lincoln-b.jpgThe stone observatory on the Bloody lane is now finished and ready for visitors. The view from this point alone is worth a visit to the famous Bloody lane as you can take in the entire right to the left nearly four miles. There will be, when all planted, nearly four hundred markers, giving one a good idea of the entire battle field with the advantage of the good roads. Every body ought to visit it and make a study of this great battle.
George Bucher Ayres
Submitted by StephenRecker on Mon, 01/07/2013 - 8:03pm
One of my greatest hopes for my book would be that people would run with my research and find interesting facts about the people I mentioned in it. Hagerstown historian and Western Maryland Room stalwart Jeff Brown has done just that. He has found some great stuff about George Bucher Ayres, and I would like to share it with you here.
Ayres had been around Hagerstown for a while when, in 1864, he opened a photo studio with B.W.T.'s father. The partnership only lasted a few months, when the pair sold out to B.W.T., who held the studio until 1907. As you will see, Ayres was a bit of a Renaissance Man, but he was probably best known for buying a photograph studio and finding, printing, and selling the above photograph.
Jeff has found some interesting information about Ayres' early years in Hagerstown. We have been trying to find a photograph of the original train station ticket booth that was in Hagerstown during the Civil War. The Franklin Railroad, which started in Hagerstown and went north towards Chambersburg, had just sold out to the Cumberland Valley Railroad right before the war, but the details of why and when have evaded us. It turns out that Ayres is the connection. So, I will start transcribing the articles Jeff has found and we can watch the picture emerge.
About
Hello. I'm Stephen Recker and welcome to my blog. In it I will be discussing the different projects I am working on related to the American Civil War with a focus on photography related to the battle of Antietam. I am particularly interested in how the battlefield has been interpreted throughout the years. I will be discussing how it was done then and how new technologies can be brought to bear to bring life to those old materials as well as new ones. See the 99 Places Every Antietam Battlefield Guide Should Know.
Sharpsburg Items
Antietam Valley Record
Thursday, September 5, 1895