Unidentified photographer / artist
1858-1859
Have Your Likeness Taken at the Tomb of the Father of His Country

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Published in "Harper's Magazine" Volume 18, No. CVI, March 1859, p.434-435, from the article "Mount Vernon As It Is".
 
We had observed a young man walking nervously about the boat, distributing small handbills among the passengers, bearing at the head, in large letters, the striking injunction :
 
"HAVE YOUR LIKENESS TAKEN AT THE TOMB OF THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY!"
 
To this was added :
 
"Visitors to this consecrated spot are informed that they can have their likenesses taken In a beautiful and durable manner, with the Tomb of Washington for a background, and delivered them on the return trip of this boat, for the same price that a likeness without the lomb would cost. Hundreds of visitors have been delighted with these Gems of Art during the last year, and not a single one has expressed the least dissatisfaction."
 
The distributor was earliest in leaving the boat; and with a tin box filled with the implements of his calling, he led the way up the dell by a dilapidated plank walk that lay along the margin of a choked brook. He far outstripped his fellow-passengers in the ascent, for the hope of winning dollars at the end of the race gave wings to his feet. When near the brow of the wooded slope we caught glimpses through the shrubbery of a smail white building. We found it to be a rough board shanty, bedaubed with lime, and standing within a few yards of that once consecrated, but now desecrated, spot where repose the remains of the great Hero and Sage. It had been erected for the accommodation of the daguerreotypist; and there, with a large placard hanging upon the outside calling attention to his craft, he stood ready to ply the implements of his profession. Oh, how every sentiment of respect and reverence for the illustrious dead - every emotion born of a true American spirit - rose up in severe rebuke of this disgraceful traffic in the vestibule of that temple wherein the good and true of all nations would delight to pour their orisons ! I thought of a scene in old Jerusalem, when, in another temple, the tables of the "money changers and the seats of those who sold doves" were overturned, and I wished for the authority to purge this spot of all worshipers of Mammon. I could not even forgive the proprietor of Mount Vernon, whose good-nature permitted this desecration.
 
LL/34419