Relic on the Lethe

From Winchester News, August 18, 1865 , are two short poems, possibly both by Barry Cornwall, but the first almost certainly is his. This front-page news reads: Should you dream ever of the days departed— Of youth and morning no more to return— Forget not me, so fond and passionate-hearted : Quiet at last, reposing Under the moss and fern.   There, where the fretful lake in stormy weather Comes circling round the reddening churchyard pines, Rest, and call back the hours we lost together, Taking of hope, and soaring Beyond poor earth’s confines.    If, for those heavenly dreams too dimly sighted, You became false—why, ’tis a story old ; I, overcome by pain and unrequited, Faded at last, and slumber Under the autumn mould.   Farewell, farewell ! No longer plighted lovers, Doomed for a day to sigh for sweet return; One lives, indeed; one-heart the green earth covers— Quiet at last, reposing Under the moss and fern. I've been hoping to uncover some local writing talent i...

One of my hopes was that as I worked my way through the local newspapers, I could uncover a few unknown writers, authors, and their stories. I very nearly thought my next post would be on dentistry, when I decided to flip over instead to the poem in the June 8, 1866 edition of Winchester News . I am happy to report I can save writing about the proliferation of vulcanized rubber for another day, as the poetry section uncovered a mostly-forgotten local author. The poem, titled "The Skeleton Army, Or The Dead Parade," is credited to C. Toler Wolfe . It is fairly lengthy and more suitable for a spooky Halloween edition, so unlike the other poems, we will not reprint here. It made my ears perk up, as here was a poem with a proper credit that seems to have been locally written, per the note at the end. Was Wolfe well-known? The answer is "yes, but no." Time has largely forgotten him; you can pull up an 1852 volume of his work, printed in Winchester. Entitled Odds and Ends...

An ad placed in the Winchester News for August 18, 1865 shows Winchester getting back to some semblance of normalcy. One of those signs was Nathaniel Routzahn, a local photographer, noting a reduction in prices for his services to previous costs. His prices before the war? According to an 1859 ad , they ranged anywhere from 50 cents to $50.  An 1858 invention to display photographs like a slideshow, advanced by the knobs on the top of the cabinet in The American Journal of Photography . The inventor believed "it has numbered the days of the fashionable album." Suppose you were hankering for a portrait. Mr. Routzahn's company offered several options, so let's take a look to explore what each type of image was: Ambrotypes : This is an image printed on glass, which first proliferated in the United States in the 1850s. While they were cheaper to produce and clearer than the earlier daguerreotype, by the time of this ad, ambrotypes were falling out of favor, in part due t...