Introduction

Prefatory Note

For more than 150 years historians have speculated—sometimes indelicately—on why Abraham and Mary Lincoln were never photographed in the same portrait. As an implied equivalent for nearly 60 years, most historians have embraced the abstraction that Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs were taken at the same time. Uniquely unconvinced, in Harold Francis Pfister’s book Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes, 1978, regarding the attribution of Mary Lincoln’s assumed earliest photograph, the author states: “. . . Probably c. 1846-47, possibly at the same time as [Meserve No. 1], but tarnish pattern shows an original mat of which there is no similar evidence on [Meserve No. 1]; the plates may therefore not be an exactly contemporaneous pair.” (“Meserve No. 1” refers to the 1911 chronological ranking system—devised and implemented by Frederick Hill Meserve [1865-1962], collector-cataloguer-author-exemplar of Lincoln photographic history—here signifying the presumed earliest [No. 1] image of Abraham Lincoln.)

In drawing a conclusion, we often use a focal point as a reference.  Psychologists have found that we tend to rely too heavily on the very first information we learn, which can be detrimental to the conclusion we end up making. This tendency is known as an anchoring bias or anchoring effect (see also Semmelweis reflex). Estimates are made by starting from an initial value or assumption that is adjusted to yield the final answer. The initial value, or starting point, may be suggested by the formulation of the problem, or it may be the result of a partial computation. In either case, adjustments are typically insufficient; that is, different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial value or existing assumption.¹

Currently, we have two existing assumptions: 1) that Abraham and Mary Lincoln were never photographed in the same portrait, and 2) that their assumed earliest photographs were taken in 1846-47 at the same time. As a consequence of these assumptions, we are presently challenged by what appear to be two contradictions: 1) Abraham and Mary in the same 18•• daguerreotype, and 2) instead of Mary looking older in the 18•• daguerreotype as one would expect in relation to her assumed 1846-47 image, she looks younger. . . .  But unlike the separate assumed earliest photographs of Lincoln and Mary—long conjectured to have been taken at the same time—the 18•• daguerreotype presents Lincoln and Mary in the same sitting, absolutely taken at the same time. And what is presented, refutes the assumption that the assumed earliest photographs were taken at the same time in 1846-47.

Until the present discovery of the 18•• daguerreotype, this history resisted redress. Neither Lincoln nor Mary ever stated on record when or where their assumed earliest photographs were made, nor whether either was in fact their earliest. Neither also ever stated on record that they were never photographed in the same portrait. In 1903, historians were regaled by Gibson W. Harris’s eloquent recollection of the daguerreotypist Nicholas H. Shepherd having taken Lincoln’s photograph “once or oftener” some-57 years prior, and how Harris recognized Lincoln’s presumed earliest image as being Shepherd’s work—claims never substantiated yet generally accepted in spite of Robert Lincoln’s pronouncements to the contrary.² Historians adopted the premise that Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs were taken at the same time because of the absence of a shared portrait and because of the need for a publishable alternative. . . .

Exhibit A

[1.1] When approximating the age of a photographed 40-year-old man, with no substantiating evidence to support the approximation, it is categorically impossible to pinpoint an exact age between 35 and 45. Conversely, within a small margin of error, it is absolutely possible to approximate the age of a child between the age of birth and five years.

[1.2] An essential authenticating element of the newly discovered 18•• daguerreotype is the ages of its sitters in their relationship one to the other.

[1.3] In the newly discovered 18•• daguerreotype, the subject Eddie (the youngest child) appears to be 3 years 1-9 months. This is determined by: 1) his age appearing to be accurately 2 1/2 years younger than the age of his concurrently photographed older brother Robert; 2) his age appearing to be presumptively 1 to 1 1/2 years older than his own age in his “only known” photograph [see Appendix page, Fig. 12]; 3) his health taking a debilitating turn for the worse at age 3 years 9 months [see Appendix page, para. no. 7.1.5]; and 4) the Lincoln family being apart between late November 1848 and March 31, 1849.*  By adding the subject Eddie’s approximated age (3 years 1-9 months) to his known birthdate (March 10, 1846), we can then extrapolate the origin date of the newly discovered daguerreotype to be early to late 1849. By separately subtracting from this 1849 date the remaining subjects’ known birthdates (Lincoln’s, February 12, 1809; Mary’s, December 13, 1818; and Robert’s, August 1, 1843), we can then deduce within the same margin of error the remaining subjects’ ages: the subject Lincoln, 40 to 41 years; the subject Mary, 30 to 31 years; and the subject Robert, 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 years, respectively.

*Between late November 1848 and Lincoln’s final return home from Congress on March 31, 1849, Lincoln and Mary were separated for four months by more than 1,000 miles of steamboat, stagecoach, and rail. Mary and the children were situated in Springfield, Illinois, at the Globe Tavern—which provided lodging—and Lincoln was situated in Washington, completing his final session in Congress as a member of the House of Representatives.

[1.4] In the now dated 1849 daguerreotype, Mary’s image clearly predates her assumed earliest image (that is, Mary’s assumed earliest photograph was actually taken in the early 1850s, not 1846-47 as long conceived) and Lincoln’s image likely postdates his own presumed earliest image by one to three years³. . . which is to say, if one presupposes that Mary’s assumed earliest photograph was taken at the same time as Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, then one will be thoroughly perplexed by the juxtaposed images in the newly discovered daguerreotype.

[1.5] To make this clear, for decades the above images (see Fig. 1) have been presented as a paired/matched set as if these separate photographs were taken at the same time on the same day at the same daguerreotype studio, when in fact they were taken several years apart. As a consequence of the duration of this pairing, it is initially difficult in the newly discovered daguerreotype to reconcile the younger image of Mary juxtaposed contemporaneously with what is essentially the same or a slightly older-age image of Lincoln as that depicted above.⁴

[1.6] On February 12, 1849 (Lincoln’s 40th birthday), Mary was 30 years 2 months, Robert was 5 years 6 months, and Eddie was 2 years 11 months.

[1.7] On March 10, 1849 (Eddie’s 3rd birthday), Lincoln was 40 years 1 month, Mary was 30 years 3 months, and Robert was 5 years 7 months.

[1.8] On August 1, 1849 (Robert’s 6th birthday), Lincoln was 40 years 6 months, Mary was 30 years 8 months, and Eddie was 3 years 5 months.

[1.9] On December 13, 1849 (Mary’s 31st birthday), Lincoln was 40 years 10 months, Robert was 6 years 4 months, and Eddie was 3 years 9 months.

Exhibit B

[2.1.1] Although rare, it is not unheard of for two people to look alike. And although more rare, it is not unheard of for two couples to look alike. But it is quite unheard of for a couple and their two children to look exactly like another couple and their two children, and for both families to be the exact same ages in an 1849 daguerreotype.

[2.1.2] The law of probability tells us about the likelihood of specific events occurring. The law of large numbers states that the more trials we have in an experiment, the closer we get to the truth.

[2.1.3] Preliminarily, an 8×10 photograph of the newly discovered 1849 daguerreotype (hereinafter referred to as the “subject daguerreotype”) was shown to 100 random students (male, female; ages 18-30) at the University of California, Davis, with each being asked the unled question: “Do you recognize anyone in this photograph?” Eight in ten, in short order, answered “Lincoln,” “Abraham Lincoln,” or “President Lincoln.” For those initially uncertain, the following was then added: “Do you recognize the man in the photograph?” after which typically came the answer. Of the 100 students questioned, all but five recognized Lincoln.

[2.1.4] The above test was then followed by making a transparent overlay (standardized by iris diameter), comparing the subject Lincoln to Meserve No. 1.

[2.1.5] Lloyd Ostendorf (1921-2000)—illustrator, portraitist, and prominant collector of Lincoln images (see Lincoln Lore Issue No. 1716, p. 4)—once reasoned that the most important consideration when authenticating a Lincoln photograph is a comparison to Lincoln’s ears. He explained that ears are like fingerprints, and particularly so with Lincoln’s ears because his were so unusual.

