A Manor Brethren Church Album: Rev. David Long

Attempted album rescues inspire both excitement and anguish, satisfaction and sadness.

All these emotions and more permeate my thoughts about an old, red velvet-covered album I snatched back from online auction oblivion in 2012.

But this is going about the story backwards. It began with the appearance on ebay of a cabinet card photograph of Nora Welty as a child. Having acquired a portrait of the same person as a young woman more than a year before, I was eager to win the auction, and did so.

I had already done some family history research on Nora (Welty) Barnheisel (1878-1951), daughter of Fairplay, Md. cabinetmaker  David Welty (1832-1916) and Laura A. (Shafer) Welty (1840-1917), so when I noticed a number of other identified Hagerstown-area vintage card photographs up for auction, I quickly realized that the individuals were all part of the same group of linked families from Washington County, whose surnames include Long, Shafer, Coffman, Slifer, Fahrney, Reichard and Middlekauff.

The common thread was their connection to  Manor Church of the Brethren just south of Hagerstown.

According to Jerry Henry’s The History of the Church of the Brethren in Maryland (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Publishing House, 1936), a group of German Baptists began meeting for services in a structure, possibly a log school house, around 1790, led by Elders David Long and his brother-in-lawn Daniel Reichard. This community eventually became known as the Manor congregation.

Manor Church of the Brethren, located off the Sharpsburg Pike between Hagerstown and Antietam battlefield, still exists today. In its large adjoining cemetery rest many of Nora Welty’s ancestors and relations.

The anguish of this album for me is that I could not afford to save all the photographs that were removed and auctioned off. Of the 54 slots that, carefully labeled in pencil, appear to have contained photographs, I was only able to save 18 plus two copies of a memorial card for Alexander Shafer.

When the empty album came up for sale, I bought it as well. All 18 photographs are now back in their proper places and they and the album will eventually find a home in a public institution in Washington County.

But whose album was it? The  identifications below the photographs provide clues. Pride of place went to “Uncle David Long my mother’s Brother” and “Aunt Mary Reichard Long,” his wife.

The owner of the album was a niece of David Long (1820-1897) and Mary (Reichard) Long. A few pages further into the album, we see “sister Laura Shafer Welty” (1840-1917), wife of David Welty (1832-1916), Nora Welty’s father, and then “my father Alexander Shafer” (1809-1893). Alexander Shafer’s second wife was Catherine Long (1818-1890), one of Rev. David Long’s siblings.

So the owner of the album was one of the four siblings of Laura A. (Shafer) Welty. Another photo is identified as “sister Annie Shafer” (1852-1904). Other siblings were Estella (Shafer) Coffman,  Clara Ellen (Shafer) Slifer, and Charles A. Shafer.

Alexander Shafer was married twice: Clara, Laura and Charles were his children by his first wife, Leah Sarah Eakle (1816-1848); Annie and and Estella were his children by his second wife, Catherine Long. My money is on Estella (Shafer) Coffman as the original owner of the album.

In documenting the people in this venerable, once-cherished album, I begin where the owner began–with Rev. David Long.

This later David Long (1820-1897) appears in Henry’s history of the Brethren in Maryland as a revered leader of the Manor congregation. Son of  wealthy Washington County farmer and miller Joseph Long (1792-1852) and Nancy Ann Rowland (1791-1865),  farmer David Long became an elder at age 25 and then a minister at age 30, presiding over the Manor church for 25 years.

Henry relates several anecdotes about David Long to convey his character, including that Long once bought and freed all the slaves at a slave sale.

Long is said to have delivered the sermon in the Mumma Brethren church the night before the great battle at Antietam in September 1862. This simple white-washed structure became a part of collective American memory as “the Dunker church.“

David and Mary Long had 12 children. Joseph, Walter, Orville and Victor became Brethren ministers; three daughters, Susan, Elizabeth and Catherine, married Brethren ministers: Susan married Eli Yourtee; Elizabeth married Emanuel David Kendig; Catherine married Seth F. Myers.  By my count, David and Mary Long had 48 grandchildren scattered throughout western Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kansas, Missouri and California.

