Page "Steele MacKaye" Paragraph 2

Steele MacKaye was born in Buffalo, New York.

His father, Colonel James M. MacKaye, was a successful attorney and an ardent abolitionist ; Steele's mother died when he was young.

He had three sisters — Sarah MacKaye Alling ( 1809 – 1904 ), Emily MacKaye von Hesse ( 1838 –?

), Sarah MacKaye Warner ( 1840 – 1876 )— and two half-brothers — William Henry MacKaye ( 1834 – 1888 ) and Henry Goodwin MacKaye ( 1856 – 1913 ).

While young, Steele attended Roe's Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson and the William Leverett Boarding School in Newport.

Under the influence from his father, who was also an art connoisseur, MacKaye initially planned to become an artist.

During his teens he studied painting with William Morris Hunt, then continued his studies at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

He returned to the U. S. in order to serve for the Union Army during the American Civil War.

A member of New York's Seventh Regiment, he eventually rose to the rank of Major before an illness forced his retirement.

MacKaye would later model in full uniform for John Quincy Adams Ward's Seventh Regiment Memorial statue, which stands in Central Park.