[2.1.6] A study of the external physicality of ears was performed over a 38-year period by forensic scientist and biometric authority Alfred V. Iannarelli (1928-2015), using 10,000 ear samples in the development of his Iannarelli System of Ear Identification. The system (still used today) consists of comparing a number of measurements from a set of landmark points on the ear. From Iannarelli’s research and application, he concluded through print, latent print, photographic, and direct comparison means that no two ears are identical.

[2.1.7] Accordingly, an overlay comparison was made (standardized by iris diameter), comparing the subject Lincoln’s left ear to Lincoln’s left ear in Meserve No. 1:

Strabismus

[2.2.1] Of the four sitters in the subject daguerreotype, the subject Lincoln’s irises are the lightest shade. Lincoln’s irises were gray; Mary’s, Robert’s, and Eddie’s irises were blue.

[2.2.2] Lincoln also had an eye disorder called strabismus—a condition he presumably had from birth, as did his son Robert, for which the latter received childhood corrective treatment.

[2.2.3] Medical science describes strabismus as a disparately acquired (often genetically inherited), typically non-syndromic ocular misalignment present in approximately four percent of the American population, which may be a persistent issue or occur intermittently, and which may not always affect the same eye; the two may take turns being misaligned.

[2.2.4] In the eye detail below, the subject Lincoln’s right eye shows a clear indication of esotropia (inward deviation), a common symptom of Lincoln’s known condition.

[2.2.5] (The subject Robert may also reveal a variation of this disorder once the subject daguerreotype has been disassembled, cleaned, and had its clarity restored.)

[2.2.6] Although widely discoursed in the historical record, Lincoln’s eye disorder is rarely seen in his photographs. Evidently, he was typically able to control the effects of the condition long enough for photographs to be taken and on the occasions when he could not the results were rarely saved. There are examples, however, that have survived. . . .  

[2.2.7] In the image below (Meserve No. 112 [O-30, L-32]), Lincoln’s right eye shows the identical esotropia indicated in the subject Lincoln eye detail above. 

Lincoln’s Famous Mole

[2.3.1] The following from “Recognizing Lincoln: Image Vernaculars in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture,” by Cara A. Finnegan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2008, spring):

Most photographic reproductions of images, particularly photographic reproductions of photographs, are viewed simply as transparent vehicles for the communication of the earlier image.⁵ But as historian Barbara Savedoff warns against the assumption of transparency: “We are encouraged to treat reproductions as more or less transparent. But of course, photographic reproductions are not really transparent. They transform the artworks they represent.”⁶ Daguerreotypes, in particular, are dramatically transformed in the process of reproduction.⁷

[2.3.2] The following from Lincoln Lore Issue No. 640 (1941, July 14):

A blemish on Lincoln’s face in the form of a mole has not only been the most distinguishing mark in establishing the genuineness of a Lincoln photograph, but its absence on spurious portraits has been the most damaging evidence against them[. . . .] Strange to say, the [presumed] earliest portrait of Lincoln [estimated by historians to have been] made in 1846 is almost without exception shown in reverse position. At this early date the mole was not as conspicuous as in later years, and it cannot be used as an outstanding indication mark[. . . .]

[2.3.3] Most skin moles appear by the age of 30 but not uncommonly develop at any age thereafter. Additionally, it is not uncommon for a skin mole to diminish or disappear with age.

[2.3.4] In the following, for the sake of clarity, there are two distinct terms used to describe Lincoln’s earliest known image: Meserve No. 1 as noted above, and Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph as noted here. “Meserve No. 1” refers to any and all reproductions of the original image (i.e., graphic or photographic representations in books, periodicals, websites, etc.). Lincoln’s “presumed earliest photograph” refers exclusively to the physical daguerreotype itself, of which there is only one. To be very clear, in order to comprehensively examine Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, one would need to have the described daguerreotype physically in one’s presence.

[2.3.5] In note number 4 in the note section below, a private letter is cited pertaining to Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, wherein allegedly the indicated daguerreotype has been “highly touched up and the mole on Lincoln’s cheek as also the wrinkles have been removed.”  . . . For reasons implied but not made clear, the author of the described “private letter” is seemingly referring not to Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, but rather to some other daguerreotype of Lincoln perhaps now lost or no longer in existence. However, if the author is in fact referring to Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, which he may well be, then evidently his conclusions are based on firsthand knowledge of Lincoln’s physical appearance or an actual access to the indicated daguerreotype itself—either or both of which would have enabled the author to make determinations that would otherwise have been impossible to make. To be clear . . . examining a graphic or photographic representation (Meserve No. 1) of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph is not the equivalent of examining its actual daguerreotype. Moreover, examining a photographic representation of the subject daguerreotype would not be the equivalent of examining the actual subject daguerreotype. In point of fact, in none of the published representations of either the presumed earliest photograph or the subject daguerreotype is there sufficiently decipherable evidence to conclusively determine the absence or hidden (retouched) presence of Lincoln’s famous mole.

Overview (1894-Present)

[2.4.1] In 1894, the journalist Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944)⁸ was commissioned by McClure’s Magazine to compose a serialized story on Lincoln, complete with pictures,⁹ many of which would be seen for the first time by the general public. In Tarbell’s quest for material, she corresponds with many individuals. In her persistence she reaches out to Robert Lincoln, who ultimately provides her with a photographic copy of the daguerreotype shortly regarded as Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph. Graphically reproduced, the provided image is premiered in McClure’s Magazine in November 1895, with readers invited to respond in writing with their impressions. Controversy will later develop over the slick-haired, long-chinned, and, notably, mole-missing image of Lincoln (see Lincoln Lore Issue No. 1382); but for anyone seeking authentication, who better to provide it than Lincoln’s son himself; Robert Lincoln remembers the daguerreotype from his father’s home “from earliest recollection.”

[2.4.2] In February 1897, The Century magazine will publish as its frontispiece an engraving created by Thomas Johnson,⁹ depicting Lincoln’s presumed earliest image reimagined from the graphic rendering published earlier by Tarbell, and again missing Lincoln’s famous mole.

[2.4.3] In 1903-1905, Gibson Harris will publish in several periodicals a four-part series titled “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.” The series will include, among other graphic images, Lincoln’s presumed earliest image, again reimagined from the graphic rendering published earlier by Tarbell, and again missing Lincoln’s famous mole. In Harris’s series he will contend without evidence that Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph was taken in Springfield, Illinois, in 1846, at the Nicholas Shepherd studio.

[2.4.4] In 1910, Francis T. Miller and Edward B. Eaton will publish the book Portrait Life of Lincoln, which will again include Lincoln’s presumed earliest image reimagined from the graphic rendering published earlier by Tarbell, and once again missing Lincoln’s famous mole (see Lincoln Lore Issue No. 245).

[2.4.5] By late 1910, Frederick Meserve, the meticulous collector of Lincoln photographic history, is in the finishing stages of compiling for publication his own study containing all of the then-known photographic images of Lincoln. Meserve’s specialty is his scholarly approach to listing Lincoln’s images in their provisional chronological order. Meserve reaches out to Robert Lincoln for a photographic copy of the daguerreotype shared earlier with Tarbell. The resulting image, published ultimately in Meserve’s 1911 book The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln, is a heavily retouched photographic copy of Lincoln’s presumed earliest image, and once again missing Lincoln’s famous mole.

[2.4.6] In 1915, Meserve will publish a second book, Lincolniana: Historical Portraits and Views, in which he will again include the heavily retouched photographic copy of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph provided earlier by Robert, and again missing Lincoln’s famous mole.

[2.4.7] Following the 1915 publication of Meserve’s second book, and for 11 years thereafter, Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph will remain in Robert’s possession. Upon Robert’s passing in 1926, the daguerreotype will be bequeathed to his oldest daughter, Mary Lincoln Isham.

[2.4.8] In 1926, the biographer Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) will publish the book Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (Volumes One and Two) in which he will include a photographic copy of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, once again missing Lincoln’s famous mole, but with clearly different retouching than in the photographic copy published earlier by Meserve. In the included caption, Sandburg credits H.W. Fay with providing the photographic copy but offers no further information regarding its origins.

