New Photo of Abraham Lincoln Found

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New Photo of Abraham Lincoln Found

By Brian | March 10, 2009 | Share on Facebook

I find this story fascinating:

[President Ulysses S.] Grant’s 38-year-old great-great-grandson, Ulysses S. Grant VI, had seen [an old photo of the White House] before, but didn’t examine it closely until late January. A tall figure in the distance caught his eye, although the man’s facial features are obscured.

He called Keya Morgan, a New York-based photography collector and Lincoln aficionado, who helped identify it as Lincoln.

Morgan talked Grant into taking the photo out of the album and examining it for clues, such as the identity of the photographer.

Grant carefully removed it and was shocked to see the handwritten inscription on the back: “Lincoln in front of the White House.” Grant believes his great-grandfather, Jesse Grant, the general’s youngest son, wrote the inscription. Also included was the date 1865, the seal of photographer Henry F. Warren, and a government tax stamp that was issued for such photos to help the Civil War effort between 1864 and 1866.

Morgan recalled the well-documented story of Warren’s trip to Washington to photograph Lincoln after his second inauguration in March 1865. Lincoln was killed in April, so the photo could be the last one taken of him.

Warren, a commercial photographer from Massachusetts, enticed Lincoln into his frame shortly after the inauguration by taking pictures of young Tad Lincoln and asking the boy to bring his father along for a pose, according to the book, “Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose,” by Charles Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf. “This is the first act of paparazzi ever toward a president,” Morgan said. “Lincoln is not too happy at all.”

Here’s the photo:

I’ve highlighted Lincoln with a thin, red box. In the computer-enhanced, blown-up version, you can see his distinctive beard, as well as the fact that he towers over everyone else in the picture:

The Associated Press speculates that this may be not only the last photograph taken of Lincoln (he was shot and killed roughly a month later), but it also may be the first photograph ever taken of a U.S. President in front of the White House. Given how many photographs have been taken of Presidents in front of the White House since, I think this is quite the find.

It also brings to mind a conversation we’re having over at Jason Bennion’s Simple Tricks & Nonsense about the nostalgic value of physical media versus the more modern, digital media. In my home office, we have a wall-to-wall bookshelf of photo albums containing more than twenty years of photographs that my wife has taken over the years. Each and every one of them has a brief note written on the back, describing who is in the picture and where/why it was taken. About eighteen months ago, the volume of digital pictures we take and the dwindling number of places that will actually print photographs for you has led us to abandon this impressive collection, and instead rely on the (somewhat equally impressive) electronic collection on our hard drive. Finding a picture of a given person online involves typing their name into Vista’s search box, whereas finding one in the photo albums involves pulling several volumes off the shelf and leafing through the pages.

In the case of Grant and Lincoln, it’s fortuitous that Jesse Grant was like my wife in regards to his photo archiving skills. 130 years from now, though, almost every surviving picture of Barack Obama will likely be digitally tagged with his name, as well as the date, time, and location in the photograph, greatly reducing the possibility that an important photo would be lost in a photo album, or remain unidentified because no one ever bothered to remove it from it’s plastic sleeve.

Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “New Photo of Abraham Lincoln Found”

Jeff Porten says at March 12th, 2009 at 4:06 am :

Of course that’s Lincoln. He looks exactly like he does on the back of a penny. (Don’t believe me? Look closely).
jason says at March 12th, 2009 at 7:01 pm :

Fascinating story, Brian! Have you seen this (somewhat) related item?

http://watchismo.blogspot.com/2009/03/secret-message-in-abraham-lincolns.html

Quite a month for Lincoln buffs, eh?

Not to split our conversation across two fronts, but I think this Lincoln photo kind of proves both of our positions on physical vs. digital media. You’re quite right about the efficiency and accuracy of cataloging digital photos, and how digital record keeping, searching, etc., is far easier than removing a physical print from a frame or album to access any inscription it may have on the back. (Not to mention eliminating the risk of damaging an ancient, possibly one-of-a-kind print by handling it too much.)

