I recall early on, a visit to my studio of a wild pack of young jackals.  Young men from Long Island who had taken the ferry across to Peck Slip and on up into Broadway.  There were three or four of them, the loudest being the smallest of course.  I don't remember his name but I do remember the lad whose image I captured that day.

His name was Caleb Edwards.  I remember it perfectly as he hailed from Jamaica, New York.  My beautiful Phebe had family not too far from there and when I laid eyes on him, I could see something of her in him.  Or maybe it was his resemblance to my brother Jacob.  He was the quietest of them.

The lot were a rowdy bunch and I heard them coming before they bounded into my rooms.  Quieting down as they surveyed my establishment, the pipsqueak wondered as to "how's a person goes about gettin' their p'rtrait taken."

I was myself, a young man once.  I realized that there were those who's heritage had much to be allotted for.  While my own familiar and religious upraising had provided me the means to converse in a more Christian manner, I displayed no ill will in repsonding to his crass choice of words.  I merely replied that the sitter should consider his pose, see that his personage was as he would like it captured and, once formalities had been arranged, the process would begin.

Pipsqueak continued to speak on behalf of the lot.  "See here" acknowledging the young Edwards with a nod of the head, "this hard case is Caleb Edwards.  Caleb's going to be the next champion of fisticuffs in America!  We're in town from over east across the river on Long Island.  We've scraped up enough money to pay for his portrait."

Needless to say, I was only too happy to oblige them.  Upon conducting the necessary items of business, I suggested the party take a seat while I conferred with the young pugilist.  It was difficult to get much out of him, including a display of emotion.  He was a cautious young man.  Slowly, I gained his confidence and he began to tell me of his personal life.

A mutual decision among the group had been to position the sitter in the formal pose of a bare knuckler.  The years of disciplined labor had certainly hardened Mr. Edwards.  His strength was unquestionable.  Arms taut, wrists and hands like steel cables.  Neck and head tanned from the sun's rays.  I offered him use of my comb to smoothen his hair and he kindly accepted.  It was only then that his countenance eased and a smile appeared across his handsome face.

While we explored various positionings, he offered me a glimpse into his world.

The son of a farmer, he had only the most rudimentary of schooling.  His father had no use for such matters and made it clear to young Caleb that he and his younger brother were needed on the fields rather than filling their minds with letters and numbers.  From the age of 10 he knew nothing of life other than tending the potatoes, corn and other sundry vegetables they managed to grow.

I thought of my own early years on my father's farm and how differently our circumstances had gone.  His escape from the drudgery would rely entirely on his fists.  I had hoped for his sake he could see himself through.

Once the mercury had settled on his daguerreotype, the lot of them were off.  I caught Caleb's eye as he was walking towards the stairs that would lead him out of my life.  There were thousands of them in the years to come.  A nod and a polite thank you crossed his lips and I never saw or heard from him again.

©The J. Paul Getty Museum

All throughout the winter of 1840 and in fact for the following two winters, I kept open my watch and jewelry repair shoppe on Maiden Lane while little by little, requests for portraitures began to pick up.  My neighbors, Mr. Bagley and Mr. Booth were both extremely kind as were all of the merchants on our block and they along with others were quick to offer their customers a recommendation to venture up to my studio to see for themselves, this new form of capturing ones likeness.

I was met with all forms of curious questions.  "Will it hurt?"  "Will I lose my soul?"  "Can the box see under my clothing?"  I dare say the least eager to sit were, at first, the ladies and the wealthy.  The former as they considered it too immodest and the latter as it seemed too vulgar!  Both would come around rather quickly though and in short order they became my very best clients.

These were difficult, long days.  Keeping both businesses open, not knowing whether to shutter one for the other or if either would survive to flourish!  In due time however, the decision would be made for me.  The little jewelry shoppe was failing.

