Edward Jump

Edward Jump (1831?-1883) was a French-American artist popular for his drawings and sketches in the United States during the mid-19th Century. St. Louis's first Veiled Prophet Parade, drawn by Jump, 1878. The Old Courthouse (St. Louis), is at the right. Biography Jump was born in Paris, France, around 1831. His early life is not well documented, but he emigrated to California in 1852, attracted to the United States by the California Gold Rush. He traveled in the Western United States, returned to Paris for a short time and then back to the U.S. The 1860 census listed him as a "portrait painter."

Jump remained active in San Francisco until October 1865, when an earthquake occurred. After moving to Washington, DC, in 1868, Jump became somewhat renowned for his artistic merits as a portrait painter. It was there that he met and married a French performer from a touring opera company.

In 1878, while working on sketches of the New Orleans Mardi Gras for the Frank Leslie's Weekly, Jump was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon when a pistol fell from his pocket and discharged. He pleaded guilty and a judge sentenced him to ten minutes in the parish prison.

Jump was living in St. Louis in 1878 and assigned to make sketches for Frank Leslie's Weekly of the first Veiled Prophet Parade and Ball when he was hurt badly by two hoodlums who took a wallet, a ring, and sketches of the ball. Nevertheless, Jump was able to finish his drawing of the parade (above), and it was published in the Weekly.

Finally, in 1880, Jump and his wife settled in Chicago, where he was just able to make a living by producing circus and theatrical posters.

Reputation

When Jump lived in San Francisco, California, in the 1860s, he was reputed to be the city's "favorite cartoonist." He roomed with Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the name Mark Twain. Michael G. Mattis of the Sacramento Bee wrote that Jump "had an eye for accurate detail, even when his aim was burlesque. One of the pleasures his audiences got from his drawings was that in crowd scenes it was always possible to recognize the faces of scores of notable San Franciscans."

Fellow artist Frank Bellew recalled that Jump once said of his career:

. . . one has to turn one's hand to everything. I draw caricatures for the bar-rooms, and do these big posters for the theaters, and make sketches for private individuals, and so on.

The Chicago Tribune said that Jump: The article described how Jump wrote two final letters, one addressed to his wife, and another to a lodge in St. Louis, where he was a member.

The letter to his wife read as follows:

The other read:

quote|text=20 April 1883. -- Gentlemen: I belong to the Lodge of Knights of Honor, No. 100 Oak Lodge, St. Louis, Mo. If I am disfigured don't let my poor wife see me. She is nervous, and it might kill her. I want to be buried by brothers.

Edward Jump. He was survived by his wife and daughter.

Family The woman with whom he was living in 1860 was named Rose Jump. She had been a prima donna with Napoleon's Italian opera company in Italy.

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