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(End of text. Please refer to our textnote regarding this text.
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IT WAS in or about 1841 that the then recently discovered art known as Daguerreotype, the original of the photographic process, was introduced into this country, the discovery having been made two years before by M. Daguerre, of France. Great ingenuity was presently applied in all parts of the civilized world for the development of its possibilities; but it was some time before it attained anything like the beautiful phase now known as photography. Mr. Gray, a gentleman residing on Beacon street, Boston, as well as many other amateur scientists, became greatly interested in the new discovery. At considerable expense he imported a set of the apparatus from the establishment of the discoverer. And this apparatus he kindly lent me to experiment with during the summer of that year, 1841. It was a ponderous collection of boxes, with one or two bottles of chemicals, and only suitable for landscape views. No satisfactory portraits could then be taken by the process, though something in that line was attempted. This was the first Daguerreotype or photographic apparatus ever in Lynn, and with it I pleasantly employed many a vacant hour. There was an establishment in Boston which made some pretension in the line of miniatures, but the sitter, after remaining painfully still for from ten to fifteen minutes, often received a blotched picture called a likeness, the features of which were scarcely discernible unless held in a particular light. But the process, in this country especially, was improved with remarkable rapidity, and we now witness its capabilities in the elegant cards that adorn the homes of rich and poor, adding so much to endearing memories of departed friends. Not only that, but science is already indebted to it for many wonderful discoveries, especially in astronomy. And still great expectations of further achievements by its aid are reasonably entertained. There seem, however, to have been glimpses of the photographic art as early as two centuries before the time of Daguerre; but nothing satisfactory appears to have been accomplished, and it became a "lost art."
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