Jeffrey Kraus
Antique Photographics

Almost 2,000 feet above the Tennessee River, a distinctive rock promontory juts out of Lookout Mountain known as Point Lookout.

The precipice looks down on the winding river as it passes Chattanooga, providing one of the most spectacular vistas anywhere in the United States. It was here in late 1863 that Robert “Royan” M. Linn established a photo studio and began taking photographs by the hundreds of Union officers and soldiers posing on Point Lookout.

Linn gained access to the site shortly after Union forces took the mountain on November 24, 1863 in what became known as the “Battle Above the Clouds.” Union forces under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker assaulted the mountain and defeated the outnumbered Confederate defenders commanded by Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson.

It was a small engagement, but the Union forces drove the Confederate left flank, allowing Hooker’s men to assist in the famous assault on Missionary Ridge the following day, which routed the Confederate Army of Tennessee commanded by Gen. Braxton Bragg and opened the gateway to the Deep South.

Soon after Union forces captured the famous mountain, Linn, an enterprising Ohio photographer, arrived and found himself with two breathtaking new places to ply his trade – Point Lookout and nearby Umbrella Rock.

Linn nailed together a studio just behind Point Lookout and named it “Gallery Point Lookout.” With his brother, J. Birney Linn, he began taking photographs in December 1863. The Linns almost immediately found themselves the proprietors of a tremendously lucrative business, photographing officers, soldiers and civilians posing at the point.

In the late afternoon, the stereo camera captures a side view of Linn’s Gallery Point Lookout studio on Lookout Mountain.

Today, we have an intimate look at one of the most fascinating photographic operations of the Civil War because of a small group of stereo views that Linn took to document his presence there, and from the diary of Union surgeon James Theodore Reeve, who was stationed near the Point and wrote about the photography in several of his entries.

As Reeve documented, the scenic rock outcropping was a dangerous precipice, and death would pay a visit in 1864, along with an accidental near-poisoning. Reeve’s writings and Linn’s stereo views together provide one of the finest accounts of any Civil War photography studio.

In the early 1990s, Jeffrey Kraus obtained five of the stereo views that illustrate this article when he acquired the photographica collection of renowned stereo collector Gordon Hoffman. Two views show the exterior of the studio; one view shows the interior and the front desk, on which sits a Beckers viewer to the right and a Brewster viewer towards the left; and two views show the staff photographers posing on Point Lookout.

At the time, Jeff decided to keep only one of the views, the interior of the studio, and sell the others, which he did to Tex Treadwell. Tex passed away several years ago and his vast collection of stereo views was consigned to John Saddy’s stereo view auction and has been gradually sold over the years. In late 2011, Jeff noticed a group of Point Lookout views in Saddy’s auction with “notations on verso in an unknown hand.”

As Jeff quickly saw, some of the “notations” from an “unknown hand” were his own from years earlier, and he was excited to have the opportunity to reunite with the five views. As a comment on our economic times, Jeff was able to acquire them for less this second time around, even though some 20 years had passed.

This magnificent stereo view shows the interior of Linn’s Gallery Point Lookout with a clerk behind the counter, which holds both a Beckers-style and a Brewster viewer. Behind the clerk, the wall is filled with images from Lookout Mountain, including shots of Lulu Lake and several photographs of Union officers posing at Point Lookout.

A few months later, Jeff was able to acquire from fellow dealer David Spahr two more Linn stereo views showing Umbrella Rock that were taken at different times, including one showing Royan Linn himself posing next to what appears to be a photography shack he built at that location.

In this iconic stereo portrait from Lookout Mountain, the image captures the shadow of the photographer exposing the plate that shows photographer Royan M. Linn posing at Umbrella Rock near his photography shack there.

The Linns took large-format photographs, stereo views, tintypes and cartes de visite. Some of the large-format images are visible on the back wall of the stereo photograph of the studio’s interior. Stereo views were labeled as “Photographic Mementoes of Lookout Mountain.” A wartime Linn label advertised 13 different 3-D scenes, including images of Gen. George Thomas and Gen. Joseph Hooker at Point Lookout.

The Linns, like most Civil War photographers, left little in the way of written information. Their legacy is their images.

But Union surgeon Reeve was stationed on Lookout Mountain for more than two months in early 1864, and the presence of the nearby photography studio made its way into his diary on several occasions.

January 21, 1864 was a “beautifully warm Spring-like day” on Lookout Mountain that was suddenly interrupted by “quite an interesting little incident,” Reeve wrote in this excerpt from James Theodore Reeve: Surgeon. Soldier. Citizen. 1834-1906-A Civil War Commentary, compiled and annotated by Ann Wartinbee Reeve in 1999, and provided courtesy of James H. Ogden III, National Park Service historian at Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park.

