H. Pruett Share – from son of a Forty-Niner to Manhattan artist
Henry Pruett Share was born 29 June 1853 in Monterey County, California, as he stated on his passport application of May 1888. He was the son of Miranda Sinclair and Henry Johnson Share.
[U. S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, database with images at Ancestry.com. Roll 304 – Applications 01 May 1888-10 May 1888. Citing NARA Microfilm Pub. M1372, General Records Dept. of State, Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington, D. C.]
His birthplace was perhaps more likely Santa Cruz County. Records place his father in Santa Cruz in the 1854 timeframe. And his mother’s uncle, Prewitt Sinclair, had lived in Santa Cruz from about 1843.
Henry J. Share arrived in California in 1849, after traveling with his brother-in-law Clayton Sinclair in the “Fort Smith and California Emigrating Company.” For more on this journey see Clayton’s page.
Henry and Miranda married in Fort Smith, Arkansas, 9 September 1847. Miranda stayed behind in Arkansas while her brother and husband joined the rush to California in 1849. In the 1850 census she is living in Fort Smith in the household of a John Carnall or Carroll (no known relation).
Miranda Sinclair Share and her sister Julia Sinclair Jeter, with her family, traveled to California in 1852, which was a peak year for westward emigration. Henry and Clayton must have written home encouraging Miranda and Julia to join them, seeing California as providing better opportunities than Arkansas. The siblings Clayton, Miranda, and Julia had in 1848 sold their considerable Fort Smith property inherited from their parents Robert and Ann Sinclair, for $3600 in total. So they had funds to outfit for the journey.
[Quit claim deed, dated Jan.-Feb. 1848, in which Clayton and his sisters sell their Fort Smith property to John H. T. Main and George S. Birnie. Recorded in Deed Book K, p. 302, Sebastian County, Ark. and in Book H, p. 508-509, Crawford County, Ark. Details of this deed record are in Clayton Sinclair’s chapter.]
The Sinclair siblings also had an uncle who had been in California for a number of years – Fuller Prewitt Sinclair, living in the Santa Cruz area since as early as 1843. Undoubtedly they felt more confident about making the trip to California having heard news and stories from Prewitt Sinclair. They also knew they had someone who would welcome them to their new home and who could probably help them get started with their new life in California.
Miranda and Julia would likely have arrived in California in the late summer or early fall of 1852. I am confident they would have made their way to Santa Cruz, to establish contact with Prewitt Sinclair. Henry and Miranda obviously reconnected at this time, since their son Henry Pruett Share was born in June 1853. Henry Share is documented in Santa Cruz County in 1854, on a county poll list, and also as the postmaster of Santa Cruz in 1854.
Miranda carried forward the “Pruett” (Pruitt / Prewitt) name in naming her son, to honor her uncle or her grandmother Rebecca Pruitt (or both). The name persists also among Julia’s descendants. And indeed Prewitt Sinclair was the namesake of at least one of his Santa Cruz neighbors, Frank Prewitt Sinclair Daubenbiss. I interpret that as testimony to the influence and respect that Prewitt Sinclair had in Santa Cruz among his friends and family. (See Prewitt Sinclair’s chapter for more on Frank Prewitt Sinclair Daubenbiss.)
A note on spellings: The names Sinclair and Pruitt are found with a multitude of spellings in the genealogical and historical record. Henry Pruett Share seemed to standardize on H. Pruett Share in his professional life. I have standardized on Prewitt Sinclair in my notes for his uncle, since that is the most common form found in Santa Cruz records, though he is found as Pruett, Prewitt, Pruitt and Sinclair, St. Clair, and all other possible variant spellings.
Sadly, Miranda and Henry Share were divorced in 1859, in proceedings recorded in Amador County. See Miranda’s page for further details. In the 1860 census, the seven-year-old Henry Share is living in Tulare County with the family of his aunt Julia, who has by this time married a second time to John Whittaker. I have not found Miranda Share in the 1860 census; my guess is that she may have been in transit after traveling to Sacramento and Amador County for the divorce, and missed by the census-taker. Or perhaps I will find her one day, with more creative census searches.
Another decade on, in the 1870 census, we find seventeen-year-old Henry Share in San Francisco, listed as apprentice to an engraver. He is actually enumerated twice in 1870. He is shown living with George S. and Myra Dickey in a Montgomery Street boarding house. And he is also listed in the household of Warren C. Butler, a wood engraver. This Warren Butler was an engraver for the mint in the 1860s and a cable car conductor in the 1870s, dying in 1879. [Edan M. Hughes, Artists in California: 1786-1940 (San Francisco: Hughes, 1986).]
As indicated by the 1870 census, Miranda (or Myra, as she seems to write her name in her later years) has remarried to San Francisco pharmacist George S. Dickey by 1870. To carry her life forward, see Miranda’s page.
City directory entries (accessed at Ancestry.com) are an interesting way to trace the progress of Henry’s career (as well as his addresses).
Sometime between 1873 and 1878, Henry made his way from San Francisco to New York, and I find him in an 1878 New York City directory – Henry P. Share, artist, living at 28 E. 14th.
In the 1880 census, he is living in what looks like a rooming house, an “illustrator on wood,” in company with several other artists (a “pen and ink sketcher,” a “designer of fashion plates,” and a couple of “painters”).
