Narrator: On the morning of June 1, 1858, 50 prominent American artists boarded a train at the Camden Street Depot in Baltimore. Among the artists was David Hunter Strother of Martinsburg, Virginia.

"It cannot be that the brightest, busiest, and freest people on earth who have built this vast temple to civilization in the western wilderness will ever rest until the work is crowned by the ennobling hand of art." —David Hunter Strother

Narrator: Among the artists was David Hunter Strother of Martinsburg, Virginia. Strother had studied art in New York and Europe, painted portraits to support himself, then returned home broke and despondent. He abandoned painting and began writing and illustrating travel stories for Harper's Magazine under the pen name Porte Crayon. The stories were immensely popular, and Strother soon became one of the highest paid writers in America.