Thomas Lincoln

[Houmes]

(10-09-2014 08:39 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Eva, I have several questions about this photo. I would assume it was taken c.1848 - c.1850 because Thomas Lincoln died very early in 1851. Was there a daguerreotypist in Charleston at that time? McMurtry found one as early as 1854, but this would have to be earlier for Thomas Lincoln to have posed. I also wonder why the family of O.V. Flora never contacted Robert Lincoln about what they said they had in their possession. In 1918 Robert Lincoln said he "never heard of any picture of my grandfather."

Abraham Lincoln had 20 different photographs taken in various forms between 1846 and 1859, when he was widely known in Illinois as a prominent attorney and former state legislator. Itinerant photographers were present in Illinois during this time, traveling without advertising except via word of mouth. Given the opportunity, who wouldn't snap a photo of the father of an Illinois favorite son? In a letter to Frederick Meserve in November 25, 1910, Robert Todd Lincoln claimed Nicholas Shepherd couldn't possibly have taken the first daguerreotype of Abraham and Mary Lincoln because "Springfield, in 1846 was simply a village and I do not believe it possible that any one there possessed the facilities..." In the same letter, Robert Lincoln admitted he had no information about those first images, so one might question his recall about other early images. The Abraham and Mary daguerreotypes continue to be accepted by historians as being Shepherd images, and he was known to be a photographer at that time in Springfield. The O.V. Flora image attributed to be Thomas Lincoln has been published in multiple books and it is a print, assumed to be from a daguerreotype. It is now in the collection of Lincoln Memorial University.