He was the youngest of 7 children born in 1875 into a farming family in Crown Point, Indiana. In 1901 he entered a 5 year training period at the Art Academy in Chicago, Illinois, Upon graduation he spent several years in California, after which he returned to Crown Point. After meeting Bessie Nourse’s brother, Laurie, who talked of the strawberry county in Bayfield so frequently painted by his sister, John decided to move in 1910 to Bayfield, Wisconsin, settling first on 40 acres near Sand Bay. In 1919 he married Ruby Wilson and shortly after they moved to 75 acres they purchased just south of Bayfield ar the junction of Highway 13 and County Road J. He settled into a life which allowed him to farm and paint the landscape of Lake Superior. He exhibited frequently in the Bayfield area, and at The Hoosier Salon at Marshall Field’s in Chicago, The Southern Calfornia Artists Exchange, The Douglas County Historical Museum, The Milwaukee Art Institute and Northland College, where he also was an art instructor. He was honored by inclusion in the 1949 University of Wisconsin book “Rural Artists of Wisconsin” which focused on thirty of the best lay, or non-professional artists in the state.