On Feb. 12, 1937 a striking, unique photograph of Abraham Lincoln was published for the first time on the front page of the Evening Tribune in San Diego.
The photograph of a beardless Abraham Lincoln, wearing a white linen suit, was made in Beardstown, Illinois, in 1858 by Abraham Byers. In 1947 the original photo was given to the University of Nebraska by Byers widow, Zora Byers Johnson.
From the Evening Tribune, Friday, Feb. 12, 1937:
RARE PHOTO TREASURED
By Newell Jones
A unique photograph of Abraham Lincoln came to light here today.
The photograph is published for the first time in the columns accompanying this story of its origin. It was taken in Beardstown, Ill., by the late first husband of a San Diego woman. Mrs. Zora Byers Johnson, 3937 Third ave. Reluctant in the past to let the precious photograph leave her hands, Mrs. Johnson, at the repeated suggestions of friends, consented to its publication in The Evening Tribune on this, the occasion of the 128th anniversary of the martyred president’s birth, Feb. 12, 1809.
Mrs. Johnson’s husband–by an odd coincidence his first name was the same as Lincoln’s—was Abraham M. Byers, who died here a number of years ago while they were making a tourist visit to California from the east. Much older than she, he took the picture when he was about 18 year’s old.
Not Photographer
A Pennsylvania farm boy who had gone west in search of opportunity, Mrs. Johnson explained, Byers became the friend of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in Illinois.
“Mr. Byers,” she recounted, “was not a photographer. It happened that he had loaned some money to a photographer who had a studio in Beardstown, though, and he finally had to take over the business in order to get his money out of it. He then learned enough about photography to operate the studio until he could sell it.
“Mr. Lincoln had a law office in Beardstown at that time, to which he came once a week. Talking to Lincoln one day, Mr. Byers said: ‘Come over and let me make a picture of you.’ He replied: ‘Oh, no, I’m not dressed well enough. I only have on this old linen suit.’ But he finally consented to go, just as he was, and the picture was taken.”
That was in 1858, during the time of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, when Lincoln would have been about 48 or 49 years of age. The result was what proves to be one of the finest and most unusual Lincoln pictures yet found.
Despite Byers’ inexperience in photography, and despite the early stage of the art’s development, the picture turned out to be a remarkably true likeness of the great American. It was sharp and clear. It caught him in a characteristic, informal attitude. And despite its age, it still preserves all that clearness and excellence.
Collodion Process
Unusual is the photo, too, in that it was among the last to show the future president before he grew his familiar beard in 1861.
And, as its reproduction here forcefully shows, it is more than a mere likeness. It catches and preserves in the lines of the emancipator’s gaunt features all the very greatness and kindliness of his heart, all the poignant tragedy of his life.
Photographically, the picture is distinctive, too. It was made by that old, wet collodion process introduced in 1851 as the successor to the Daguerreotype, or “tintype,” and employed only until about 1860 when it was supplanted by an albumen process. The photographs were known as Ambrotypes, and consisted of a glass negative developed so the silver deposit forming the picture was white, and then backed with black, so the picture looked like a positive, the photo being on the back of the glass.
The Ambrotypes were made up in cases resembling those of the familiar old “tintypes,” and Byers’ Lincoln picture is bound in a gilded and otherwise ornamented imitation of a book.
While Byers was still living, his widow recounted, an odd incident pertaining to his photographing of Lincoln came to his attention. It occurred in connection with publication of one of Ida Tarbell’s studies of Lincoln in the old “McClure’s Magazine.”
Byers happened upon the article. Accompanying it were numerous pictures of Lincoln. One of these, it was explained, had been “made in Beardstown, Ill., by and unidentified photographer.”
“Why,” exclaimed Byers, “that is my other picture of Lincoln!”
He had made two different photos of his friend that day in 1858, Mrs. Johnson explained. The one in the magazine he had left in the little Beardstown studio when he disposed of it, and never knew what became of the photo.
The second photograph, reproduced here, he preserved carefully throughout his life. Mrs. Johnson, who was an Aledo, Ill., girl, met and was married to Byers in the eastern state. She has guarded and treasured the photo since his death.
Historical photos and articles from The San Diego Union-Tribune archives are compiled by Merrie Monteagudo. Search the U-T historic archives at sandiegouniontribune.newsbank.com
