James Abbot McNeill Whistler descended of Irish-American stock, was born at Lowell, Massachusetts in 1834. In pursuance of the military tradition of his family, he was sent at the age of 17 to West Point. He was neither a good student nor by nature amenable to the discipline of an academy by whose system, it has been boasted, young men from all parts and classes of America, as different one from another as men can be, are turned out at graduation as alike as peas in a pod. After trying to enter the Navy, he was employed as draftsman in the Coast Survey. A number of his coast profile etchings are still to be found on the marine charts published by the department.

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