[2.4.9] In 1928, Albert J. Beveridge (1863-1927) will posthumously publish the book Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1858 therewith including an identically retouched photographic copy of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph as that published earlier by Meserve. For the first time laterally corrected, the image is again missing Lincoln’s famous mole and is here uniquely captioned: “Abraham Lincoln about 1848. From a photograph of a daguerreotype formerly owned by Robert T. Lincoln.”

[2.4.10] In 1935, Rufus R. Wilson will publish the book Lincoln in Portraiture in which he will include a reprint of the engraving by Thomas Johnson as first published in The Century magazine in 1897, and again missing Lincoln’s famous mole (see para. no. 2.4.2). In Wilson’s book he fosters the unsubstantiated theory posed earlier by Gibson Harris that the presumed earliest photograph of Lincoln was taken in 1846, in Springfield, Illinois, at the Nicholas Shepherd studio.

[2.4.11] In October 1937, Mary Lincoln Isham (1869-1938) will donate the presumed earliest photograph of Lincoln—a bare plate⁹—along with a separate daguerreotype of Mary Todd Lincoln—also a bare plate—to the Library of Congress. The daguerreotype of Mary—at the time surmised to be her earliest photograph—is not yet publicly contended to be a “companion” to the presumed earliest photograph of Lincoln.

[2.4.12] Sometime between 1937 and late 1958, the Library of Congress will take a single “side-by-side photograph” of the two donated daguerreotype plates for the purposes of future research and publication. The described pairing—whether intentional or unintended—inadvertently ascribes a contemporaneous nature to the two separate images. Subsequently, the individual plates are stored and thereafter sparingly handled.

[2.4.13] In 1938, Dr. Louis A. Warren (editor-in-chief of Lincoln Lore [1929-1956]) will publish in Lincoln Lore Issue No. 459 an updated guide to Meserve’s evolving chronological order of Lincoln photographs as pictorially featured earlier in Lincoln Lore Issue No. 452. In the described guide, Warren names Nicholas Shepherd of Springfield, Illinois, as the assumed photographer of Meserve No. 1, but contends “uncertainty” regarding the alleged 1846 date the daguerreotype was taken.

[2.4.14] In 1939, both Lincoln’s “presumed earliest image” and Mary’s “assumed earliest image”—photographic copies each obtained from Mary Handy Evans of the Levin C. Handy studio in Washington—will be published for the first time together (actually five pages apart) in Agnes Rogers’s book Abraham Lincoln: A Biography in Pictures. The Levin C. Handy studio (initially the Brady-Handy studio) is the successor to the original Mathew Brady studios (1844-1880) formerly located in both Washington and New York (see Appendix page, para. no. 5.4). In Rogers’s book, the author provides no insight into either the early origins or the developing contemporaneous appropriation of the two provided images. The provided image of Lincoln, again without mole, is identical to the retouched photographic copy published earlier by both Meserve and Beveridge. The provided image of Mary is derived from a damaged glass negative in Mary Handy Evans’s possession. The provided images—each reprinted from their respective glass negatives in Evans’s possession—substantiate the assessment that the earlier Brady-Handy studio in Washington was where Robert Lincoln had the initial copies (prints) of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph made for Tarbell’s use in 1895 and for Meserve’s subsequent use in 1911. This initial copying procedure would have entailed the Brady-Handy studio making a glass negative of the Lincoln daguerreotype plate, then retouching or repairing the glass negative, and then providing Robert with one or more photographic paper print copies of the results. The Brady-Handy studio would have then retained (as it evidently did) the retouched glass negative, and then returned the original daguerreotype plate to Robert. At the same time, or conceivably much later, the identical procedure would have transpired in making an initial print copy (or copies) of Mary’s assumed earliest photograph . . . which, along with the Lincoln daguerreotype copying procedure, would explain Evans’s 1939 possession of the two glass negatives used in making the newly provided 1939 reprints (see para. no. 2.4.18). It is informative that the described image of Mary was never published while either Mary or Robert or Mary Lincoln Isham was still living. It is also informative that the daguerreotype of Mary was donated to the Library of Congress in 1937 without written comment by either Mary, Robert, or Mary Lincoln Isham regarding its origins or its later contended companion relationship to Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph. Evidently, it is only happenstance that the two daguerreotypes were donated to the Library of Congress at the same time and that both are later regarded as having been simultaneously made.

[2.4.15] In 1941, both Lincoln’s “presumed earliest image” and Mary’s “assumed earliest image”—photographic copies again obtained from Mary Handy Evans of the Levin C. Handy studio in Washington—will be published for the second time together (actually 26 pages apart) in Stefan Lorant’s book Lincoln, His Life in Photographs. In Lorant’s book, he credits N.H. Shepherd with taking the Lincoln daguerreotype in 1846, but offers no insight into the developing contemporaneous appropriation of the two images. The included image of Lincoln is laterally corrected (without explanation), and again without mole and otherwise identical to the retouched image published earlier by each Meserve, Beveridge, and Rogers. The included image of Mary, as with its earlier publishing by Rogers, shows the identical damages that are original to the damaged glass negative in Mary Handy Evans’s possession (see para. nos. 2.4.14 and 2.4.18).

[2.4.16] In 1944, Frederick Meserve in collaboration with biographer Carl Sandburg will publish an updated edition of Meserve’s 1911 book The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln. The new edition will again include the retouched photographic copy of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph originally provided by Robert, and once again missing Lincoln’s famous mole.

[2.4.17] In 1952, Stefan Lorant will publish the book Lincoln, A Picture Story of His Life—a follow-up to his 1941 book Lincoln, His Life in Photographs—which will again include both Lincoln’s “presumed earliest image” and Mary’s “assumed earliest image”—the same photographic images published earlier by each Rogers and Lorant, and originally obtained from Mary Handy Evans. The two images are here published for the third time together—the second time by Lorant—and again with no suggestion by Lorant that their original daguerreotypes were taken at the same time or by the same photographer. The two images are included six pages apart. The image of Lincoln—again without mole and again laterally corrected—is physically identical to the retouched image published earlier by each Meserve, Beveridge, Rogers, and Lorant. The image of Mary—whose condition again reflects the damaged glass negative in Mary Handy Evans’s possession—is now crudely repaired (evidently by Lorant) but otherwise unchanged from its original reversed (mirror) representation.

[2.4.18] In 1953, Ruth Painter Randall will publish the book Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage in which she will compose for the first time on the same page both Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographic images—both images sized and retouched uniformly to complement their contrived billing as “companion daguerreotypes.” The literal pairing here of Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest images is a radical departure from the previous uncertainty pervading the companion issue. The manipulation of the sizes and conditions of the two images in order to influence their acceptance as “companion daguerreotypes” is a clear compromise of the known evidence. The image of Lincoln (provided by the Library of Congress, and again without mole) is laterally corrected (evidently by Randall, arguably influenced by Lorant’s earlier example) so that together the two images angle toward one another rather than discordantly in the same direction. The image of Mary (whose origins at the time are not yet adduced and of whose photographic representation the Library of Congress is not yet providing for publication) is a more extensively repaired example of the crudely repaired representation published earlier by Lorant (see para. no. 2.4.17). The image of Mary is here furnished by collector William T. Townsend (1890-1964) and is here credited as being related to a print that Robert allegedly had made, evidently at the Brady-Handy studio (see para. no. 2.4.14), and had given as a gift to his aunt (Mary Lincoln’s youngest half-sister), Emilie Todd Helm (1863-1930). The image of Mary provided by Townsend is presumptively a reprint made from the later damaged glass negative in Mary Handy Evans’s possession. The repairs to the reprint were presumably had made by either Townsend or Randall.

[2.4.19] In 1954, Carl Sandburg will publish the book Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years (a one-volume edition). The book will include many new illustrations as well as the retouched, presumed earliest image of Lincoln (see para. no. 2.4.8) as provided earlier by H.W. Fay (again without mole), alongside Mary’s “painted likeness” (see Appendix page, para. nos. 5.2-5.4).

