Edward Jump was an artist and cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 of the 19th century, born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. His early life is not well documented, but he emigrated to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in 1852, attracted to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by the California Gold Rush

California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

.

While living in California, Jump, who was both a talented painter and cartoonist, made a living drawing commercial signs, painting portraits, and producing humorous cartoons of political figures for various publications.
He worked in many places around the state, but mostly in San Francisco; there he created labels for whiskey bottles, and caricatures of contemporary figures.
Jump remained active in San Francisco until October 1865, when an earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

 occurred. After moving to Washington, DC, in 1868, Jump became somewhat renowned for his artistic merits as a portrait painter. It was there that he met and married a French performer from a touring opera company.
By the 1870s, Jump and his wife had moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he worked as a comic illustrator. Later in the decade, Jump attempted to start an illustrated newspaper in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Following the failure of this venture, Jump moved frequently, first to New Orleans, then to Cincinnati and St Louis. Finally, in 1880, Jump and his wife settled in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where he was just able to make a living by producing circus and theatrical posters.

On 21 April 1883, three years after the move to Chicago, Jump committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 by shooting himself with a shotgun

Shotgun

A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...

, driven to depression by the state of his marriage, financial issues, and alcoholism. An article reporting Jump's death appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune, on the day of his death.
The article described how Jump wrote two final letters, one addressed to his wife, and another to a lodge in St. Louis, where he was a member.

The letter to his wife read as follows:
The other read:
Jump's funeral occurred two days after his death, and he was buried at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago. He was survived by his wife and daughter.