished races in the Mississippi valley : being an account of some of the monuments and relics of prehistoric races scattered over its surface, with suggestions as to their origin and uses" (1879) • "A Portrait Painter's Reminiscences of Lincoln" (1893) • "Portrait of William Carr Lane" • "The First Gun at Fort Sumter" ==References==