Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-08-24
A RARE PHOTOGRAPH
THE REPRODUCTION OF THE n, n
DE WITT CLINTON DUE TO IT.

Unique Bit of History Which Deals
with the Old Anti-Masonry Feeling In
New York State Over Sixty Years Aco
Clever Artist With Scissors.
Inc New York Central Railroad COM
pany's reproduction of the first railroad
traln and LOGON olive ever run !. Nay
YORK state, most interesting and val,.
able exhibit at the Chicago fair" said an
ola resident of Albany, causes me to
wonder how many of the officers of that
company know chat if the disappearance
OF Morgan from Batavia Go wears apo
DAD not been attributed to murderous
Vaccinations of the Masonic fraternity
winch resulted in the great anti-Nasouic
excitement thai spread throughout fine
country and became a sensational noIi+-
zeal factor, they would not have been
able to make the reproduction. and tbo
appearance of that curious railroad train
and engine woul { never have been known
IN accurate and pictorial representation.
IL was years before the discovery and
practical lntrod action of that crude pred-
ecessor OF photography, the daguerreo-
type when the pioneer railroad train in
TINS state was run, and as the future i'm
portance to history of the appearance of
That train never occurred to those inter
ested IN bringing it into existence the
skill OF no artist with his pencil was
brought INTO Use to perpetuate it on
paper. 1t happened that Young man
named Brown-William H. Brown Of
Fhlladeiphla-Hvas in Albany on the day
the tram was run, Aug. 8, 1881, and had
been III the place several days.
HE had marvellous talent for cuttin,,
with PAIR OF scissors out of black paper
hfelike profile portraits and accurate
representations of buildings, machinery
and even landscapes
The remarkable part of this talent of
his was his power to make q perfectly
exact portrait Of persons days and even
weeks after having seen them but once.
and that only casually on the street.
HE had for some time made good liv-
ing by the exercise of his peculiar art.
Ihaddeus Stevens was at that time inst
beginning to make reputation in poll
tics and had seized upon the anti-AIasonic
idea for use il Pennsylvania, as it had
been so successfully worked by Thurlow
Weed and his lieutenants in New York
state. The fee ing was growing in Penn
sylvaria, and young Brown thought it
would be a good stroke of business for
him to go to Albany. have a looi. ut
Thurlow Weed and others. snip their
likeness out in silhouette, and besides
getting a fee from them for the work
duplicate the pictures for sale among
the auti-Masolic enthusiasts in PeuEsyl-
vania and elsewhere.
He went to Albany early in August,
1881, and did Il great deal more than set
the portraits of Thurlow Weed. IIis
wonderful work took the town bvsto11n,
and he was kept busy from morning I'M
til night cutting the silhouette likenessos
of people of al kinds, sexes and ages
that flocked to his rooms.
His greatest artistic feat was the cut
ting in one large picture of the famous
Burgess corps entire, with staff and band
in full parade, each members portrait
being of surprising accuracy. This pic
ture is among the most precious relics in
the state library.
'And so it happened that this unique
=
the quaint locomotive De Witt Clinton,
withits equally quaint coaches, was to be
run on its first trip over the Mohawk and
Hudson railroad.
He was one of the passengers ON the
train, and when it returned to Albany
he cut with his scissors an exact picture
of the locomotive and two of the coaches
making the portrait of David Matthew,
the engineer, and John T. Clark, the con-
ductor, on his seat on the outside of the
front coach.
I'm that picture appear the hkenesses
Of Thurlow Weed, Ex-Governor Yates
and other distinguished Albanians Of
that day, but neither Mr. Weed nor the
ex-governor was on the train. Without
thought of the future of that picture
as a valuable contribution to history,
the artist cut those portraits merely as
an exercise OF his skill in depicting a sub
ject from memory. He told me so him
self DO years afterward.
while Artist Brown was in Albany
he concluded to go to Boston and Hart
ford to make some portraits and other
cuttings with his marvellous scissors.
While in Hartford he showed the picture
he had made of the railroad train and
locomotive to a member of the Connect
cut Historical society, who at once saw
what treasure it must necessarily be-
come, and the artist presented it to the
society, where it is today relic beyond
price.
"Some 30 years after cutting that pc
ture Brown became interested III the
railroad business himself, having long
ceased to exercise his artistic skill pro-
fessionally, and one day, having almost
forgotten the Albany picture, he read
in a newspaper an account of a litho-
graph that had just been published
from a photograph of the silhouette pic
ture he had presented to the Connecticut
Historical society. 80,
"He sent to the publisher of the litho-