[2.4.20] In 1955, Lorant will publish the book The Life of Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography with over 180 Pictures, which will again include both Lincoln’s “presumed earliest image” and Mary’s “assumed earliest image”—the same photographic images published earlier by each Rodgers, Lorant, and partially Randall, and originally obtained from Mary Handy Evans. The two images are here published for the fifth time together—the third time by Lorant—and again with no suggestion by Lorant that their original daguerreotypes were taken at the same time or by the same photographer. The two images are here included 104 pages apart. The image of Lincoln—again without mole and again physically identical to the retouched image published earlier by each Meserve, Beveridge, Rogers, and Lorant—is again laterally corrected. The image of Mary is again crudely repaired but unchanged from its original reversed (mirror) representation.

[2.4.21] In 1957, Lorant will publish a “revised and enlarged” edition of his 1952 book Lincoln, A Picture Story of His Life in which he will again include both Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest images—the same photographic images obtained earlier from Mary Handy Evans. The two images are here published for the sixth time together (again six pages apart), and again with no suggestion by Lorant that their original daguerreotypes were taken at the same time or by the same photographer. The included image of Lincoln (again without mole) is again laterally corrected. The image of Mary is again crudely repaired yet unchanged from its original reversed (mirror) representation.

[2.4.22] In December 1958, the Library of Congress will send the two donated, uncased Lincoln and Mary daguerreotype plates to George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.¹⁰ At George Eastman House, the two plates will undergo a questionable “restoration” that will include their arbitrary placement into like-matted, like-appearing daguerreotype cases. The newly cleaned and encased daguerreotypes will then be returned to the Library of Congress.

[2.4.23] In 1959, the newly encased daguerreotypes will be displayed publicly at the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Exhibition, opened at the Library of Congress on February 12th. Behind the scenes there will be misgivings regarding the two daguerreotypes having been placed into inauthentic cases. There will also be uncertainty as to how to effectively photograph the two daguerreotypes through their newly assigned, naturally reflective encasement glass. The image of Lincoln is again without mole.

[2.4.24] In 1963, Charles Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf will publish the book Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose, which will include, among other photographic images, a heavily retouched photographic copy of the “side-by-side photograph” created earlier by the Library of Congress (see para. no. 2.4.12). The paired images are here presented with the caption “Mr. Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln: Companion Daguerreotypes.” The two images are laterally reversed, and the image of Lincoln is again without mole.

[2.4.25] In 1965, Dorothy Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt Jr. will publish the book Twenty Days, which will include, among other photographic images, the “side-by-side photograph” created earlier by the Library of Congress, but here enlarged and unretouched, and with its two images printed separately on facing pages, revealing clearly their authentic damages. The image of Lincoln is disproportionately enlarged to make it comport more sensibly with the contrived pairing. The image of Lincoln is again without mole.

[2.4.26] In 1968, Lloyd Ostendorf will publish in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 61, No. 3, the article “The Photographs of Mary Todd Lincoln,” which will include, among others images, the “side-by-side photograph” created earlier by the Library of Congress, but reduced in size, with both of its images heavily retouched, concealing their damages. The image of Lincoln is again without mole. In the described article, Ostendorf informs his reader that the “included pair of original exposures are now faded but partially restored for reproduction here[. . . .]” That is, the damages revealed in the 1965 book Twenty Days have now been retouched (evidently by Ostendorf’s own hand) for presentation in Ostendorf’s article. Ostendorf also states here for the first time in publication that there is considerable evidence and “little doubt [referring evidently to the suggested yet unpublished at the time claims by Adah Sutton (see note number 4) and to the 1903 four-part series by Gibson Harris] that the [alleged] companion daguerreotypes of the youthful couple are the work of the young cameraman Nicholas Shepherd, who operated what he [Shepherd] called a ‘Daguerreotype Miniature Gallery’ in Springfield, Illinois, as early as October 1845″; and that in Ostendorf’s estimation “the two daguerreotypes were made between June and December 1846.” It is informative that in Ostendorf’s earlier book Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose, the identically retouched “side-by-side photograph” was published without mention by Ostendorf of its images’ repairs. It is also informative that no mention was likewise made earlier by others regarding the repairs made to the presumed earliest image of Lincoln in either its 1911, 1915, or 1944 Meserve publications; its 1928 Beveridge publication; its 1939 Rogers publication; its 1941, 1952, 1955, or 1957 Lorant publications; its 1953 Randall publication; or its 1926, 1944, or 1954 Sandburg publications. 

[2.4.27] In 1969, Lorant will publish a second “revised and enlarged” edition of his 1952 book Lincoln, A Picture Story of His Life in which he will again include both Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest images . . . but not the same photographic representations provided earlier by Mary Handy Evans and included consecutively in Lorant’s 1941, 1952, 1955, and 1957 publications. In this second revised and enlarged edition of his 1952 book, Lorant has replaced the two previously included images with two different representations. The replacement images (again presented six pages apart) are derived from the “side-by-side photograph” created earlier by the Library of Congress. In this newly revised and enlarged book edition, both images are laterally corrected but for no apparent reason. Once again, without mole, the included image of Lincoln is a moderately retouched photographic copy of its existent daguerreotype. The included image of Mary is an unretouched photographic copy of its own existent daguerreotype. Clearly, Lorant is not of the belief that Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest images are “companion photographs” taken at the same time or by the same photographer. In Lorant’s 1941 book Lincoln, His Life in Photographs, he describes Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph as having been taken in 1846 by N.H. Shepherd. The author continues this ascription in his 1952, 1955, and 1957 publications. In this, his 1969 publication, he more carefully contends on page 54 that Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph was “supposedly taken by Nicholas H. Shepherd toward the end of 1847,” and on page 48 he contends that “Mary’s [assumed] earliest photograph was taken around 1848.”

[2.4.28] In 1969, the Library of Congress will transfer the two George Eastman House restored daguerreotypes from its main office to its Print and Photograph Division for indefinite well-keeping and storage.

[2.4.29] In 1970, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) will posthumously publish a revised (174 illustration) edition of Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, which will not include Mary’s previously included “painted likeness” (see para. no. 2.4.19), but rather include on facing pages both Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest images. The included image of Lincoln (once again heavily retouched and without mole, and again furnished by collector H.W. Fay [see para. no. 2.4.8]) is now left-right corrected and now augmented with an identically shaped mat (but not the same mat) as that arbitrarily appropriated to the image by George Eastman House in 1959. The included image of Mary is neither matted nor retouched and is evidently part of the “side-by-side photograph” furnished earlier by the Library of Congress.

[2.4.30] In 1978, photographs of the two George Eastman House restored daguerreotypes will be published in the aforementioned book Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes. In the described book, the included images of the two like-cased daguerreotypes are cropped, thereby excluding from print their arbitrarily added mats and daguerreotype cases. Evidently, the author, Harold Francis Pfister, recognizes not only the original oval-shaped tarnish pattern on Mary’s assumed earliest photograph as mentioned earlier but also the license taken by George Eastman House (or the Library of Congress) in its arbitrarily added mats and daguerreotype cases. Contrary to this recognition, however, as illustrated below, the two photographs are cropped in the identical shape of their arbitrarily added mats, thereby making the two images appear inauthentically more contemporaneous, not less. The image of Lincoln is again without mole.

[2.4.31] Today, among its unexplained damages, the physicality of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph has a conspicuous “illumination”—an abrased spot where its underlying silver appears through—in the approximate but not exact location of Lincoln’s famous mole. If one were not aware of the foregoing history, he or she might be impressed to assume that this “illumination” is something other than it is; it is not Lincoln’s famous mole. 

[2.4.32] On the interior of the glass of the 1849 subject daguerreotype (see FIG. 2) there is a weep spot (a common chemical aging condition of nineteenth-century glass) over the vicinity of what is clearly the image of a diminished mole located level with the bottom of the subject Lincoln’s nose and along his right nasolabial fold. The described weep spot does not make physical contact with the enclosed image. When the subject daguerreotype is tilted at a slight angle, the described mole can be incontrovertibly seen.

