Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Cole, Thomas 1801-

Painter; born in Boltonle-Moor, Lancashire, England, Feb. 1, 1801, of American parents who had gone to England previous to his birth, and returned in 1819, settling in Philadelphia, where Thomas practised the art of woodengraving. He began portrait-painting in Steubenville, O., in 1820, soon wandered as an itinerant in the profession, and finally became one of the most eminent of American landscape-painters. He established himself in New York in 1825. The charming scenery of the Hudson employed his pencil and brush, and orders for his landscapes soon came from all quarters. From 1829 to 1832 he was in Europe, and on his return he made his home in Catskill, N. Y., where he resided until his death, Feb. 11, 1847. His two great finished works are The course of Empire and The voyage of life, the former consisting of a series of five, and the latter of four, pictures. He produced many other fine compositions in landscape and figures, which gave him a place at the head of his profession. Mr. Cole left unfinished at his death a series entitled The cross and the world, and was also the author of a dramatic poem and works of fiction.