The A. L. Rogers studio operator who created this portrait of Rev. Long used the popular vignette style, which burns out the background of the sitter.

As I’ve written about in my blog Cardtography, Albert Long Rogers  (1853-1934) owned studios in Westminster and Baltimore, Maryland, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as well as  in Hagerstown.

The portrait, taken in Rogers’ Hagerstown location, depicts a full-bearded Rev. Long in his later years, showing many wrinkles, but with eyes still clear and intelligent. His clothing is simple and unadorned, reflecting the back-to-basics values of the Brethren.

Thanks to the work of many dedicated volunteers, I have been able to find 99 graves of Longs, Shafers, Weltys, Reichards, Slifers, Fahrneys, Boyds, Eakles and more, on findagrave.com. All 18 portraits I acquired have been posted to their memorials there.

The Hathi Trust and Google have made the entire digitized History of the Brethren Church in Maryland available on the web.

A “Genial and Courteous Demeanor”: Peter J. Adams of Hagerstown

With his well cared-for wool suit and his neatly trimmed white beard, Peter J. Adams appears the very picture of  affable respectability.

The operator  in Albert Long Rogers‘ Hagerstown studio chose the popular if conventional vignetted bust style to capture Adams’ amiable personality in this 1880s cabinet card photograph.

Peter J. Adams (1818-1889) never made the pages of the news; the Adams family of Hagerstown barely rates a brief mention in Thomas Williams’1,300-page History of Washington County, Maryland.

What we know of Adams comes mainly from his obituary, published in the Hagertown Herald and Torch Light on 3 October 1889.

A Lutheran and a Democrat, Adams served for 12 years as a deputy to the Clerk of the Circuit Court, “where he established a large acquaintance and made many friends.”

He was an early member of the Potomac Lodge of Odd Fellows and a long-time teacher in the Sunday School of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Hagerstown.

Beyond the fact that he was born near Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, little is available about his life or his ancestry.

By trade a carpenter, Adams is said to have settled in the Leitersburg area of Washington County with his parents around 1832; he married Elizabeth Butler about 1841, and with her had two children: printer and Hagerstown Daily News publisher John Underwood Adams (1841-1911) and Martha Florence Adams.

Corroborating information helped me make a confident identification: On the back of this cabinet card is written “Frisby Weaver’s uncle.”

The connection is through Elizabeth Butler, whose sister, Catherine Butler (1823-1887), married Leitersburg area blacksmith J. Henry Weaver (1811-1893), father of farmer Frisby M. Weaver (1845-1913).

Peter Adams’ son John surfaces in Washington County history as co-publisher of the Hagerstown Daily News, first with George H. Nock in 1873 and then with William S. Herbert (History of Washington County, Maryland, vol. 1).

According to John’s obituary, John U. Adams began his career as an apprentice at the Hagertown Mail. Aside from his vocation, Adams’ two other forays into public life were an appointment as Deputy Stamp Collector during Grover Cleveland’s administration, and a two-year stint as Magistrate.

John U. Adams’ daughter, Sarah I. Adams (1869-1963), was a widely liked and respected teacher and librarian in the Washington County schools.

Another daughter, Gertrude Adams (1875-1956), married well-known Hagerstown druggist Harry Robert Rudy Sr. (1873-1941) of the firm of Rudy & Meredith, whose drugstore was situated on the Hotel Hamilton Block in Hagerstown.

It is hard to pin down the period during which Rogers operated in Hagerstown. In its entry on photographer William B. King the History of Washington County says that Rogers’ Hagerstown studio was located at  48 W. Washington Street, and that King bought it from Rogers in 1887. But according to the Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, volume 1, Rogers conducted a photography business in Hagerstown from 1887 to about 1890.

Whether taken before or after 1887, the photograph depicts Adams as an elderly man, so a mid- to late-1880s date for this cabinet card makes sense.

