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Lot 156
Sale 6356 - American Historical Ephemera and Photography
Lots Open
Jun 18, 2025
Lots Close
Jul 2, 2025
Timed Online / Cincinnati
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Estimate
$500 -
700
Price Realized
$671
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY]. 7 photographs documenting the Savannah Fire of 1889 by J.N. Wilson.
7 photographs, each approx. 7 1/2 x 4 3/8 in., on 8 1/2 by 5 1/8 inch cardstock mounts. One example bears J. N. Wilson's blindstamp on mount recto. Most bear captions written in the negative.
Provenance: Descended directly in the family of WEQ Baker, a former confederate soldier and a lifelong resident of Savannah, Georgia (consignor relates).
Images include: A view of numerous onlookers gathered in groups, with ruins of the city in the background and a strange human-shaped figure in a tree with a wooden ladder leading up to it. Captioned, "Sth Broad & Whitaker Sts, Looking Nth East." -- A view of ruins and damage as seen from "Hull & Bull Sts." featuring what appears to be an African American man leading against a fence post to the right foreground of the image. -- A view from an elevated surface of ruins including "Hogans Store - Barnard & Broughton Sts." -- A view of what remains of the "In. Pres. Church & Sunday School." -- A view of the destroyed "Odd Fellows Hall," featuring an African American subject holding a basket and wearing a hat, looking at the camera directly in front of the old hall on Telfair Square. -- And 2 others.
On the morning of 6 March 1889, a fire ignited at Hogan's Dry Goods store, located in the 100 block of Savannah's W. Broughton Street. The fire burned from Broughton on the north to Hull Street on the south, and from west of Barnard Street to Bull Street on the east, damaging an estimated 1.5 million dollars' worth of property in 1889.
This lot is located in Cincinnati.