Reeve and another doctor were both reading in their office when “we heard rapid steps on the Piazza, and an excited rapping at the door of the steward’s room, which was immediately opened by someone who was evidently in great haste.”

Reeve went to see what was up and found himself facing a very agitated Capt. C. A. Catlin, an inspector general in the 11^th Corps.

“Doctor, give me an emetic, quick!” Catlin said. “I am poisoned by having taking Cyanide of Potassium.”

“Are you certain of that, captain?” Reeve asked.

“Yes,” he said. “By mistake. At the ambrotype saloon.”

A skylight is open at Linn’s Gallery Point Lookout studio, exposing to the sunlight what appear to be plate holders for making prints.

As Reeve quickly prepared the solution, he learned more.

Although fresh water was apparently abundant at Point Lookout, with Royan Linn reporting that he had “free use of a clear, crystal spring that bursts from the brow of ‘Old Lookout,’” the thirsty captain obviously didn’t find that source. Instead, he spotted a pail of water and asked the camera operator if it was drinking water. “Yes,” said the operator.

Next to the pail, the captain saw a small, wide-mouthed bottle. Thinking it was a drinking cup, he dipped it into the pail. He swallowed two or three mouthfuls before a bitter taste filled his mouth. Only then did he learn the bottle contained a solution of Cyanide of Potassium for preparing photographic plates.

Catlin jumped on a horse and hurried to the surgeons’ quarters, trailed by three or four other worried officers.

“Fortunately for him, the solution was evidently too weak to produce serious consequences, and the emetic was probably really unnecessary, though very proper,” Reeve wrote. “After so thoroughly emptying his stomach with our nostrums, we could do nothing else but invite him to fill it again at our table, which he did with a friend of his, a German lieutenant.”

Reeve himself had his photograph taken at the point that very day, as well as two days later, on Jan. 23, and again on Jan. 25, even though he was annoyed by the prices. “Crowds are constantly being ambrotyped at the point, the operator charging the enormous price of $3 per picture, which I regard as an imposition on the soldiers,” he wrote.

It is likely that the “operator” Reeve speaks of is Linn or one of his photographers and that “ambrotype saloon” is Linn’s wooden studio, but that cannot be firmly documented, and there are reports that other photographers worked at Point Lookout, possibly independent of Linn.

By March 18, 1864, Reeve had moved to Tyner’s Station (now a part of the city of Chattanooga). There, he received by mail some shocking news from up on Lookout Mountain.

A group of photographers, possibly including Royan M. Linn at left, pose for Linn’s stereo camera at Point Lookout in this image taken during the war or shortly afterwards.

“Roper, the ambrotype artist on the mountain, fell from the rock yesterday and was instantly killed, the fall breaking his neck,” Reeve wrote.

Again, whether Roper worked for Linn (and possibly appears in the imagery of the photographers) or whether he was an independent operator is unknown. The story becomes even more fascinating in light of the fact that Point Lookout became known as Roper’s Rock, but was said to have been named not after an unfortunate photographer, but a Pennsylvania corporal who fell to his death.

By the 1870s, stereo views issued at Gallery Point Lookout featured the backmark of J.B. Linn and listed 44 different views of Lookout Mountain for sale, including The Great Flood of 1867. After Royan Linn died in 1872, J.B. Linn continued to operate the lucrative business until 1886. These postwar J.B. Linn views were very popular, because examples are common in today’s antique photo market.

 In this stereo view, photographer Royan M. Linn poses behind two of his photographers or assistants at Point Lookout, where he established a lucrative photographic business in December 1863 that flourished for more than 20 years.

When the soldiers went home, they took with them their pictures from Point Lookout, and their stories about the magnificent views. The word spread, and Lookout Mountain became one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country and the world, in part because of its distinction of possibly being perhaps the single most photographed spot in the United States during the Civil War.

This Linn stereo view of Umbrella Rock was taken at exactly the same spot as an earlier view illustrated above that shows Linn, but at a distinctly different time, mostly likely after the shack was removed. The shadow of the photographer can be seen.

All images from the Jeffrey Kraus Collection.

This article appeared in Stereo World as well as the newsletter of The Center for Civil War Photography.

There was great bias against immigrants as well as virulent racial hostility in New York City in the 1830’s. Public schools were segregated, blacks were not permitted seats in cabins on Hudson River steamers but had to ride on deck no matter how bad the weather, white churches segregated blacks in separate pews, etc. While there were a number of white supporters, inevitably blacks were subjected to violence.