[2.4.33] Lincoln ultimately had two moles along his right nasolabial fold (technically three if one considers that his famous mole was actually two moles conjoined): 1) the diminished mole, as is here described hidden under the weep spot on the interior of the glass of the subject daguerreotype (see Fig. 2), and 2) the famous mole, which is not photographically seen until five (possibly eight) years after Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph in the photograph long presumed to be Lincoln’s second-earliest photograph, dated October 27, 1854, taken by P. Von Schneidau.¹¹

[2.4.34] Upon examining the Lincoln photographs taken after 1854, it is seen that the diminished mole, as evinced in the subject daguerreotype, diminishes further over time. (For best images of this progression, see Lincoln: An Intimate Portrait, by Allen C. Guelzo and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2014; photographs L-2, L-3, L-4, L-15, L-17, L-19, L-23, L-24, and L-36.)

[2.4.35] Again, most skin moles appear by the age of 30 but not uncommonly develop at any age thereafter (which conceivably was the case with Lincoln’s famous mole). And, again, according to medical science, it is not uncommon for a skin mole to diminish or disappear with age (which evidently was the case with Lincoln’s diminished mole). Nonetheless, from the advent of photography—whether by photographers’ initiative or customers’ request—it was not uncommon for a portrait to be retouched. And, with respect to Lincoln’s famous mole—in both the presumed earliest photograph and in the subject daguerreotype—this would have been easily accomplished both beneath the flesh-tone color applied to the subject image and within the dark shadow of the presumed earliest image. Again, a comprehensive examination of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph (the actual daguerreotype) and a comprehensive examination of the disassembled subject daguerreotype will be essential to resolving these questions definitively.

Lincoln’s Lower Lip

[2.5.1] In the subject daguerreotype, Lincoln and Mary’s austerity is the probable result of a frustrating portrait-making experience in the sense of its complicated seating arrangement and its predictably difficult requirement of getting two young children to remain perfectly still for the duration of film exposure (see Appendix page, note number 9). On the other hand, first sittings by customers at the dawn of photography were commonly dour. A customer had little idea of what to expect from the outcome, so he or she typically indulged the experience more bemused than not.

[2.5.2] As one compares the subject daguerreotype to Meserve No. 1, three clear differences are discovered in the latter: Lincoln has grown sideburns, he’s holding his chest out, and he’s wearing a slight smile—substantive seeming clues that he is applying informed thought to his appearance. Lincoln’s lower lip is also larger in Meserve No. 1, which compels the question of whether this feature (also larger in all later photographs) was hereditary or the result of a medical condition. If one concludes the logic and prevailing evidence of the authenticity of the subject daguerreotype, then probability supports the likelihood of a medical condition. But as such, the condition may or may not place the subject daguerreotype chronologically ahead of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, because the condition may have not been initially persistent. Conversely, if the condition was persistent from its outset, then the subject daguerreotype likely predates Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph by at least weeks or long enough for Lincoln to have grown the sideburns and to have developed the condition.

[2.5.3] Lower lip swelling is not uncommon in clinical practice, but its differential diagnosis can be challenging. The disorder is related to either a local or a systemic condition, and it may be the earliest manifestation of a systemic disease. The differential diagnosis can be simplified by grouping findings into broad categories: trauma, inflammation, infection, metabolic diseases, and neoplasm and idiopathic conditions.¹²

[2.5.4] In summary, more than 180 conditions may be contributing factors to lower, upper, or joint lip swelling, and the pertinent diagnostic features do not always appear simultaneously.¹² It is important to remember that between late 1849 and October 27, 1854, no photographs of Lincoln are known to have been taken. This may have been simply by chance or in fact be even wrongly assumed because no such photographs have materialized. Nevertheless, Lincoln’s facial moles and strabismus as well as his affected lower lip and developing facial asymmetry (see Appendix page) would have been compelling reasons for his uncertainty about his appearance. Whichever the case, after 1849, for five plus years, no photographs of Lincoln are known to have been made (see para. no. 2.4.33).

Exhibit C

[3.1] It is perhaps revealing that until now no early childhood photograph of Robert Lincoln has materialized.

[3.2] According to the historical record, Robert closely guarded his father’s legacy and famously battled with many biographers. Robert was careful that only credible historians were given access to his father’s papers. His concerns were rewarded by the scholarly efforts of Lincoln’s former White House secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay, who established the standard for Lincoln biography to which others are still held.

[3.3] In 1886, Nicolay and Hay’s work—drawing on family papers provided by Robert and dependent on Robert’s approval of the text—began to appear serially in The Century magazine.

[3.4] In 1890, Nicolay and Hay completed and published their account of Lincoln’s life, in a ten-volume biography titled Abraham Lincoln: A History.

[3.5] In November 1895, Ida Tarbell published the first installment of her original five-part series on Lincoln in McClure’s Magazine, which premiered in graphic (halftone) form the presumed earliest image of Lincoln, provided by Robert (see para. no. 2.4.1). Evidently, Robert provided Tarbell with little else; his personal papers, which still included a wealth of hitherto unpublished information related to his father, were by decree made unavailable to researchers until midnight July 26, 1947, precisely 21 years after Robert’s passing.

[3.6] According to Mark E. Neely Jr., and Harold Holzer, Robert was also “. . . obsessed with his own privacy and guarded the personal photographs of his parents, brothers, children and himself with the same determination with which he protected his father’s historical information.” According to Neely and Holzer: “Robert’s reclusive heirs followed the same suit, even while adding their own family pictures to the expanding collection.”  And: “Long after the Lincoln papers were opened to the nation in 1947, the photographs remained in family hands, untapped and unknown.”¹³

[3.7] According to Nicolay and Hay, with great consternation, the first time either of them ever heard of Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph was after it was published by Tarbell in McClure’s Magazine in 1895 (five years after Nicolay and Hay had completed and published their ten-volume biography, Abraham Lincoln: A History).

[3.8] In Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon (2008), its authors (Philip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt, and Peter W. Kunhardt Jr.) cite on page 418 the following:

[Frederick] Meserve reached out to thousands of individuals for help [compiling his collection of Lincoln photographs for publication]. He wrote to Robert Lincoln, beginning a fifteen-year correspondence. . . . “I am greatly obliged for your letter of September 11,” wrote Robert in 1909 after receiving Meserve’s gift of a portrait of his parents [the referred to “portrait” being a manufactured composite, wherein a separate photograph of Lincoln and a separate photograph of Mary were situated in the same photograph, giving the impression that the two were photographed together in the same sitting]. “As you suggest [Robert continued], the composite picture makes my mother relatively too tall, as you can easily see when you remember that my father was himself six feet four inches in height. I do not know my mother’s actual height, but I should guess it at about five feet six inches, perhaps not so much. I never saw, or heard of, a photograph of my father and mother taken together. Nor any photograph of my father with any member of his family except my younger brother Thomas, who was called Tad.”

[3.9] Perhaps Robert simply didn’t remember. . . . Or was disinclined to share all that he knew?

[3.10] It is certainly conceivable that the subject daguerreotype never made its way out of the studio where it was created, but not likely.  Sensibly the Lincolns would have wanted to keep this photograph of their children. It is also conceivable that early on, the daguerreotype was lost somewhere along the way.

[3.11] Perhaps most plausibly, the subject daguerreotype was among Mary Lincoln’s possessions to the end, whereupon her passing (intestate) she inadvertently bequeathed the daguerreotype to Robert who perhaps felt that it was a family photograph not to be shared precipitously with the world.

[3.12] In 1970 (88 years after Mary’s passing and 44 years after Robert’s passing) the subject daguerreotype was purchased among a box of books and various papers by its owner’s grandfather at a swap meet in Scottsboro, Alabama. In the mid-1970s, to little avail, effort was extended to Washington State University for the purpose of identifying the sitters in the daguerreotype. In the early 1990s the owner inherited the daguerreotype from his grandmother. It was not until 2017, after happening upon Lloyd Ostendorf’s 1998 book Lincoln’s Photographs: A Complete Album, that the owner discovered within its pages the first-ever published (and at the time only-known) image of Edward “Eddie” Baker Lincoln and began in earnest this research.¹⁴

Notes

1.    Amos Tversky, Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (1974). Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgements. These strategies are generalizations, or rules-of-thumb, that reduce cognitive load. They can be effective for making immediate judgements; however, they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions.

