Learned something new last night. The first photograph taken in the U.S. (or photograph claimed to have been first) was a Daguerreotype taken by Philadelphia mint employee Joseph Saxton in 1839, looking at Philadelphia Central High School from the second mint building.
His next photo was of one of his coins. All of his friends told him he needed a better lighting setup and a macro lens.
not even true ,,,the first documented Daguerreotype taken in the US was by a man named D.W. Seager, who had carried the French instruction manual from London to New York and had taken it directly to Morse. Seager's first Daguerreotype was a view of St. Paul's Church in New York City taken on September 16, 1839.
If it's true this was the first US based photo taken, it makes me smile on the inside. I don't know why but knowing that a cutting edge technology of the time was known to those of a numismatic nature makes me happy. As in, coin folks were the ones who knew what was an emerging and blossoming field. Even if it wasn't first really, just to know that the first things worthy of a photo were by coin involved folk.
Hence my parenthetic statement. Claims at being first/oldest aren't always what they seem. It would appear that Saxton's may be the oldest that still exists, however.