However, that physical photograph of Lincoln is more than just an image. It is a historical artifact in itself, and therefore — for nuts like me, at least — it has a value beyond its mere content. Part of what’s so awesome about this photo is its own history, i.e., the path it’s taken to arrive at this moment, its provenance, the photographer’s seal and government tax stamp on the back… it’s romantic, for lack of a better word, a visitor from another time. That is what digital media, a mere data file, cannot reproduce, IMO.

Of course, digital technology has enabled us all to see this image, through a scan that can be easily reproduced, manipulated, and posted to blogs… obviously, I’m a little ambivalent about this stuff. :)

(Incidentally, I am making the changeover to digital photography myself — blogging persona aside, I’m not a total Luddite. I just have certain qualms about what we may lose while we’re so fascinated by what we gain.)
Brian says at March 12th, 2009 at 11:50 pm :

Thanks for the link, Jason – fascinating story. Interesting, too, that the article quotes the scrawled message, but fails to mention that the repairman also scrawled “Jeff Davis” on the inside of the watch. I wonder what government, exactly, he was thanking God for? ;-)
George F. Day says at March 16th, 2009 at 12:35 pm :

This is quite fascinating. Perhaps you, or someone, can help me. When I was very young (in the 1930s), a family in my Nebraska home town owned a photo of Lincoln. T.J. Hilyard was Lincoln’s friend in Illinois and the two of them one day had pictures taken and exchanged them. This was in Daville, IL, years later my friend Joseph Hilyard (who owned the photo) made a copy and gave it o our family. Alas, that copy has been lost. Does anyone know anything about the Danville-Lincoln-Hilyard photograph?
Thanks.
GFD
Brian says at March 17th, 2009 at 12:50 am :

@George F. Day #4:

I did a little research and, surprisingly, turned up a few things that might be of interest to you.

First, there is a this copy of McClure’s Magazine. On page 45, there is a picture of Abraham Lincoln, which the magazine claims is “From an ambrotype owned by Mr. Hilyard of Superior, Nebraska, and taken at Danville, Illinois, as a gift to his father.” I’m hoping this is a digitized version of the photograph you’re looking for.

Second, I found this listing at genealogy.com, in which an author an university professor named David Carroll says this:

I would be interested in knowing more about photographer Amon T. Joslin. He owned “Joslin’s Gallery” located on the second floor of a building adjoining the Woodbury Drug Store, in Danville, IL. This was one of Lincoln’s favorite stopping places in Vermilion County, Illinois, while he was a traveling lawyer. Joslin photographed Abraham Lincoln twice on / or about May 27, 1857. Lincoln kept one copy and gave the other to his friend, Thomas J. Hilyard, deputy sheriff of Vermilion County. Today, one original resides in the Illinois State Historical Library.

Amon T. Joslin’s photographs are small masterpieces of Lincoln. His work was very important and has been nearly forgotten. It is important to the history of photography that his story be told, remembered and studied by scholars. I would be interested in any information about Amon T. Joslin, including a photograph of him and the location of his grave. Please do not hesitate to contact me with even the smallest piece of information. Best Wishes, David Carroll.

The message was posted back on December 29, 2001. At the time, though, his e-mail address was listed as apachegeronimo@worldnet.att.net. If you can’t reach him by e-mail, you may want to call or stop by the Illinois State Historical Library – they may have the picture you’re looking for.

If you find it, please consider coming back & leaving another comment here at this blog. I’d love to know if I was able to help you in your quest.

Best of luck…
Jennifer says at March 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm :

Brian,

Funny how people get fascinated by photos of Lincoln. Check out this website: http://www.lincolnportrait.com/ or this website: http://lifeasdaddy.typepad.com/lifeasdaddy/2009/02/is-this-the-earliest-known-photograph-of-abraham-lincoln.html

I met the owner of this photo back in the late ’80s and saw the photo first-hand (he had it framed on his wall). Apparently the controversy still rages as to whether it is the earliest-ever photo of the young Lincoln or not!