The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-05-31
A RARE PHOTOGRAPH
THE REPRODUCTION OF THE OLD
De WITT CLINTON DUE TO IT.

New York State Over Sixty Years Age
A Clever Artist with Scissors.
The New York Central Railroad con-,
pany's reproduction of the first r%ailroai
train and locomotive ever run in New
York state. a most interesting and vain.
able exhibit at the Chicago fair" said an
old resident Of Albany. "causes me II
wonder how many of the officers of tha;
company know that if the disappearance
Of Morgan from Batavia 65 years ago
bad not been attributed to murderors
Vaccinations of the Masonic fraternity,
which resulted in the great nti-Masonic
excitement that spread throughout the
country and became il sensational polit-
ical factor. they would not have been
albeit make the reproduction, and the
appearance of thai curious railroad train
and engine wonll never have been known
in accurate and pictorial representation,
1t was years before the discovery and
practical introduction of that crude pred
ecessor of photography. the daguerreo.
type. when the pioneer railroad train in
this 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 a young man
named Brown William II. Brown of
Philadelphia-was in Albany on the day
the train was run. Aug. .. 1881. and had
been in the place several days.
He had a marvellous talent for cutting
with a pair of scissors out of black paper
lifelike profile portraits and accurate
representations of buildings. machinery
and even landscapes.
THE remarkable part of this talent OF
his was his power to make a perfectly
exact portrait of persons days and even
weeks after having seen them but once
and that only casually on the sSsat.
He had for some time made agood liv-
ing by the exercise of his peculiar art.
Thaddeus Stevens was at that time just
beginning to make u reputation in poll
tics and had seized upon the anti-Masonic
idea for use in Pennsylvania. as it had
been SO successfully worked BY Thurlow
Weed and his lieutenants in New York
state. The feeling was growing in Penn
~sylvania. and young Brown thought it
would be a good stroke of business for
him to 90 to Albany. have a look at
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 anti Masonic enthusiasts in Pennsyl-
vania and elsewhere.
He went to Albany early in August,
1901 o,l did an ,rn.. .la,l ,nn,.a tb., ,,o+
the portraits OF Thurlow Weed. His
wonderful work took the town by storm.
and he vas kept busy from morning un-
til night cutting the silhouette likenesses
of people Of all kinds. sexes and age.
that flocked to his rooms.
His greatest artistic feat was the cut.
ting in M large picture of the famous
Burgess corps entire. with staff and band
in full parade. each members portraI:
being OF surprising accuracy. This pic
ture is among the most precious relics IN
the state library
And SO 1t happened that this unique
young artist WIS IN Albany on the day
the quaint locomotive DE Witt Clinton
with its equally quaint coaches. was to be
III on its first trip Owe the Mohawk and
Hudson railroad.
He was n of the passengers on the
train, and when it returned to Albany
he cut with his scissors an exact picture
Oh he locomotive and two of the coaches
ul6kirS the portrait of David Matthew.
the engineer. and John T. Clark, the con
ductor, on his seat on the outside of the
front coach
In that picture appear the likenesses
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
a 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 40 years afterward.
While Artist Brown was in Albany
ne 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
re had made of the railroad train and
locomotive to "a member Of the Connect
cut Historical society, who at once saw
what a treasure it must necessarily be-
come, and the artist presented it to the
society. where it is today q relic beyond
price.
"Some 80 years after cutting that pic
lure Brown became interested in the
railroad business himself, having long
ceased to exercise his artistic skill pro-
fessionally, and n day, having almost
forgotten the Albany picture, he read
In . newspaper an account of a htho-
graph that had just been published
from a photograph Of the silhouette pic
ture he had presented to the Connecticut
Historical society.
"He sent to the publisher Of the ltho-
graph and procured a copy OF 1T n was
rejoiced to see an exact reproduction OF
his scissors cutting of more than 30 years
before. But the joy he felt over a sight
of the picture was scarcely as great a.