2.    Gibson W. Harris (1828-1911) worked as an apprentice clerk in the Lincoln-Herndon law office in Springfield, Illinois, from age 17 to 19 (1845-47). At age 75 to 77 (1903-05), he published in several periodicals—beginning with Woman’s Home Companion (1903, November)—his four-part series titled “My recollections of Abraham Lincoln.” (See Lincoln Lore Issue No. 110.) 

3.    Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph presents a wider than commonly acknowledged range of origin date possibility. As indicated here, either: 1) the daguerreotype was taken in 1846, 1847, or 1848, and consequently predates the subject daguerreotype by one to three years; or 2) the daguerreotype was taken in early to late 1849 and either pre- or post-dates the subject daguerreotype by days, weeks, or months [see Lincoln’s Lower Lip, para. nos. 2.5.1—2.5.4]. The resolve to this uncertainty may be contingent upon direct analysis of the presumed earliest photograph, or review of existing records pertaining to such analysis, and the determination of the degree to which the photograph (the actual daguerreotype) has been retouched or altered. A direct comparison between the presumed earliest photograph and the subject daguerreotype—the latter of whose age is more readily determinable—may also be informative.

4.    In part one of Gibson Harris’s four-part series “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln” as first published in Woman’s Home Companion (1903, November), the caption below its included graphic representation of the author’s (or editor’s) proclaimed “Earliest Portrait of Lincoln” (later designated Meserve No. 1) reads as follows:

From a daguerreotype taken in 1846 by N. H. Shephard [sic], a roommate of the author of these recollections, who says [that is, Harris says] in a private letter: “The negative has evidently been highly touched up, and the [mole] on Mr. Lincoln’s cheek, as also the wrinkles [have] been removed. The result is a face quite too young, but aside from this it is a good likeness of Abraham Lincoln as he was in his middle 40s.”

In 1846, Lincoln was 37, not in his middle 40s. So whatever was written by Harris in an alleged “private letter” may have been in reference not to Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, but rather to some other daguerreotype of Lincoln perhaps now lost or no longer in existence. Additionally, on page 11 of the same article, the depicted image of Mary is incorrectly captioned as “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln in 1845.” The image was actually taken in 1861. Informatively, this second error further substantiates the now established evidence that, unlike with Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph (which Robert had publicly authenticated in 1895), in 1903, Mary’s assumed earliest photograph had not yet been even correspondently mentioned by Robert—nor evidently would it ever be directly identified by Robert as Mary’s earliest image or her companion image to Lincoln’s presumed earliest image—let alone, published by Robert.

In an 1896 letter to McClure’s Magazine, Robert wrote that it was his guess that the presumed earliest photograph of his father (not yet designated Meserve No. 1) was taken in 1847-49 in either Washington or St. Louis, during the time of his father’s term in the House of Representatives. In a November 1896 letter to The Century magazine, Robert wrote: “. . . I regret that I cannot give you any positive information as to the date of the original daguerreotype, and there is probably no one living who can do so. I was born in 1843 and can only say that I remember it as being in my father’s house as far back as I can remember anything there. My own mere guess is that it was made either in St. Louis or Washington City during my father’s term in Congress—which practically began in December 1847 and ended in March 1849. I mention St. Louis because I think it was in those days an important stage in the journey to the capital.”  . . . Historians would later surmise that the presumed earliest photograph was more likely taken in Springfield, Illinois, in 1846-47—a conclusion not based on a bill of sale or a statement given by the daguerreotypist alleged to have taken the photograph (Nicholas Shepherd), but rather on the unsubstantiated recollection contended in 1903 by Gibson Harris, who claimed to have roomed with the daguerreotypist, some 57 years prior—a recollection long compromised in that, as acquainted as Mr. Harris claimed to have become with the daguerreotypist and his photography, not one daguerreotype made by said photographer of Mr. Harris himself has apparently ever materialized. In a 1909 letter to Samuel Willard, M.D., (courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society), Robert added that the presumed earliest photograph of his father was “one of a pair,” and that it hung on a wall in his father’s home from earliest recollection as a companion to a photograph of his mother. In a 1919 letter to Hon. Daniel Fish, district court, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Robert reaffirmed his earlier claim, writing: “. . . I am old enough to have what I think is a correct memory of the mechanical likeness business further back than 1855. The process of the daguerreotype was, I think, the only one known in 1847-49 when my father was in Congress, and I have no doubt that it was there that he had the portrait made, copies of which have been variously published. There was in his home up to the time of his going to Washington as president [in 1861], a daguerreotype of himself and one of my mother, being those that I have mentioned.”

Clearly, the main topic of the above correspondence is the authenticity of the presumed earliest photograph of Lincoln, not the subsidiary issue of the identity of the assumed earliest photograph of Mary (an image unpublished at the time). Presently, the question is not whether Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph is in fact his earliest photograph (it may well be) nor whether Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs ever hung together on a wall in the Lincoln home (they may well have). The present questions are: 1) were the two photographs taken at the same time, and 2) is Mary’s assumed earliest photograph her actual earliest photograph?

In James O. Hall’s review of the 1995 book Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life (by Adah Sutton), posted in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 19, Issue 1 (1998, winter), Hall summarily states the following:

[. . . D]espite the efforts of its editors [Ostendorf, Oleksy, and others] to paper over its anomalies by calling Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life an oral history[ . . . i]t is not history, oral or otherwise; with charity, it barely rises to the level of historical fiction. . . .  

. . . There are problems of provenance, unresolved questions as to the authenticity of events described, impossible dates, abundant cases of embellishment, and worse, obvious instances of outright fabrication.

Encompassed in Hall’s criticism, yet uncited in his review, is the following extract from page 276 of the described book:

A few family pictures were grouped together on the wall. Among them were two photos of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln which had always been hung together. They had been in the same place on the wall ever since Mariah had worked there.

When Mrs. Lincoln took them down, she brushed them carefully and caressingly held them to her, saying, “These are my two most precious pictures, taken when we were young and so desperately in love. They will grace the walls of the White House. They belong there to the last.”

The validity of the above anecdote is unknown. The original author of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, Adah Sutton, does not specify in her writing whether the assumed earliest photograph of Mary (which is pictorially included in Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life) is the same photograph of Mary that Mariah Vance references in the anecdote. Clearly, Ostendorf, who has included the image in the book, has skirted the issue as well. But as Hall suggests of a similar uncertainty in Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, “hasn’t the editor (Ostendorf) asked us to fall into the old segue trap of accepting one premise as proof of the other?” . . . The accepted premise, of course, necessarily being that in 1900-1904 Mariah Vance had in her possession graphic or photographic representations of both Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs, and that Mariah Vance had presented the two images to Adah Sutton, proclaiming: “These are the two photographs that I remember seeing together on the wall of the Lincoln family home between 1850-1860.” . . . The problem is, Vance died in 1904, and Mary’s assumed earliest image wasn’t published until 1939 (see para. no. 2.4.14). Mariah Vance could not have shown Adah Sutton the assumed earliest image of Mary, because in 1900-1904 the image didn’t publicly exist.

In the book The Tradition of Technology: Landmarks of Western Technology in the Collections of the Library of Congress (1995), its author, Leonard C. Bruno, a Senior Science Specialist in the Science and Technology Division at the Library of Congress, states that Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs were both taken in 1846. However, on page 111 of his book, he includes the arbitrarily cased image of Lincoln but not the same of Mary; and on page 243, he includes both images uncased but with Mary’s image curiously matted with its original oval-shaped mat. (Evidently, Bruno, like Pfister, has taken exception to the earlier license taken by George Eastman House; but, like Pfister, Bruno is uncertain of how to address the license taken.)

When a historian refers to Mary’s “earliest photograph” and neglects to qualify the reference as either her “assumed earliest photograph” or her “earliest known photograph,” this cannot be faithfully done based on the incomplete statements made by Robert Lincoln, based on the arbitrary companion configuration created by George Eastman House, or based on a book editing devised or a photograph provided by supposition.