It stung me to have to see it go.  A sentimental attachment that men of business should never entertain most assuredly, but it did sting.  While my father was the first to see the ambition in me, my mother saw the depth of emotion.  It wasn't so much a sense of failure that I felt in the spring of 1842 when I made arrangements to close business at that wonderful little establishment on Maiden Lane.  It was that I was saying goodbye for the very last time to a dear old friend.  A port who had provided safe harbor for myself and my family.

The unknown loomed ahead.

April 1842, NY Evening Post

New York City Hall April 24, 1865.  Photograph by J. Gurney & Son

Thirty years!

It is at once impossible to believe and yet all too easy to gain comfort from the fact, that it is almost thirty years to the day when Ben and I walked together up those steps and into City Hall.  We weren't alone of course.

On that particular morning thousands waited to gain entrance to the building.  Throngs milling about and soldiers everywhere!  Everywhere the eyes looked there was humanity.  All waiting to pay their respects to our dear, departed president.

I remember it all.  I remember how it had rained in the early morning hours on the day following his assassination.  How, when the news of his passing reached me that morning, the clouds had parted and rays of sunlight had come filtering across Broadway.  Church bells peeling the saddest of news.  Abraham Lincoln had been struck down by J. Wilkes Booth!  Booth!

It was Easter.  The first Easter of peace in four years.  Four years of murder and misery.  Our country laid exhausted, weakend by four long years of agony.  The prospect of a true and everlasting peace after all of the destruction and horrors we had experienced made our nation grateful and optimistic for the future.

Our leader, Father Abraham, as the negroes and children called him, admonished us when talk of punishment and retribution arose in those final months and weeks of the war.  He told us to embrace our brothers who had fought against us.  To lay away our differences once and for all time and return to a nation united.  His kindness seemed fathomless.

And all at once, shattered!  One last monumental orgy of death cast upon the very man who sought to forestall it.  By a New York actor!  My mind reels as it did the day the news reached me.

Walking to my studio that morning, I saw their faces.  People I passed were to a man, woman and child, stricken.  As if we were all in some crazy dream where the promise of a better future had been taken from us.  Snatched back!  We would return to a never ending battle of destruction and death.  I saw men in top hats and coats with the worry of the unknown about them.  Women, already weeping, children with their look of silent solemnity.  Negroes throwing themselves to the ground in abject despair.  All around me, the world had gone insane once more.

I recall it all as if it were this morning and yet I find myself thankfull that it isn't.  April of 1865 was a long, horrible affair.

J.C. Booth Advertisement as it appeared
in Doggett's New-York City Directory, 1845.

Peering out of the drafty, second floor window at the cobblestone below, I watch uncertain, as fashionable couples and men of industry pass by the entrance to my newly leased establishment on the corner of Broadway and John Street.  The running glass pane through which I gaze out onto the street scene distorts their appearance as if I was looking at them with the eyes of an intemperant.

All through the late fall and remaining days of 1839, I had studied and experimented with the equipment and chemicals I had purchased on credit from my friend and scientific instrument maker, Mr. Roach.  I mention the terms of my acquiring the materials as I have no shame in admitting that during that time, and in fact on many occasions over the course of my career, divinity had determined that I should go without more often than live in materialistic abundance.

I have never once questioned my creator.  In my deepest moments of doubt, I ask for the strength and wherewithal, nothing more save for the health of those I hold dearest to me.  The why of it is most certainly beyond my comprehension.  I suppose this small gift of humility has allowed me to focus more on overcoming the matter at hand and not the circumstances surrounding it, which I believe pleases Him.

All that winter leading into the new year I had practiced at our home on Hamerseley Street.  It was our first on Manhattan.  A small little cottage on what has now come to be called West Houston, we hadn't the room really, what with our extended and seemingly ever growing family!  Ben was a curious and omnipresent toddler and little Mattie a beautiful little angel.  Although she never once complained, I saw the price my study was exacting on my dear Phebe Ann.  I commited myself to removing the enterprise to a proper address as soon as even the most modest of successful attempts at putting means to the method could be made.

