Samuel Downing, Carte-de-Visite Portrait and Residence

Samuel Downing, aged one hundred and two, was the first subject visited for the Reverend E. B. Hillard's chronicle of the last surviving veterans of the American Revolution. This hand-tipped albumen portrait by N. A. & R. A. Moore of Hartford thus opens the published series, which paired photographic likenesses with biographical sketches. Hillard's accompanying account of Downing paints a picture of continued vigor, recounting a man who at one hundred had yet to use a cane or spectacles and who drew a crowd of a thousand for his centenary.