02/24/2017
Today's Throwback Thursday looks at an iconic image of Fort Howard. The photograph was done as a daguerreotype, the first type of photograph available. According to a letter written by Major Granville P. Haller in 1892, he describes in detail how the image was taken. “I employed an artist to take a photograph of old Fort Howard for me, from the balcony of the old Mr. Green’s hotel [Washington House]. He kept the camera open too long the first trial, and agreed to count fifteen only and then close it. On the second trial I was to pay the price of the picture whether good, bad or indifferent. The second trial was a most perfect success. The buildings and flags were perfect, but above all the blue of the sky and white clouds were there, true to nature, in color as well as form. While the artist was taking the scene I stood on the small board wharf, running into the river, as if I had just landed, while the boatmen were in the act of shoving the boat away.”
This famous image was available for reproduction in April of 1882 when photographer F. W. Schneider advertised he had secured a negative of the old fort and was making prints available for the general public to purchase. To learn more about Fort Howard, visit the Neville Public Museum and their exhibit on the Life and Death at Fort Howard.
![MAP: Green Bay and Fort Howard, Brown Co., Wisconsin 1867. Created / Published by Chicago Lithographing Co. [1867]Librar...](https://img3.museums1.com/780/381/1255622647803812.jpg)
