Jasper Francis Cropsey was born on February 18, 1823,on his father’s farm in Rossville, NY, on Staten Island. He was the oldest of Jasper Cropsey’s eight children. At the age of 14 he won an award for a model house that he had built. He began his career as an architect, but began his career as an architect, but began painting shortly after.

 In 1842 Cropsey had begun to do landscape studies from nature.  A two-week trip to New Jersey produced two different paintings of Greenwood.  While in Greenwood, Jasper met Maria Cooley, and they were married in May of 1947.