Beginning on July 7, 1834 in NYC, four nights of anti-abolitionist riots beset the black community and their friends. Black and abolitionist merchants were target for attack and the homes of abolitionist brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan were sacked. Black men married to white women were attacked. Causes of such atrocities on the part of hundreds and thousands of citizens are always multifaceted, this being no exception. The forces of nativism, abolitionism and its opponents, and the fear and resentment towards blacks from the Irish underclass and other immigrants in the highly segregated yet mingled Five Points district all played a role in the violence.

This was the climate in which the Colored Orphan Asylum was established. In line with the white paternalistic standards of the time, it was white women who established the orphanage. The black community at the time had few educated individuals and a lack of individual and collective wealth. The fact that white women ran the institution permitted it to avoid the politically charged issue of social equality.

Boys’ Play-ground, Colored Orphan Asylum

The Colored Orphan Asylum was formed in November of 1836 and they could not find space to rent to care for black orphans. They decided to purchase a building which they did, located on Twelfth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. By June of 1837, eleven children rescued from almshouses were living there. The early years were difficult both financially and in developing relationships with the black community.

On May 1, 1843, the orphanage moved to their new home on 43rd St. and Fifth Ave. which is where, during the Civil War, it faced its greatest existential crisis as it was totally destroyed by mob violence in July 1863.

Untitled tinted view of playroom with boys and girls, Colored Orphan Asylum.

Approximately 12 children entered the orphanage during the Civil War because their fathers had been killed in battle or because their absence had made it difficult for their mothers to care for them. Some prior residents of the asylum went on to fight for the Union. One, James Henry Gooding was born a slave in 1838 in North Carolina; his freedom was purchased by James Gooding, possibly his father, and he came to NY. He entered the orphanage on Sept. 11, 1846, and remained for 4 years. After several whaling voyages out of New Bedford, Gooding enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Company C on February 14, 1863. He wrote 48 letters that were published in the New Bedford Mercury between March 3, 1863 and Feb. 22, 1864. His most famous letter was addressed to Abraham Lincoln on Dec. 28, 1863 advocating for equal pay for black soldiers. He was promoted to corporal in December, 1863. He was wounded in the battle of Olustee, Florida, on February 20, 1864 and captured. He died in captivity in the notorious confederate prison camp at Andersonville, Ga., July 19, 1864.

The NYC draft riots which occurred from July 13 to July 16, 1863 were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself. Regiments of militia and volunteer troops had to be sent in by Lincoln to quell the mobs.

Again many causes led to the violence. The new draft laws passed by congress unfairly affected poor, working class men as they could not afford the $300 to hire a substitute. The Irish and the blacks were often competing for the same menial jobs and there was great tension between the groups.

The Colored Orphan Asylum was targeted as it was viewed as an example of how New York’s upper class spent their money favoring blacks over the Irish. The young orphans had plenty to eat, clean beds to sleep on, and were provided an education. On the day the orphanage was burned to the ground, there were 233 children in residence. It is almost certain that some of those children are pictured in the 4 rare stereoviews accompanying this article. We do not know who the photographer was of these images but they are certainly produced prior to the draft riots, probably circa 1860. If anyone has other such images of the Colored Orphan Asylum, either interiors or exteriors, or any information as to the photographer, the author would be most interested in hearing about it.

Infant School, Colored Orphan Asylum

There is much information available on the internet as well as in publications on the details of the events of the day of the burning. In the end the children escaped to a police station on 35th St. where they remained for several days. On July 16th, under guard of Zouaves and police, the children were transported to Blackwell’s Island (today, Roosevelt Island) where they remained into the fall of 1863. A temporary home for the children was established at the former home of Hickson Field in the hamlet of Carmansville on the upper west side of Manhattan at 150th St. and Broadway. While it was ill-suited and in quite a state of decay, it remained the site of the orphanage until May 1868 when they relocated to their new site at 143rd and Amsterdam Avenue in undeveloped Harlem where they remained until 1907. The final move was to 261st and Palisade Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Under various societal and legal pressures far beyond the scope of this article to discuss, the Colored Orphan Asylum changed it name to the Riverdale Children’s Association in Feb. 1944. The admission of white children also began around that time. Of course, in addition, there were enormous changes in the way children in need of social welfare services were cared for. There was growing disapproval of orphanages and the transition had to be made to serving children in foster care. The Riverdale property was sold but the Riverdale Children’s Association, through a series of mergers, is now alive and well and operating as the Harlem Dowling-West Side Center for Children and Family Services. This organization is still carrying on the vital work begun so long ago by the brave founders of the Colored Orphan Asylum. I encourage you to visit their website and to support them: http://www.harlemdowling.org.

Girls’ Play Ground, Colored Orphan Asylum

References:

Seraile, William. Angels of Mercy: White Women and the History of New York’s Colored Orphan Asylum. NY: Fordham University Press, 2011.

Wikipedia.

All images from the Jeffrey Kraus Collection