Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 29

Price Realized: $ 1,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Photograph of two formerly enslaved workers at Fort Hill Planatation, the former home of John C. Calhoun. Albumen photograph, 4 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches, on original mount with photographer's inked stamp and 1967 caption label on verso; minor wear to mount. Greenville, SC: Earle Turpin, circa 1886-1890s

Additional Details

This is a post-war photograph of the Fort Hill Plantation. It had been the home from 1825 to 1850 of John C. Calhoun, who served as a vice president, congressman, and cabinet member and was one of the most famous American statesmen of his era. He was a vigorous defender of slavery, and unsurprisingly a slaveholder himself. The home passed to his daughter Anna Maria Clemson, and then became property of Clemson University, which now operates it as an historic site.

Another copy of this photograph held at Clemson University identifies the two people in the foreground as Thomas and Frances Fruster, both formerly enslaved. In the background, seated on the porch, is Mary Prince, the estate's caretaker. Thomas and Fannie Frooster are listed together at Clemson Agricultural College in the 1900 census. The photographer Earle Turpin (1860-1905) lived in Greenville for his entire life, but most surviving photographs seem to date from the 1886-1891 period.

WITH--a pair of cartes-de-visite of John C. Calhoun and Mary Graham Calhoun circa 1870s--exact relation to the vice president unknown.