Category Archives: All Posts

Miner’s Grave, 1863

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[ Half-plate ambrotype, 1863 ] The grave of Thomas Henry Johns, who was born in 1836 in England. Around 1860, Thomas, his two brothers and their wives came over to the US and soon started working as miners at the Minesota (correct spelling) copper mine in Rockland, Michigan.

 
In August of 1863, Thomas died after falling down a mine shaft… (you can make out the word “accidental(ly)” on his grave marker); his wife Ellen was about 5-6 months pregnant at the time, and went back to their hometown of Breage, England almost immediately after Thomas’s burial, where she gave birth to Thomas, Jr., and died 56 years later having never remarried.
 
In 1863, Rockland wasn’t even an official town yet, it was just a few settlements of about 80 houses set up by the Minesota Mining Company for the miners and their families.. you can see some of the homes in the background. In 1864 the three settlements were consolidated into Rockland.
 
I’ve had this ambrotype for years but have never been able to find the exact location of Thomas’s grave.. just that it’s somewhere in the hills around the mine. It looks like it was made of wood, so there’s a good chance that all trace of it is gone now; pics I have seen of the area where the mine was shows mostly overgrown woods where the mine was (https://www.mindat.org/loc-16394.html).
 
I found this early pic online labeled Minesota mine.. the big white building looks like it might be the same seen in my ambrotype.

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Poor Sweet Child (Blog Exclusive)

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A circa 1860 stereoview showing a sick, dying (or already dead?) girl in bed, surrounded by medicine bottles and having her pulse checked by a doctor, while mother (?) waits anxiously nearby. This appears to be a staged “genre” scene, however, “Ella Platt & Dr. Mansfield”, along with “Poor Sweet Child”, is written in period handwriting on the back. Thanatos Archive membership options @ http://www.thanatos.net/membership

Ambrotype of W.W. Godding, Asylum Engraving

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One of two early-1860s 1/6 ambrotypes in our collection of Dr. William Whitney Godding, taken at around the time he began working as the Superintendent of the Government Hospital for the Insane (later renamed St. Elizabeth’s) in Washington, D.C., along with a period engraving.

Godding worked at SE for many years, where he tried to provide good conditions for and humane treatment of the patients at a time when a lot of them were treated poorly. Several buildings on the East Campus of St. Elizabeth’s were named after him, but they eventually emptied out and fell into disrepair. I think they’re being redeveloped by the city now.

“But, though unbidden, and not mentioned above a whisper, the spectre is never wanting at our feast; step by step, keeping pace with our ever advancing civilization, still stalks the growing shadow of brain decay, with its attendants, apoplexy and insanity. We lock up our insane man in the hospital, and think that we are rid of him; vain is our selfish hope; we cannot thus shake him off, for is he not our neighbor? nay, may he not be our brother? worse yet, at the next turn, what shall prevent that the insanity may not happen even to ourselves?” W.W. Godding

Young Boy at Father’s Grave (Blog Exclusive)

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January, 1925: 4-year-old John McNamara Jr. taking flowers to the grave of his father, who died in 1922 at 41 years old. His grave is located in East New Market Cemetery, in Maryland. John Jr. died in 1969 at the age of 48.

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Updated Subscription Rates for 2019

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We’ve introduced new, lower subscription rates for 2019. If you want to lock in this price, now is a good time to become a Thanatos Archive member.
Already a member? You can extend your current, active membership at the “/renew” link below – the extra year(s) will be automatically added to the end of your current subscription.

Also, here’s a tip for all members: Once you are logged in and on the site, you can check your subscription expiration date in your Control Panel, which will be in the lower-left corner of the main browsing screen.

2019 subscriptions!
New subscribers become an Archive member here.
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Posthumous Painting [ Original! ]

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Against all odds, online research turned up a photo of the original painting shown in our posthumous daguerreotype [ Archive Image #3348 ]!! Sadly, it’s not part of our Archive, but was sold at auction in 2012 for around $12,000. The auction describes it as a circa 1840 unframed oil on canvas, measuring 47″ x 30″. If you look closely, you will see the boy is wearing a hoop earring, which I found interesting. Unframed and unsigned, though attributed to Joseph Goodhue Chandler, an itinerant painter who worked around northern Massachusetts in the 1840s.  Unfortunately the children are not identified anywhere on the work.

Handwritten Letter & Locks of Hair (Archive #3340)

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Handwritten letter, and lock of hair, accompanying the post-mortem photo of the emaciated girl (Archive #3340).

A very key word that I am unable to make out is, second line from the bottom, “the ____. It is so sickly.” It appears to be “Shawl”, but that wouldn’t make much since considering the next few words. It also wouldn’t make much sense that he would capitalize the S, when he hadn’t done so anywhere else in the letter.

Here is my translation.. feel free to add comments here, or if you’re an Archive member, on the website.

Yonkers June 16th
My Dear Aunt,
Grandmother’s box started this morning and will be at Mr. Maynards about Wednesday.
You must write and let us know as soon as you receive it. Enclosed is two dollars for the
(Shawl?), it is so sickly I don’t think I shall go to B___ this summer. 
In haste (?) Dwight

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