Only moments earlier, I had stood on a low stool at the doorway leading up to my atelier, hanging what would be my first means of promoting myself as a daguerreotypist.  Unsure of what in fact I should actually call this altogether new form of portraiture and not wanting to confuse the public with my name being associated with something other than my jewelry and watch repair establishment on Maiden Lane, I decided to simply shutter a small wooden framed sample of four of my best specimens to date.

They were four small quarter plate affairs.  So tiny and fragile.  I hung them with all the care I had within me.  Faint, quiet images of neighbors and acquaintances, as I recall now.  Mr. Stoutenburgh, my landlord was one of them.  He was a grain merchant who had rented his home to us as a wedding gift principaly on behalf of my father, who had a long and friendly business relationship with him.  Mr. Adolphus Lane was certainly among them, a very good and kind gentleman.  He ran a prominent dry goods store next door to my jewelry shoppe on Maiden Lane.

Now, my new neighbors stood behind me, skepticaly looking over my shoulder as I affixed the tiny placard by way of several lengths of chain to the doorway's ceiling, other than the images, a tiny ceramic finger directing the curious upstairs.  I stood down from the step and gave consideration to my efforts.

"Well done, Mr. Gurney!"  "Yes indeed, sir!  We are pleased to count you among our mercantile partners!"  I acknowledge Messrs. Booth and Bagley's warm words with great thanks but confide in them, my ambivalence.  They nod and all three of us look pensively to the small wooden sign that serves to announce my new line of business.

J.C. Booth was one of early New York's great habardashers.  A tailor by trade but over the years his business at 187 Broadway grew into all matters of gentlemen's furnishings.  It was Mr. Booth whom I gathered my initial recognition of a merchant's need to market himself in the worst of times as much as the best.  While I believed in newspaper and directory advertising and promotion from early on, it was only when I began my career in daguerreian photography that I learned the beneficial results of proper marketing.

Mr. Bagley was one of several gentleman who's business was within the building I chose to call my first studio at no. 189 Broadway.  A manufacturer and retailer of ornate, handcrafted gold and silver pens, he, like Mr. Booth served to please only society's best clientele.

Both men approached the sign for closer inspection, coatless, bracing themselves against the cold January morning, teeth chattering a bit.  I on the otherhand felt little of the temperature, more concerned with my situation and whether or not I had taken leave of my senses for considering such an unknown future.  I took solace in knowing my little shop around the corner on Maiden Lane was still in operation, though the hours I had spent honing my portraiture business had in fact begun to take it's toll on the ledgers of my jewelry and watch repair work.

"So, Mr. Gurney, once again please, tell me..."  Mr. Booth was saying over his shoulder while both he and Mr. Bagley were angling themselves vis-a-vis the small oval shaped daguerreotypes to better capture their views.  "They are sun portraits, Mr. Booth.  The amalgam of science and art, sir.  Mr. Morse brought the process back from Paris last year."  Bagley uttered an exclamation "indeed!  Here, Booth, if you look at this one just...like so..."  Both of the gentleman let out a gasp of recognition and with agreeable nods to each other turned to me and smiled.  "Fascinating, Gurney", says Booth.  "What do you charge to...paint...them?"

It was only at that moment that the subject of fee was broached!  In all my haste to release my dear wife and family from the bondage of my preoccupation with the science of all this, I had completely neglected the fundamental aspect of my business plan!  Here before me stood two men who for all appearances had established themselves in the most important city in the world and here I was before them with no idea what I was intending to request for my services rendered!

The fear and confusion I had felt over the past months immediately compounded itself to such a point where I thought I would in fact, faint or worse yet, die of a cerebral apoplexy here on lower Broadway.  Both of these men stood with their arms enfolded about themselves, hair blowing to the wind, lips blue from the cold, watching me.  It was then that Mr. A.G. Bagley spoke.

"Well Mr. Gurney, I would very much like to make an appointment with you at your earliest convenience, to have my visage put to...canvas?  If $5.00 is agreeable to you, we have ourselves an appointment!"  Mr. Booth looked on at me for a moment before uttering "yes that does sound reasonable, put me on your calendar as well, Mr. Gurney.  Now gentleman if you will excuse me, I'm frozen thru and would like nothing more than the warmth of my coat and the chime of my pocket watch announcing the beginning of our business day!"

