Feb 21, 2008 - Sale 2137

Sale 2137 - Lot 322

Price Realized: $ 900
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
PHOTOGRAPH OF GHOSTS (PHOTOGRAPHY.) "Spirit Photograph" of Isham Dunstan, the body servant to Presdt. Andrew Johnson," according to the contemporary ink inscription on the reverse. Depicts Isham Dunstan with the "spirit" images of lost loved ones floating around his head. Oval silver print, 5 x 3 1/8 inches (print size 7 x 5 inches), on a gray cardboard mount, 8 3/8 x 6 inches; 1/4 inch chip from the lower right corner; some surface soiling to the mount. [Camp Chesterfield, Indiana], circa 1900
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Additional Details

Spirit photographs were very popular during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They purported to be the inexplicable appearances of the "spirits," or ghosts of the departed. Camp Chesterfield was a spiritualist center at Chesterfield, Indiana, established in 1886. It remains a center for paranormal studies to this day.
The handwritten ink inscription on the reverse of this unusual photograph reads: "Isham Dunstan, 'Body servant' to presdt. Andrew Johnson. A good & faithful man, these pictures were taken by Jack Klauser at Camp Chesterfield. Dunstan recognizes the little chile (sic) that he had loved & was much affected by it. The others he said were his sisters."
We have not been able to confirm the veracity of the inscription's claim, however we do know that Andrew Johnson did own five slaves according to the Tennessee census of 1860. During the war Johnson claimed to have owned 10. It is possible that Dunstan was a freeman and could have served Johnson while he was military governor of Tennessee.