Thanks to the Washington County Free Library for providing John Underwood Adams’ obituary, and as always, to the many diligent and generous family history researchers and grave documenters of ancestry.com and findagrave.com.

Postscript: Jill Craig of the Western Maryland  Regional Library alerted me to Gertrude Adams Rudy’s painting of the Washington County Free Library book wagon.

Paul William Kuhns, Nebraska Banker

The former owner of this cabinet card portrait of Omaha, Nebraska banker Paul William Kuhns (1869-1927) can be forgiven for assuming he was a “Rev,” because Paul’s father and brother were prominent Lutheran pastors.

His father, Rev. Henry Welty Kuhns (1829-1899), journeyed from Pennsylvania to the Nebraska territory in 1858 with the charge of serving small, far-flung communities of Lutherans. Kuhns is credited with organizing dozens of churches, chief among which is what became known as Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church in Omaha. Widely respected and well-liked, he served as chaplain to the Nebraska legislature, and helped found a school for the deaf.

Paul’s brother, Rev. Luther Melancthon Kuhns (1861-1939), was, like their father, a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Luther Kuhns served as president of the Luther League, the Lutheran church’s national organization for youth. In 1888 he founded Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Omaha, served as secretary of the Nebraska Lutheran Synod, was a member of the board of trustees of Midland College, and wrote for several Lutheran publications. Kuhns served as Grace Lutheran’s pastor from 1888 to 1903.

Paul’s portrait was taken in the Westminster, Maryland studio of Albert L. Rogers, presumably during the Kuhns family’s sojourn there from 1878 to 1887. Paul, like his father and brother, attended what was then known as Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg (now Gettysburg College), and graduated in 1889.

The young banker married Grace Virginia Detweiler in Omaha in 1896. They had one son, prominent Nebraska attorney Barton Hay Kuhns (1901-1983).

Through their mother, Charlotte Josepha Hay Kuhns, Paul and Luther traced their ancestry back to York County, Pennsylvanian Lt. Col. John Hay (1733-1810), who was active in organizing York County’s participation in the American Revolution, served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and was elected to the Pennsylvania State Legislature.

Rogers chose a vignetted bust for this portrait. The lighting from below left highlighted Paul’s somewhat prominent and deeply shadowed eyes. The elaborate studio advertising, filling the entire space with scrolls, escutcheons, vines and a rampant lion, reflect the prevailing style of the cabinet card’s heyday in the 1880s.

Paul, Luther, and their parents are buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Omaha.

Dr. Oleriannus Alvin Cover in Baltimore

This cabinet card portrait of Iowa physician Oleriannus Alvin Cover was likely taken ca. 1893, while Cover was attending the Baltimore Medical College, from which he graduated that year.

A biographical sketch tells us that after taking an MD from Baltimore Medical College, Cover  went to Philadelphia for further study at Jefferson Medical College, so his sojourn in Baltimore was probably relatively brief.

The man with the very unusual name of Oleriannus was born in Union County, Illinois in 1862 to Frederick County, Maryland-born farmer and devout Methodist Abraham Cover and Sophia Miller Cover.

Cover came to the medical profession relatively late in life. After graduating from Southern Illinois Normal School, he taught school and served as a principal at Alto Pass High School in southern Illinois for ten years.

He began studying medicine in 1891, at the Keokuk College of Physicians and Surgeons. After several apprenticeships and MD degrees from both Baltimore Medical College and Jefferson Medical College, Cover settled down to practice in Seymour, Iowa, a small coal town in Wayne County that owed its existence primarily to its proximity to the railroad.

Cover participated enthusiastically in the political and social life of the town: He was an active Mason, Odd Fellow, and a fervent Republican.

Dr. Cover married Jessie Llewellyn of Seymour in 1898 and they had a son, William Llewellyn Cover, in 1908.  Dr. Cover died in a train accident in Rock Island, Illinois in 1916, and was buried in South Lawn Cemetery, Seymour.

After Dr. Cover’s death, Jesse and their son William moved to Los Angeles, to live with Jessie’s brother. William died in San Bernardino, California in 1993.