And on that frigid morning, had I looked up into the second floor windows of my neighbor Mr. Booth's establishment at 187 Broadway, I might have seen a young jewel case manufacturer peering out at what had just transpired below.  Returning back to his work bench, thoughts of his own future flooded into the mind of Mathew Brady.

Gurney's Gallery, 349 Broadway.
Photograph by Victor Prevost.
New-York Historical Society.

"Papa..."  I can hear Martha's soft, insisting voice over the hushed bonhomie of men, many of them long gone to their graves.  I'm dreaming again, I know but I'm reluctant to leave this evening's celebration at the old studio on the corner of Broadway and Leonard and return to the home of my daughter, at the turn of the century in Coxsackie, New York.

"To our modern Prometheus!"  It's Anthony's voice, I hear.  As certain and clear as if he was sitting in a chair beside me, lazing in the warmth of the early spring afternoon in my daugther's sun porch.  My dear friend and merchant, Edward Anthony.  He's smiling across 40 years, across a candleabra festooned dining table and raising a glass of Verdelho to me!

"Gurney and Daguerre, you have stolen fire from the sun!  And rekindled fond affections flame."  Their voices resound in muffled, admiration and agreement.  Their crystal glassware twinkle with the glow and reflection of the room's oil lamps and candlelight.  Their smiles and shining faces, made red with a sumptuous meal and good cheer.  The oaky smell of wine and cigar hanging about the room.

They are all there, these...these ghosts.  The men whom I call my dearest of friends.  The ones who began it all with me.  There would come time for bitterness and envy and treachery, of course.  Are we not men???  Are we not mortal?  But tonite, in this long completed evening of December 21, 1853, we are the dearest of friends.  And I have the honor of their kind words and the humility of being their servant and host.

Professor Renwick offers a subdued opening speech and Mr. Bidwell, entertains us with a recounting of friend Edward Anthony's generous and inspiring idea which brought us all here!  A challenge!  A gentleman's participation in the discernment of what we are all endeavouring to raise up from it's infancy!  As the esteemed Mr. Anthony himself would display in asking Mr. Bidwell to speak on his behalf, modesty compelled us to pass on such an offer in years past.  With time and thought given rightly to posterity, it became evident that such a task to offer up the very best was a just, noble and solemn right.

The massive silver pitcher sits at the very center of the circular banquet table.  Near to it, two silver goblets for runners up.  Daguerre's face, etched into one side of the pitcher. His eyes looking on quizzically.  The candlelight gives him a warm tone.

It's my friend Wallace's voice, of the Mercantile Guide.  I've asked him to say a few words on my behalf.  I am feeling the most aghast at any further attention being directed to me and a sincere wish for this aspect of the evening to be completed.  To be thought of as more for what I am.  A partner in the evening's celebration for the industry we are all helping to build.  "Mr. Gurney entertains the most grateful feelings of all parties.  He presents his thanks for their kindness on this occasion..."

Letters are read from those who could not attend.  Professors Morse and Draper send their congratulations and regret at not being with us.  Samuel Dwight Humphrey, our nascent industry's editor and publisher rises to address the assembled with a remembrance of Daguerre.

On and on.  One after another.  Toast after toast until the spirit began to get the better of several of us.  Henry T. Anthony certainly being one of them.  Why Edward's brother thought the timing correct to relate the story of the Irishman and the rabbit trap, I still can't conceive of.  Especially with John Roach being in attendance.  My dear philosophical instrument maker did not suffer ill words towards his nativist brethren lightly.  Which is why, upon the closing of H.T.'s ridiculous tale, I arose and with glass in hand...

