J. B. Chevalier

1813 - 1870

BiographyJohn B. Chevalier, naturalist, professor and lithographer, born in 1813 in Lyon, France, was a partner in Wild & Chevalier, the Philadelphia lithographic establishment noted for the publication of John C. Wild's "Views of Philadelphia" (1838). Chevalier started his lithographic career in Philadelphia ca. 1837, probably as the manager in his partnership with Swiss-born lithographer John C. Wild. He assumed sole proprietorship of the business in 1838 and issued an expanded edition of the "Views" later that year. Listed in city directories as a lithographer until 1841, Chevalier also issued from 1840 to 1842 his friend J. J. Audubon's "Birds of North America" in miniature, illustrated with lithographs by J. T. Bowen.
In 1840 Chevalier lived at 40 (i.e., 100 block) Pine Street in the Locust Ward as the head of a household of 2 males under 5 years of age, a male between 20 and 30 years of age, and two females, one between 20 and 30 years of age and the other between 15 and 20 years of age. A year later he relocated to 56 South Twelfth Street. By the end of the decade, in 1848, Chevalier worked as a French teacher with a residence at 69 Locust Street and in January 1849 he received a passport in the city as a naturalized citizen. The reason Chevalier attained the passport is unknown, but by 1851 Chevalier had relocated to near San Francisco, California where he worked as a mining agent and later a professor of languages. He died on November 28, 1870 described in the San Francisco Bulletin as "a teacher of languages" and "an ardent naturalist, and a warm friend of Audubon..."

[From The Library Company of Philadelphia, accessed 10/31/2023: https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A78977]

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