This carte-de-visite purports to show Isaac Harper, and is conveniently dated for us, with a Civil War era tax stamp, canceled with the photographer’s initials (N & J) and the date June 11, 1866. Was there any such person, and if so what can learn about him?
Isaac Norton in Kewanee IL 1866
Looking at the photograph, everything is completely consistent with the supposed 1866 date. This is important, as some photograph dealers on sites like eBay have taken to adding spurious tax-stamps to improve the saleability of their cards. No doubt those unscrupulous characters are also adding false identifying information. That seems unlikely in this case since this CDV has been in my possession over 25 years, and so was purchased back when these cards were little valued (I think I paid 20 cents for it). If you were purchasing a card like this today, it might sell for a couple dollars, or it might fetch $20 or $30 if it caught the attention of descendants of the subject or photographers, whose special interest may cause them to get caught up in the bidding frenzy.
Finding Isaac Harper
As it happens, we had no trouble finding evidence on the life of Isaac Harper. Based on census data we know he was born in England in 1810 or 1811, so he was about 55 years old when this photo was taken. The 1850 census shows him living in Ridgefield (Huron county) Ohio, with four children – 17 year old Isabell, 15 year old John, 4 year old Mary and four month old Linda. All four children were born in Ohio, and Isaac’s occupation was Brewer.
With a baby in the house, but no wife listed, it was easy to assume that the wife probably died very recently when the census was taken. Luckily for us, the 1850 census include mortality rolls, listing names of every person who died in the preceding 12 months. Sure enough, there we found Maria Harper listed, also in Ridgefield, who died in childbirth in April 1850 at the age of 36.
On 7 Apr 1853 Isaac married again, to Adaline Sutton, born ca 1825 in Peru (Huron county) Ohio, the daughter of Levi Reed Sutton (7 Sep 1794 – 3 Sep 1872) and Catherine Kile (11 Dec 1791 – 1879), according to an online genealogy — I haven’t confirmed these details, but they are consistent with the records I did examine.
Census and Tax Records Tell the Story
The 1860 census shows Isaac and Adeline living in Woodstock (McHenry county) Illinois, with John, Mary and Lydia (Linda) mentioned above, plus a new child Alice, age 6. Isabell probably was married and in her own home by then, as she would be 27 years old. Both Isaac and his son John are listed as grocers, apparently John the more successful since he is listed with $400 in real estate and $500 in personal property, while Isaac has only $100 in personal property.
In the 1870 census we find Isaac and Adeline living in Kewanee (Henry county) Illinois, where our photograph was taken. Isaac’s fortunes have improved, he is shown as a merchant with $1500 in real estate, and $1500 personal property. Another child, six year-old Charles, has been added to the family, the first of the children born in Illinois. Only Linda, Alice and Charles are still at home, though Linda’s name is given as ‘Lynden’.
The 1880 census shows us Adeline was widowed, and only Linda and Charles still live at home, along with five boarders — clearly it was a large home, so Isaac had not squandered his prosperity. By 1900 Adeline was living with Charles and his family in Marshall, Iowa.
A Tale of Two Photographers
Turning to the photographers who took this image, we see it is neatly imprinted ‘Norton & Johnson, Photographers, Kewanee, Ill’ inside a decorative cartouche on the back of the card — very typical for mid-1860s.
Norton is almost certainly N B Norton, whom Craig lists as a daguerreian in Kewanee in 1860. He must have arrived there after the census was taken, however, since I went through each page of the census for Kewanee and found only one photographer listed, daguerreian J E Snow.
I did find N B Norton listed in the Civil War tax records, however. To support the Civil War effort, income taxes were levied on all Americans earning over $600 per year, and most businesses had to buy annual licenses. I found N B Norton paid for photographer licenses in 1862, 1863 and 1864. Each of those years he was operating alone. I don’t know why he was not listed in 1865, the last year for which records are available (some areas have 1866 records, but not the district Kenwanee is in). Maybe he and Johnson were already partners then, and they used Johnson’s name when paying for the license, rather than the partnership name. The 1870 census shows photographer M B Norton, age 38, born New York, living in a boarding house.
The Johnson part of the photographic team is a bit harder to pin down, since there are so many photographers of that name around. There were S E Johnson and W G Johnson listed in Henry county, both in Geneseo. Only one Johnson, however, was listed in Kewanee, so he is most likely the partner in this case: Andrew Johnson, born ca 1835 in Sweden. He is listed as a farm hand in the 1860 census. About 1862 he married Anna Erickson, and their first child (Emma) was born the following year. The next year, 1864, we find in the tax records that Andrew paid for a photographer’s license, and again in 1865. Oddly, Andrew Johnson is listed as ‘Domestic Servant’ in the 1870 census — as were many other young men listed on the same page. It is unusual for a servant to be listed with any real estate, but Andrew is shown with $1000 worth. The 1880 census again lists him as a photographer.
Most likely, then, M B Norton established himself as a photographer in Kewanee late in 1860. Andrew Johnson started operating there late in 1863 or early in 1864. No doubt they found the town too small to support two photographers. Norton may have tried elsewhere in 1865, but in the end they decided to join forces and worked a studio in partnership by 1866, when this card was produced. Both were still living in Kewanee in 1870, though Johnson is not listed as a photographer — that could be an error, or he may have been working two jobs, each part time. In any case, the partnership probably dissolved some time in the 1870s, as Johnson is listed as a photographer there in 1880, but Norton is not.