"My good friends!  Tonite you have honored me not with your words, though they are so gratefully and thankfully received but with your presence.  To look across this room and see so many who have contributed so earnestly, so devoutly to our mutual concern, truly fills my heart with admiration and happiness.  My only wish is that those who could not be here, Professors Morse and Draper who participated in the evaluation of all our entries and Mr. Brady, who has and no doubt will continue to lead us in the years to come, will, if God so desires be with us all next year when we shall convene once again!"

My modest attempt to summarize and offer a fitting end to an evening either went unrecognized or unaccepted for the good fellowship went on well into the following morning.  More off color stories about the Irish (Mr. Roach having left acrimoniously by this time) and more wine and tobacco.  Candles were extinguished and further subdued and the cast drew smaller and quieter.  More sincere.  And then it was left to dear old Snelling, Henry Hunt Snelling.  As fine a writer, photographer and friend as ever there was, to suggest to those left assembled that "unity of purpose be daguerreotyped upon our hearts and indelibly fixed by those golden attributes; friendship, charity and harmony."

"Papa..."  Martha's loving smile is before me, her hand soft on my shoulder.  I awake with a yawn, the sun's rays casting long shadows across our yard.  "Mattie, my dear, how long have I been asleep?"  I ask.  "Only a short while, papa.  I'm fixing a late lunch for us."  She kisses my forehead before walking out of the porch and back into the house, towards the kitchen and I'm left to think of her mother's reaction to that beautiful silver pitcher when I returned home to our house on Henry street in Brooklyn, in the early morning hours of December 22nd, 1853.

"Oh, Jeremiah!  What use does this family have for such vainglory!"

I pause for a moment before carefully rising out of the warm chair, my bones aching with age that only moments earlier were those of a young man's.  As I slowly walk to the voice of my daughter, humming an old hymnal in our little dining room, I wonder for the first time, what indeed did Phebe do with that beautiful silver pitcher.

Anthony Prize Silver Pitcher
engraving from Gleason's Pictorial, 1853

Removal Certificate from
Quaker Records, Coeymans NY

My uncle Jacob and I visited Mrs. Henry Dubois several weeks after her husbands untimely death in Little Falls and it was on that very day that I met my dear Phebe.  Dressed in mourning as was the woman she so tenderly called her "Mama" and administering to the still reeling Mrs. Dubois as only a devoted daughter could, I found it difficult at best to concentrate on the reason for my and my uncle's calling and not upon heaven's angel that sat close to her mother that day.

In turns feeling the uncomfortability of being in the presence of a family grieving for the loss of a man who was so admired and genuinely loved and desperate to compose my own thoughts to the matter of our visit and lessen my more instinctual curiosity regarding the young Miss Dubois, I relied heavily on Uncle Jacob to steer the afternoon's conversation accordingly.

As I was to learn that day, My uncle and Mr. Dubois had been more than mere mutual business acquaintances.  They had a profound respect for each other.  While very little personal correspondence had in fact taken place, they nonetheless knew of each other's work very well and had occasion to offer entre and recommendation to client's who, when in need of service that either party could not provide, would happily suggest the establishment in New Baltimore or Little Falls, whichever the instance might be.

Tea was served and our visit passed as pleasantly as circumstances could possibly provide.  Indeed, for there came a point when gentle, careful considerations were established and both parties were in agreement that I would seek room and board within the community and assume management of the late and venerable Mr. Dubois' place of business.

While no transfer of title was completed that day or for several years afterward for that matter, our meeting in the parlor of the widow's home was significant and providential on so many levels, the least of which being business associated.

As I listened to Uncle Jacob and Mrs. Henry Dubois lament the passing of her good husband while formulating a plan to address the business' resumption of operations, I found myself stealing moments of observation with quiet consideration, the adroit pose and movements of her daughter, Phebe Ann.

While being entirely chaste, I am and have always considered myself to be a gentleman of advanced perception.  I say that not in any effort at self flattery but rather, in previous occurence.  I have often experienced a sense for something as it was happening, that led me to believe or feel as if there was impending significance attached to it.  I recall meeting Phebe with just this perception.

