Jen and I have been doing work with images again. Jen is working on an on-line archive of high-rez scans and digital photos of the images in our personal collection and past/present items in the store's inventory.
While sorting through the image files on the computer, I came across one of Jen's favorite images:
This dapper gentleman is a captured in a 1/9th plate ambrotype. His clothing & the fact that the image is an ambro place it squarely around 1860.
Where the story gets interesting is that about a month ago Jen and I were preparing for a lecture we were doing on studying 19th century photographs. Jen was admiring the image, in its gutta-percha case, and I asked if she had ever taken it out of the case (as every once in a great while the case holds a surprise).
Well, we took it out of the case and lo and behold a little piece of newsprint fell out of the back of the case. One one side of the newsprint was a mourning poem:
"Beloved One, I Would Not Wish.
---
"Beloved one, I would not wish
To woo thee back to earth,
For thorns unnumbered and untold,
Spring daily into birth;
And if I had the magic power
to till each frozen vein,
I would not, love, recall thee back
To this dark world again.
For well I know with angel hosts
Where pain and sorrow cease,
Thou art now reveling in the bliss
Of endless love and peace.
"I mourn thee, love, but yet I feel,
That thou art with me still;
Thy spirit, though to me unseen,
Is guarding me from ill;
And in my dreams I hear a voice
Strike on my listening ear,
And deem within my visions that
Thy angel form is near;
Then, oh, beloved one, I’ll strive
To meet thee on that shore
Where Sorrow’s footsteps are unknown,
And Death shall come no more"
On the other side of the paper was part of the text from a speech President Lincoln gave to Congress on March 6, 1862. (Click here for the full text of that speech)
On the inside of the case, behind the image, was penciled the following:
"Mr. & Mrs. W.A. Harrod
Austin, Ind.
Sallie Browne
My Darling Husband"
Jen and I were shocked by all this, which clearly showed that Mr. W.A. Harrod had died before his wife, during the Civil War period, and she obviously mourned his loss. But who were Mr. & Mrs. Harrod... and where did "Sallie Browne" fall into the mix? How did Harrod die?
I never thought I'd answer any of these questions, but today I finally got around to doing a little sleuthing, and it turns out that one William A. Harrod was born in Indiana on February 12, 1835, was a carpenter in 1860 per the census, married one Sarah M. "Sallie" Brown on July 6, 1862 in the same county in Indiana and died on September 12, 1863 at the age of 28.
What's wild is that his death is listed as occuring "South of Austin... Indiana" while:
"Returning home on top of a Box Car in a Soldier train, when he got up to look around and was knocked off by a low bridge"
So was Harrod a soldier? I have not found a military service record for him yet. There is no source for this reference to his death, but the information I have gleaned is from a geneaology site and there is a link to contact the family member who put the info together.
Sad story. "Sallie Brown(e)" was widowed just a year after their marriage. Who knows, my wife and I may have been the first people to lay eyes on the pencil inscription and the mourning poem since Mrs. Harrod placed it there almost 150 years ago.
Curiouser and curioser.
Oh, if you are curious, here is the video of the talk on images, including our discovery of Mr. Harrod's "secret:"
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