I suspect that the “Rogers” in this studio partnership was Albert L. Rogers, who briefly occupied the same studio location, 112 N. Charles Street, under his own name, A. L. Rogers, ca. 1891.

Three Portraits of Emma Albrecht

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When I purchased a lot of photographs from Baltimore, I found that three of them were portraits of the same young woman, Emma Albrecht. All were taken between 1885 and 1891.

The earliest (top left),  a full-length portrait taken at the Baltimore Photographic Company, dates to ca. 1885. The photographer posed her seated, holding a book, against the sort of faux-sylvan/classical background popular in the 1880s. Her dark, high-collared dress features a box-pleated skirt and apron overskirt.

An 1885 advertisement for this concern lists three studios at different locations: Excelsior Studio, 20 N. Charles Street; Elite Studio, 66 Lexington Street; Monumental Studio, 121 & 123 Lexington Street. I haven’t yet been able to determine the owner of the company.

One possible candidate for owner of these three studios is artist and inventor David Acheson Woodward, who is known to have owned a studio called variously Monumental Photographic Company and Monumental Art Studio at 120 Lexington Street ca. 1885-1886.

The second portrait, a vignetted bust, was taken at the A. L. Rogers Studio, 112 N. Charles Street. This photograph can tentatively be dated to ca. 1891, because in that year Rogers bought the studio from Norval H. Busey.

The third portrait, also a vignetted bust, was taken at a studio owned by David J. Wilkes. Baltimore’s streets underwent a re-numbering in 1887, and since the advertising refers both to the old and new numbering on Baltimore Street, ca. 1887 seems like a reasonable guess for a date.

Unfortunately, identification, even with a name, is difficult without additional information. In Baltimore there are two Emma Albrechts listed in the 1880 census who seem about the right age, and two married Emma Albrechts in the 1900 census.

One possibility: Emma M. Albrecht, b. abt. 1867, Maryland, who married physician Caleb W. G. Rohrer in the late 1890s.

A. L. Rogers Trade Card

Albert L. Rogers (1853-1934) had a studio at 68 Lexington Street ca. 1882-1885. At 4″ by 2-1/2″, this trade card suggests a move toward the modern business card.

With its touches of gilt and delicate script address, Rogers’ card strives for elegance. Richard Walzl (see previous post), by contrast, chose a brightly colored card in a larger format, designed to catch the eye.

Rogers was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania in October 1853. According to Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Rogers learned photography at the age of 16 in his older brother Samuel G. Rogers’ Waynesburg, Pennsylvania studio.

According to the Annals sketch, Albert made a specialty of retouching, and worked in this and other capacities for Kuhn & Cummins and then Richard Walzl in Baltimore.

Rogers went into business for himself in  Baltimore in 1880.

In 1891, Albert bought Norval Busey’s studio at at 112 North Charles Street. By 1900, he and his wife, fellow photographer Elizabeth E. Jonas Rogers, had relocated to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. I found a ca. 1890s cabinet photograph by Rogers marked Carlisle and Chambersburg, and an 1889 cabinet card from Westminster, Maryland; he is also said to have had a studio in Hagerstown, Maryland for a time.

Albert and Samuel weren’t the only family members to go into the photography business. In all,  I have found evidence that three other siblings did the same: John H.(Waynesburg, Green Co., Pa.),  Thomas Wilson Rogers (Carmichaels, Green Co., Pa.), and Jessie Addison Rogers (Greensburg, Decatur Co., Indiana).

Elizabeth died in 1917, and Albert remarried a woman several decades younger, Louise McCann Rogers. They had two daughters, Marie and Helen.

He gave up the photography business to grow fruit trees between 1910 and 1920 to devote himself fully to his orchards.

Rogers and his two wives are buried in Norland Cemetery, Chambersburg, Franklin County, Pa. (Thanks go to Jim Houpt of the Franklin County Genweb for information about the deaths and burials of the Rogers.)

The Greene County Historical Society has a large digitized collection of photographs, many bearing the Rogers name.