It would be fascinating to hear how young Henry’s artistic talents were recognized and nurtured in 1860’s California. It turns out that our Henry, or H. Pruett Share, as he preferred, became quite well known as an artist, engraver, illustrator in the New York art scene of the late 19th century.
The following 1892 sketch of his life gives a glimpse into his upbringing. The survey article from which the sketch is taken includes photographs of the artist and his studio—a genealogist’s dream come true!
[Richard H. Titherington, “American Illustrators.” In Munsey’s Magazine, volume VI, October 1891 to March 1892, pp. 281, 282, 287 (New York: Frank A. Munsey & Company, publishers, 1892).]
Another biography from 1906 gives more detail, and the photograph here includes a reproduction of his signature. Some biographical / genealogical details are not quite right in this bio, but hopefully my research notes presented here will help set the record straight. [The Memorial Cyclopedia of the Twentieth Century, comprising memoirs of men and women who have been instrumental in the progress of the industries, professions, arts, literature, legislation, society and charities of the United States (New York: The Publishing Society of New York, 1906). Biography of Henry Pruett Share is on pages 352-353.]
The photo above was copied from an eBay listing from November 2017 of a collection of family photos. It looks as if it may have been taken in the same session as the one used in the biographical sketch.
It is fairly easy these days to find images of Pruett’s artwork on the internet. Many of his illustrations are in a sentimental Victorian style that was probably quite suited to the publications in which they appeared, though today they appear very old-fashioned. Clearly he was successful pursuing his passions, and the publications of his day give credit to his successful artistic career.
With my art critic hat on, I am impressed with his skill as an engraver. I have seen several images of etchings after works of other artists. In fact I am happy to own a print of an 1886 winter scene. I am not sure if the image is original to Pruett, or a copy from another artist. The print includes both the “H. Pruett Share” signature as shown above under his photograph, and another monogram-style signature like this:
The work below, also in my possession, has a rather unusual subject matter of a window washer in the wind. I believe it is a gouache / drawing rather than an engraving.
Illustration, “Jenny’s Cow”, from The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Other Stories (New York: McLoughlin Brothers, 1903), accessed at http://elephantadvice.wordpress.com/tag/henry-pruett-share/
“Companions” – image from Catalogue of the New York Etching Club Exhibition…Held at the National Academy of Design, New York, 1888 (printed by John C. Rankin Jr., 34 Cortlandt Street, New York)
Illustrations from Old Caravan Days, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood (Boston, D. Lothrop and Co., 1884).
A print illustrating a snowball fight — taken from an eBay listing:
As his biographies indicate, Pruett was married to Selena Waud on 7 July 1883, in New Jersey. [New Jersey, Marriage Records, 1670-1965, accessed at Ancestry.com. Henry P. Share married Selina V. Wand, 7 July 1883, S. Orange, Essex Co., N. J. (as transcribed at Ancestry.com); FHL film 000495699.]
Selena was the daughter of noted artist Alfred Waud, whose other daughter Mary married artist Milton Burns. So Pruett Share’s professional and domestic life must have been dominated by art.
The 1900 census (Kings Co., N.Y., Brooklyn) shows the family of Pruett and Selena Share. They had a daughter Leonora, born in 1884, and a son, Henry Pruett Share Jr., born in 1889.
His daughter Leonora’s engagement notice is interesting for the parenthetical aside about the fame of her father.
Pruett died fairly young, in June 1905. The 1905 New York state census record below (Brooklyn) must have been recorded very shortly before his death.
Obituary in New York Tribune, 22 June 1905, p. 8 (available at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) — Henry Pruett Share, a well known artist and newspaper man, died yesterday at his home, No. 14 Winthrop St., Flatbush, after an illness of six weeks. He was fifty-two years old and was born in Los Angeles Cal. Share had been art editor of The New York Herald and of The New York World. He was on the art staff of The New York American at the time of his death. He leaves a wife, one son, Henry Pruett Share Jr., and one daughter, Mrs. Edward A. Kracke. The funeral will be held today at 10am at his home, the Rev. Dr. Britton of Trinity Church officiating. He will be buried in Trinity Cemetery, at 13th St. and Amsterdam Ave.
Descendants of H. Pruett Share
I have traced the descendants of H. Pruett Share with some success. The PDFs below contain family group sheets showing records I have found for this family.
(above) Photo of Henry Pruett Share Jr. from U.S. Applications for Seaman’s Protection Certificates, accessed at Ancestry.com — Application dated 6 February 1933, including a photo of Henry. Henry P. Share, 83 Plymouth St., Montclair N.J., born 30 May 1889 in New York, N.Y. Last ship was SS Endicott, where he was employed as 2d mate.
(above) Photo of Henry Pruett Share Jr. from about 1900, when he was about 11 years old. From a collection of family photos that were listed for sale on eBay in November 2017.
(above) Leonora Share Kracke, around 1905 when she married Edward Augustus Kracke, from the same eBay collection of family photos.
(above) Photo of Edward A. Kracke Jr. (grandson of H. Pruett Share). Accessed at Ancestry.com.
(above) Photos of Waud Kracke (great-grandson of H. Pruett Share). Accessed from obituaries at https://news.uic.edu/anthropologist-waud-kracke-74 (left) and http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2017/03/22/waud-hocking-kracke/ (right)
Sinclair Stories 