Background
Cronin, David Edward was born on July 12, 1839 in Greenwich, New York, United States. Son of Eugene A. and Ellen Dora Cronin.
Cronin, David Edward was born on July 12, 1839 in Greenwich, New York, United States. Son of Eugene A. and Ellen Dora Cronin.
Studied and practiced law in New York City several years Studied art in London, Paris, Brussels, Dusseldorf and Antwerp, 1857-1860.
After studying the arts in Troy, New York, he moved to New York City in 1855. Cronin returned to the United States. in 1860, joined the army and worked for Harper"s Magazine. Civil War During the American Civil War Cronin was a Union officer and Provost Marshal of Williamsburg.
He authored a detailed history of Williamsburg during the civil war in 1864 in his book The Vest Mansion, Its Historical and Romantic Associations as Confederate and Union Headquarters (1862-1865) in the American Civil War.
He served as an officer of the New York Black Horse Cavalry for some time and wrote a "graphic story of the night his command waited transportation southward and slept on the platforms and the Market street pavement". He met with slaves and saw for himself the effect slavery had on their lives as well as the persecution of escaped slaves by federal commissioners in order to return them to their owners, based on the Fugitive Slave Acting of 1850.
Postwar career After the war, Cronin worked as a journalist in Binghamton, New York, as a lawyer in New York City and for a railroad company in Texas. In the late 1870s, he returned to New York, where he illustrated books
From 1879 to 1903, Cronin also worked as a political caricaturist.
One notable commission was to illustrate a two-volume book on the "Personal Memoirs of United States. Grant" with 255 original pen-and-ink and watercolor sketches. He spent the last 35 years of his life in Philadelphia where he died.
Served private, captain and brevetted major 1st New York mounted rifles in Civil war.