He attended Phillips School in Boston. By 1870 he was apprenticed to a house painter in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where he later became a machinist at Ames Foundry. He showed considerable talent in mechanics, and later became a designer of machinery at Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1874, he went to California. By 1880, he had returned east to Hartford, and was married to Harriet Josephine Gerhardt, who came from Dalton, Massachusetts. He worked for a spell as chief machinist at the Pratt and Whitney Machine Tool Company in Hartford and pursued sculpting in his leisure hours.
His first works were a bust of his wife and “A Startled Bather.” He was so successful at sculpting, that in 1881 Mark Twain financed a trip to study in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. In Paris his work was exhibited in the salon and won prizes. In 1884 he exhibited at the salon “Echo,” a statuette, and “Eve's Lullaby,” a life-size group.
Gerhardt's wife died in 1897. They had two children. In 1908, he was living in New Orleans, and by 1920 he had moved to Shreveport, Louisiana.
Selected works
Statuette of Mercury, marble, Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut, 1883. A copy after a statue at the Naples National Archaeological Museum, in Naples Italy.
Statuette of Echo, marble, Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut, 1883.
Bust of Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut, 1884.
Bust of Henry Ward Beecher, marble, Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut, 1885.
Bust of Ulysses S. Grant, bronze, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut, 1885.
Statue of Nathan Hale, Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford, Connecticut, 1885–86.
Equestrian statue of General Israel Putnam, South Cemetery, Brooklyn, Connecticut, 1887–88.
Statue of Josiah Bartlett, Huntington Square, Amesbury, Massachusetts, 1888. A signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Memorial tablet to John Fitch, Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford, Connecticut, 1888.
Carrie Welton Fountain, The Green, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1888.
Statue of Seth Boyden, Washington Park, Newark, New Jersey, 1890.
Statue of Governor Richard Hubbard, Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford, Connecticut, 1890.
Statue of General George J. Stannard, Lakeview Cemetery, Burlington, Vermont, 1891.
Sculpture group: Pioneers of the Territory, Iowa State Capitol, Des Moines, Iowa, 1892.
Statue of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Military Park, Newark, New Jersey, 1894–1904.
Civil War memorials
Soldiers' Monument, 2nd & Monument Streets, Deposit, New York, 1887–88.
Soldiers' Monument, Stevens Park, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1887–88.
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, Oneida Square, Utica, New York, 1887–91, George Keller, architect.
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, Brooklyn Post Office, Brooklyn, Connecticut, 1888.
Statue of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren, Little Round Top, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1888.
