Civil War Revenue Stamps

Cartes de Visite were small portraits on card stock, generally measuring 2.5 by 4 inches, that were especially popular in the 1860s. If there is a revenue stamp on the back of the photograph, you can narrow the date down to the two years during which a tax was applied to photographs. The newly-created Internal Revenue Service was looking for ways to finance the Union's Civil War costs. While the Confederate States printed money and suffered from outrageous inflation, the North imposed taxes on every imaginable product and service.

All kinds of things were taxed, including playing cards, bank checks, and matches. Photographs were added relatively late (1864-1866), so they didn't have their own tax stamp. That's why you will often see a Carte de Visite with a playing-card revenue tax stamp or a more generic proprietary tax stamp on the back. A 2-cent tax stamp indicates that the photograph cost up to 25 cents. More expensive photographs might have a 3-cent stamp.

 Photographer: R.R. Rundell, Owego, New York.

Photographer: F. Smith Hooker, Havana, New York.

Photographer: D.W. Grout, Pulaski, New York.

 

Photographer: Crum & Sharp, Watkins, New York.

 Photographer W.C. Crum, Penn Yan, New York

Photographer: George W. Barnes, Rockford, Illinois (Compliments of H. White)

Photographer: Masterson & Wood, 74 and 75 Arcade, Rochester, New York

Beacon Rock, Washington

I'm putting up my feet today and relaxing, because I have a guest post today by the architect who steals my covers (also known as Archie Techt.)  Here's what he wrote:

This scene of Castle Rock in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, which forms the border between Oregon and Washington states, made me want to go for a visit.  It would have been a search in vain though, since Castle Rock no longer exists.  Well, the basalt monolith still exists, but it is now called Beacon Rock.  Originally named Beaten Rock by Lewis and Clark in 1805 as they headed down the Columbia on their expedition west to the Pacific, the name was later changed to Beacon Rock, then Castle Rock, then back to Beacon Rock in 1916. 

Henry Biddle purchased the 848’ tall rock column in 1915 for $1, then spent the next three years building an approximately mile long series of switch-backed trail and bridges up the near vertical south face to the summit.  Views of the gorge along the way and from the top are spectacular, if a bit vertigo inducing.  A volcanic plug, Beacon Rock is the solidified lava core of a larger volcanic cone, the softer remainder of which was washed away during the ice age by the Missoula floods. 

In the early 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers looked at all of that rock--essentially a vertical quarry--at the river’s edge, and decided they should blow it up to supply material for a jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River. They got as far as digging three caves at the base for explosives, before the Biddle family gave the property to Washington to be used as a state park (Washington originally refused the gift, so the Biddles offered it to Oregon instead, at which point Washington reconsidered….). 

In more recent history, Daily Postcard author Christine was in a Portland book club with Helene Biddle Dick, granddaughter of Henry.  And when my father passed away, I buried his watch at the top of Beacon Rock, as I felt that it offered a view of timeless beauty in every direction.

The double-entendre of the second card made more sense when I read the back and saw it was intended for WWII soldiers.

 Christine on her way up the switchback trail--hang onto your hat!

 The view of the Columbia River Gorge from the Beacon Rock summit is lovely, even on a cold, misty day.                     

  Here's the back of the first card. 

Tin Types #3

Since very few of the tin types I have are labeled in any way, it's nice to have one that provides an exact location. Island Park was an amusement park located in Auburn, New York on Owasco Lake, one of upstate New York's Finger Lakes. The park is now known as Emerson Park.  The dazed pilot looks like a cross between Dustin Hoffman and Cary Grant.

With few exceptions, the old photographs I have are from upstate New York and  neighboring areas of Pennsylvania. And although we don't know where this child's photo was taken, there is a notation on the back that says: PTM age 6 after Typhoid

These other photos are nameless, but lovely in a mysterious way.

Here's a photo taken by W.M. Hillard of Scranton, Pennsylvania, but we don't know who the man is. Most of the other tintypes were probably also presented in paper folders like this one or in cardboard frames. They likely disintegrated over time or became soiled and were discarded.