Lloyd Ostendorf first met Adah Sutton in 1955 when he was 34 years old. Sutton’s idea to write a book based on the “reminiscences” told to her as a teenager in 1900-1904 by Mariah Vance—a then 81 thru 85-year-old mother of 12, who had evidently worked as a domestic in the Lincoln family home between 1850 and 1860—came first. By her own account, Sutton had discussed with others the idea of writing a book as early as 1937. In 1955, she had written to Ostendorf in response to an ad that he had placed in Hobbies Magazine seeking authentic Abraham Lincoln and Civil War photographs. Sutton, a then 71-year-old antiques shop owner from Attica, Indiana, apparently had several such photographs to sell, which Ostendorf would later buy.

Over the course of their 21-year association, Ostendorf encouraged Sutton to commit to paper her eventual self-titled Reminiscences of Mariah Vance for the purpose of publication. The project was nurtured as well as assisted by Ostendorf for many years—the details of which Ostendorf outlines in his Foreword to Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life (the eventual book title given to Sutton’s original Reminiscences of Mariah Vance).

By April 1960, Sutton had completed a rough draft of Reminiscences of Mariah Vance sufficiently to her satisfaction to also compose, date, and sign a Preface to the endeavor. Unable to acquire the interest of a publisher, however, Sutton’s efforts languished for many subsequent years. 

To his credit, Ostendorf was typically careful with his description of Meserve No. 1 as were Lorant (1901-1997), Mellon (1942-), Warren (1885-1983), and Meserve (1865-1962)—Meserve arguably being the most careful of the five. (See also: Bartlett, Bland, Eaton, Fay, Gregory, Handy, Lambert, McLellan, Miller, Oldroyd, Pratt, Rice, Rogers, Stewart, Townsend, Truesdell, Wilson, et al.). But of the five, with the respect to the pairing of Meserve No. 1 with Mary’s assumed earliest photograph, Lorant was the most consistently careful and Ostendorf was the least careful over time. Ostendorf was among the first, for example, to contend unequivocally that Lincoln’s and Mary’s assumed earliest photographs were companion images and that both were taken at the same time in 1846 at Shepherd’s studio in Springfield, Illinois. Again, to his credit, Ostendorf continued to refer to Meserve No. 1 as Lincoln’s earliest “known” image, as did his contemporaries. But in the autumn of 1963—8 years into his association with Sutton, 32 years before the actual publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, and 1 year after Meserve’s passing—Ostendorf included the following revelation in his newly published book Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose, in reference to its included (pictured-captioned-alleged) “Mr. Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln: Companion Daguerreotypes”:

In her unpublished memoirs, Mariah Vance, a part-time [employee] of the Lincolns, recalled that Mrs. Lincoln, standing with the president-elect, dusted the two portraits in their Springfield home and observed: “They are very precious to me, taken when we were young and so desperately in love. They will grace the walls of the White House.”

With this single pronouncement, Ostendorf had stirred curiosity while simultaneously upstaging his contemporaries by declaring that “Mariah Vance”—a person most Lincoln students at the time had never heard of—had disclosed a quintessential truth of which few were privy.

From the early 1960s, the original book idea for Reminiscences of Mariah Vance (ultimately retitled Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life) had been shopped unsuccessfully to many publishers. The prospective publishers no doubt shared the provided drafts of the proposed book with select scholars for their assessment. In 1976, the presumed original author of the proposed book, Adah Sutton, had died at the age of 92. In 1977, Ostendorf had purchased the rights to the yet unpublished manuscript from Sutton’s niece, Iris Sutton. The travails of rejection by publishers continued throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Impromptu revisions to Sutton’s original manuscript were clearly made by its new owner (Ostendorf) and his hired editors at several steps along the way. Parts and pieces of the manuscript were clearly co-opted by critiquing historians as their own access to the yet unpublished material propagated . . . which sensibly explains how certain events alleged in the yet unpublished manuscript found their way into the books of other historians prior to the publishing of the book in question (just because most historians didn’t approve of the proposed book in its entirety didn’t keep some from borrowing portions of its unpublished material for their own purposes). An example of this, published in a biography 30 years prior to the publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, is the caption written as follows beneath its included alleged earliest photographs of Lincoln and Mary:

This is how early Springfield remembered Abraham and Mary Lincoln.

Taken in the late 1840s, these photographs hung on the wall of the family living room.

In a second biography, published 25 years prior to the publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, is the caption written as follows beneath its included alleged earliest photographs of Lincoln and Mary:

Mary Todd Lincoln as she was in 1846, four years after her marriage. The daguerreotype was taken at the same time as that of Lincoln (opposite) by N. H. Shepherd, an early Springfield photographer.

Opposite:

The earliest known photograph of Lincoln, this portrait was a companion to that of Mary Lincoln. They were made, Mrs. Lincoln was to say later, “when we were young and so deeply in love.”

In a third biography, published 18 years prior to the publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, is the caption written as follows beneath its included, assumed “Earliest Photographs of Lincoln and Mary”:

Mary Lincoln in 1846. “They are very precious to me,” Mary said of the photographs above and left, “taken when we were very young and so desperately in love.”

In a fourth biography, published 8 years prior to the publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, is the caption written as follows beneath its included, proclaimed, “Earliest Photographs of Lincoln and Mary”:

Mary Lincoln was a twenty-eight-years-old wife and mother in 1846. The Lincolns had been married for four years and had two sons when they sat for these companion portraits. “They are very precious to me,” Mary said later, “taken when we were young and so desperately in love.”

In a fifth biography, published three years prior to the publishing of Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life (and, again, here cited without its book title or author’s name), is the caption written as follows between Lincoln’s and Mary’s included, proclaimed, “Very First Photographs”:

Of these very first photographs, made in Springfield four years after their marriage, Mary said: “They are very precious to me, taken when we were young and desperately in love.”

And so it went. . . .  For decades the “assumed” was perpetuated as the “concluded,” sustained entirely by the absence of evidence proving otherwise.

According to Ostendorf, in Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, p. 7: 

In 1937 or 1938, our late friend, Dr. Louis A. Warren [1885-1983], former director of the Lincoln National Life Foundation at Fort Wayne, Indiana, praised Sutton’s work for publication.

According to Sutton, in Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life, p. 28:

One professor [ . . . ] suggested I get in touch with Louis A. Warren, director of the Lincoln Life Association of Fort Wayne, Indiana. He said he might be able to help me put the stories (I told him of) in book form. That was either in 1937 or 1938.

Dr. Warren was very encouraging. We exchanged a few letters. In one he expressed sincere conviction they [the stories] should be put in book form for posterity and was willing to collaborate with me.

About that time, my mother became very ill. She needed constant care from the fall of that year until late spring the following year. I put the idea of writing completely out of my mind.

According to Lincoln Lore Issue No. 1000 (1948, June 7):

[By 1937-38, Louis A. Warren had become sufficiently] convinced that too much dependence had been placed on the reminiscences of elderly citizens [arguably referring to the effected machinations of authors such as: Josiah Holland (1819-1881); Henry Raymond (1820-1869); Isaac Arnold (1815-1889); Elizabeth Keckley (1818-1891); Henry Rankin (1837-1927); William Herndon (1818-1891); Gibson Harris (1828-1911); et al.] and too little search had actually been made of the authoritative records for the true facts contained within about the Lincolns[. . . .]

According to Lincoln Lore Issue No. 687 (1942, June 8):

The [Lincoln National Life] Foundation had come to a point where it could not classify as primary evidence personal reminiscences of Lincoln, newspaper stories with political bias, collections of folklore by relatives or friends and opinions or theories of Lincoln’s contemporaries. [The Foundation had concluded that] there were four classes of source material about Lincoln which could be relied upon to produce factual evidence about Lincoln’s life and works: Lincoln’s autobiographical sketches, Lincoln’s correspondences, Lincoln’s addresses and duly authorized public records.

Dr. Louis Warren (the distinguished and universally respected Lincoln scholar) was therefore an unlikely candidate for being receptive to the stories of Adah Sutton. It should be noted that Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life was published in 1995 (12 years after Warren’s passing in 1983). If Warren had had a complimentary view of Sutton’s work, wouldn’t it have been sensibly cited verbatim in Lincoln’s Unknown Private Life?

