 In one period, when living on a farm and teaching the owner's two young daughters to draw, he "could often be found handling and posing the tame frogs from the spring house, carrying turtles up from the pond and arranging chickens and other farmyard poultry for Thanksgiving sketches".The aforementioned banker Grant B. Schley eventually provided Church with a specially-built studio at Schley's estate "Froh Helm", located at Far Hills, New Jersey.While in the city, Church often visited Barnum and Bailey's premises as well as the Central Park Zoo, to study and make endless sketches of the animals held there.