The Oldest – 52 Ancestors #31

I have two pictures of ancestors that are both the oldest pictures in terms of when they were taken (I think) and also the oldest ancestors of whom I have a picture (in terms of when they were born).

The ancestor who was born earliest that I have a picture of is William Denman, the migrant ancestor from England, who was born in 1763 and died in 1858.  The picture was described by a granddaughter as having been taken in his nineties and that he walked to her house to present it to her.  Priscilla Denman (later married to an Eller), his granddaughter, wrote:  “He endured many privations as one of the first settlers of this country, but his iron constitution endured them all well & at the age of 90 years he was hale & hearty; walking 4 miles to present me with his photograph, which I still have in a good state of preservation. He died at the age of 95 & 1 month.” So, although I don’t have a precise date for when the photograph was taken, it likely was between 1853 and early in 1858.  If Priscilla was accurate that William was 90 years old when he gave her the picture, it would have been taken sometime in 1853.  And she would have been about 12 or 13.

The second picture I have is actually a daguerreotype, although several sittings were made, of a group of Coffin family members.  In the back, standing, are Zebulon B. Coffin and his wife Catherine Justice Coffin.  Sitting in front, left to right, are Abigail Butler Coffin, Cyrus Coffin, and Susan Wilcox Justice.  The Coffins are Zebulon’s parents and Susan Justice is Catherine’s mother.  This sitting had to have been done between July 25, 1850 (when Susan’s husband Jesse Justice died) and August 23, 1858 when Abigail Coffin died.  Cyrus was born in 1782 and Abigail in 1783, so they were about 20 years younger than William Denman when this picture was taken.   I am assuming that it was after the death of Jesse Justice, since otherwise I would have expected him to also be in the picture.  So far I have no other clues to help date the picture, but I’ll continue to look.  I do have other pictures and daguerreotypes (some of which I think might have been taken at the same time as the group picture) which may help narrow the time.  The post I wrote about Abigail so long ago included this picture and my speculations at that time about when it might have been done.