Robert Lovett Jr. Biography



Robert Lovett, Jr.

Born: July 30, 1818, Philadelphia

1824:  Moved to New York City with his family.  Received an education in the Reade St. common school.

1834: Apprenticed to his father.

1839:  Moved to Philadelphia and began engraving on his own. 

According to McElroy’s Philadelphia Directory for 1839, he called himself an engraver on steel, and advertised his shop at 142 Chestnut St.   (N-YHS Dictionary of Artists in America 1534-1860 also puts Robert Jr. on his own as of 1839)

1840?  Married Amanda Morgan, b. 1814.

1841:  Birth of only child, Robert Keating Lovett, in Philadelphia. 

Advertised in the Episcopal Recorder of May 22, 1841:

Seals! Seals! Robert Lovett, Jr., No. 11 South Sixth Street, above Chestnut, Stone and Metal Engraver.  Coats of arms, initials and fancy devices engraved on stone or metal seals.  Seals engraved for corporate bodies, with appropriate devices.  Also pew and door plates, plated or brass, with other branches of engraving.

1857: Listed at 200 South Fifth St. in Edwin T. Freeley, “Philadelphia and its Manufactures”

1861: Advertised in the Philadelphia Inquirer (July 15) at 200 South Fifth St. “Books on heraldry can be seen at his establishment, containing many thousand names, coats of arms, crests, initials, &c, engraved on stone seals, signet rings, fine pencil heads.  R.L. is also prepared to engrave corporate seals in a superior manner.”

1876:  Death of Amanda on Nov. 4.

1877:  Robert and son moved to McConnellsville, Morgan County, Ohio, where they resided with Amanda’s sister and her husband, a Mr. J.H. Guyton.

1879: Death of Robert Jr. on November 25.

Burial:  McConnellsville Cemetery, Section D Row 2. 


Source: A January 7, 1875 letter by Lewis Glover, Rector of St. Stephen’s church in Milburn, New Jersey, enclosed in Matilda Lovett’s obituary album.  The writer recalled attending the Reade St. school with Junior as a child.

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