She was a handsome young woman, that there was no arguing.  Her dark hair and blue eyes reminded me of my sister Catherine. Dressed entirely in black, her veiled head bowed more often than not in quiet contemplation of her prayerful hands, she sat very near to her mother.  A buttress of support.

If she said a word during our first meeting, I really don't recollect.  I myself said very little, deferring to those of Uncle Jacob and Mrs. Dubois.  Our eyes did meet that day, though, that I do remember.  I carry that moment around with me as so many would come to carry images of their loved ones in tiny leather casings or silver lockets that I would one day create for them.

Phebe would tell me many years later that in my eyes she saw goodness and light.  In hers, I saw kindness and comfort.  She was grace and beauty and I love her today as I did on the day I married her.  I miss her.

The years we spent in Little Falls managing our family's jewelry establishment and looking after her mother and older sister Charlotte were as happy as any we were to have in our lifetime together.  As today, there were carriage rides and harvest festivals.  Visting dignataries providing oratorical debates to entertain.  Still, the quiet, country life as was our thriving upstate village would one day be supplanted by my seemingly unbounded curiosity and longing for more.

Notice as it appeared in
March 23, 1838 edition of
Little Falls NY Mohawk Courier

Advertisement for John Roach as it appeared
in 1942-1843 Doggett's NYC Directory.

The very next morning as I recall, upon my initial meeting with Professors Morse and Draper, I paid a visit on Mr. John Roach's establishment around the corner from my own, on Nassau street.  John Roach was a brilliant Irishman who worked in the manufacture of glass instruments for scientific purposes.  While Morse did refer him, I had already a business relationship with Mr. Roach due to my own work with spectacles and watch repair.

I was immediately met with a warm and welcoming hello as only the Irish can provide in their own inimitable way.  "Well if it isn't Mr. Gurney!  Has another one of your customers need for a stronger pair of corrective lenses then?  Or perhaps the crystal on one of their Lepine's has cracked?"

I smiled good naturedly at him "no, Mr. Roach.  Today I am visiting you on an altogether new venture.  I have just come from a meeting at Professor Morse's rooms at the University."  It seemed apparent that I had to offer no further explanation.  "Ahha!  He has you in his grasp as well then, eh?"  A wide smile erupting over his taut celtic face.  His eyes sparkled with a wink.

"Well, Jeremiah.  Your timing is as accurate as those fancy repeaters you have such an ability to set in motion.  Those wealthy patrons of yours should thank their Holy Father for I'm certain if it weren't for you many would still be reliant on the sun's position in the sky to keep them aware of their day's schedule!"

He continued, "I am only now just finishing off a set of tools for the manufacture of Daguerre's sun portraits for a neighbor of ours, Mr. Johnson".  Mr. John Johnson was an acquaintance of mine.  A very good, if a bit harried, man who also operated in watch and jewelry repair.  "He was here no more than an hour ago, impatient with my work so I sent him off with a cheery good day and a suggestion to visit my friend Mr. Wolcott who might be amenable to expediting matters for him."

Roach paused for a moment, looking down at the glass enclosed wooden display case that stood between the two of us.  A young man at the time, like all of us, but also a man who seemed prematurely aged.  He too had a family to provide for.  The current financial circumstances of our country was hardly comforting to most and to those who were new to our land, those who had recently emmigrated from their native soil, it was even worse.

He looked up from his quiet consideration and met my eyes, "you know Jeremiah, I really don't know if I'm made for this country of yours.  I am quite pleased with it's industry and inquisitiveness, it's appeal for growth and technology.  But," and as he finished his sentence he turned and produced from under his counter a similar camera obscura to that which I had seen at Morse's atelier only yesterday, "when a man cannot find the time for another man to complete the project he was indentured to do on his behalf."  His voice trailed off as he placed the box on the counter.

I watched as Roach produced the brass cylinder that stared at Miss Draper so insolently and with considerate hands, gently but firmly placed the tube into the round opening.  Affixing it with hide glue he stood back and smiled.  "There," he said, "now we have finished."

Camera manufactured by John Roach ca. 1842
courtesy Matthew R. Isenburg