In conclusion, Frederick Meserve’s more careful description of Meserve No. 1:

The earliest known portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A photograph of the daguerreotype believed to have been made by N. H. Shepherd in Springfield, Illinois, in 1846. Mr. Robert Todd Lincoln, who owned the original, stated to the author that he believed it was made in Washington about 1848, when his father was a representative in Congress.

5.    Cara A. Finnegan, “Recognizing Lincoln: Image Vernaculars in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 8(1), (Michigan State University Press, 2005, spring).

6.    Barbara E. Savedoff, Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2000), 152.

7.    Beaumont Newhall, The Daguerreotype in America (New York: Dover Publication, 1976).

8.    Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944). See Lincoln Lore Issue No. 771.

9.   In the mid- to late-nineteenth century—artists, engravers, and lithographers worked directly from daguerreotypes, glass negatives, and subsequent paper print copies to create the printing plates universally used at the time to provide books and periodicals with their pictures. After the plates were made and the printing was done, the originals were sometimes discarded. This was likewise the possible outcome of simply having a contemporary paper print copy made from a daguerreotype. Once the daguerreotype was disassembled and the copying process was completed, a customer didn’t always indulge the added expense or concern of having the original daguerreotype resealed and re-cased, which might entail a separate visit to a daguerreotype studio to have done. As a consequence, the disassembled components of the daguerreotype were sometimes lost or simply thrown away. On the occasion the daguerreotype plate was saved but not resealed or re-cased as in the situation here, the exposed image was thereafter susceptible to being easily damaged.

The photographic image that Robert provided to Frederick Meserve in 1910 was clearly a retouched copy of the scratched-up original daguerreotype known today. In Meserve’s 1911 book The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln, p. 38, Meserve ubiquitously states: “There has been no touching up to make perfect pictures,” which suggests that Meserve personally devised no role in retouching the Meserve copy and that presumably the original daguerreotype was damaged prior to the Meserve copy being made by Robert. As for how this damage was incurred, conceivably either the glass on the daguerreotype had been previously broken or a corner of its frame had been split (which was not an uncommon occurrence with daguerreotypes of this period), which may have resulted in the entire case/package coming apart, which would have exposed the daguerreotype image to physical damage. A second possibility is that at some point before the Meserve copy being made, the daguerreotype plate was removed from its protective case for the purpose of placement into a more suitable frame for wall hanging as indicated by Robert (see note number 4) and in this process the damages were possibly then incurred. A third possibility is that the daguerreotype plate was simply reframed and wall-hung without its protective glass, which would have eliminated one of its reflective surfaces, making the image easier to view and consequently easier to damage.

10.    According to James Mellon in the book The Face of Lincoln (1979), p. 191 (note for p. 19), the presumed earliest photograph (daguerreotype) of Lincoln was sent by the Library of Congress to George Eastman House for cleaning in 1949. According to an April 2022 correspondence with the Library of Congress, the assumed earliest photographs (daguerreotypes) of Lincoln and Mary were both sent to George Eastman House in December 1958 for “restoration,” with no mention of a 1949 “cleaning.” In an October 2022 follow-up to the April correspondence, the Library of Congress clarified that the process of the December 1958 restoration did not commence until early 1959 and that the 1949 date in Mellon’s book was logically a mistranscription of the 1959 date when the restoration was completed and officially announced to the public. The two newly cleaned and recased daguerreotypes were then displayed publicly at the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Exhibition, opened at the Library of Congress on February 12, 1959.

11.    The October 27, 1854 date represents the tentatively deduced origin date of the previously concluded next known photograph taken after Lincoln’s presumed earliest photograph, taken by P. Von Schneidau. See the book The Face of Lincoln, by James Mellon (1979), p. 191 (historical note for p. 21).

12.    Yang Gu, BDS, MSc; Michele Williams, BSN, DMD, FRCD(C); Catherine F. Poh, DDS, PhD, FRCD(C), “How to Evaluate a Patient with a Swollen Lip,” Jcda(ca), 2010.

13.    Mark E. Neely Jr., and Harold Holzer, The Lincoln Family Album (2006) p. xx.

14.    Provenance: A record of ownership (i.e., possession) used as a guide to authenticity.

Example:

After Lincoln’s assassination, the War Department [allegedly] preserved Lincoln’s top hat and other materials left at Ford’s Theatre. With permission [allegedly] granted by Mary Lincoln, the department [allegedly] gave the top hat to the U.S. Patent Office, which, in 1867, [allegedly] transferred it to the Smithsonian Institution, where Joseph Henry, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, [allegedly] ordered his staff not to exhibit the hat “under any circumstance, and not to mention the matter to anyone, on account of there being so much excitement at the time.” The hat was [allegedly] immediately placed in a basement storage room. The American public did not see the hat again until 1893, when the Smithsonian lent it to an exhibition hosted by the Lincoln Memorial Association. Today the hat is one of the Smithsonian’s most treasured objects.  -Smithsonian (National Museum of American History), “Abraham Lincoln’s Top Hat,” February 13, 2024.

If we apply the law of contraposition to this type of guide to authenticity, consequence must sensibly apply equally to authentication usage as it does to proprietary usage. That is, if an item is not dependent on its provenance to prove its authenticity, then its provenance is inconsequential to its authentication; and if an item is not missing from anywhere, then its provenance is inconsequential to its ownership.

An authenticating provenance with respect to a 175-year-old daguerreotype (in this case evidently a once privately held Lincoln family heirloom, likely passed down through the Lincoln family itself, whose lineage ended in 1985), with no apparent history of publication nor record of existence, may be desirable but unrealistic given the confidentiality of private sales, private gifts, and private ownership, and the reality that transactions of the distant past were typically documented with simple invoices, if at all, and rarely with comprehensive detail. When we think of provenance—that is, “the alleged documented history of an article or artifact”—what we are actually referring to is a presumptive form of evidence that is entirely apart from the item it allegedly represents; evidence whose validity, by its very proximity, is inherently more suppositional—subject to error or manipulation—than evidence provided directly by the item itself. Interestingly (irrespectively), the conceived importance of provenance rises (or is raised) proportionately to the absence of directly tangible evidence . . . which suggests that its truth or falsity, its standard of reasoning, and its procedure of justification are elements of a lesser convention and framework of assessment, and that its premise is limited to the context giving it rise. . . .  For example, even the most compelling provenance could not prove beyond reasonable doubt the authenticity of the Smithsonian’s alleged Lincoln top hat, any more than a photograph of a celebrity wearing a certain lapel pin could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the pin shown in the photograph is the same pin being offered for authentication. There would still need to be something uniquely identifying—unique about the item itself and/or unique about the original owner’s connection to the item (which in the case of Lincoln’s alleged top hat had been originally provided by its broad mourning band initially thought to have signified Lincoln’s memorial to his son William, who had died in the White House, but which was later determined to be less credibly so when taken into account the multitude of bereaved Civil War era fathers who had also worn hat bands in memorials to their own sons who had died in the war)—and in such a way that the likelihood of manipulation or tampering would seem if not impossible at least improbable. To this end, the subject daguerreotype provides the better of both worlds: something uniquely identifying about the item itself and something uniquely identifying about the original owner’s connection to the item: the subject daguerreotype provides a photograph of the original owner.

In summary, the discovery of an important nineteenth-century family portrait daguerreotype is not like the discovery of a conventional work of art for which contended exhibit records, sales records, and even insurance records can often be gathered to serve as provenance. Nineteenth-century daguerreotypes are commonly found entirely without documentation due to their original nominal cost, their original private character, and their typically unanticipated future historical worth.

Furthermore, unlike with other historical discoveries, nineteenth-century daguerreotypes have traditionally experienced negligible instance of tenable forgery . . . and within the realm of Lincoln daguerreotypes, not one known case.

In conclusion, as with all historical discoveries, only logic and physical evidence can prove authenticity beyond a reasonable doubt, not provenance. And logic tells us that Abraham and Mary (in spite of any conjecture to the contrary) must surely have had at least one photograph taken together before resolving to have no further photographs taken together. Logic also tells us that 1849 was an ideal time for the Lincolns to have had such a photograph taken. And logic likewise tells us that it would be nearly impossible to tamper with a daguerreotype in its original unopened case, with its original 175-year-old seals intact, without leaving evidence of the compromise.

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