Goffstown Photo Album Notes

The album and its pictures.

In May of 2006, an employee of "Early Photography" contacted Brad Hadley about an old photo album they had acquired.

Hello. We recently acquired a small nineteenth century album filled with CDVs (cartes de visite: small business sized photographs from the 19th century) and some tintypes. Upon doing research, I found your family geneaology website.

This album is for sale, and before we offer it elsewhere, we thought it appropriate to contact you to see if you might be interested. Some of the names in the album: David B. Hadley, Capt. Peter E. Hadley, Eliza Hadley, Peter E. Hadley, post mortem CDV, and tintype of Mary E. Cochran (wife of Peter E. Hadley), Geo. P. Hadley, Wm.Hadley, Ann Hadley, Plummer Hadley (1771-1861), B. Franklin Baker, Margaret Ann Baker, Hannah Elizabeth Rowe, A. Josephine Cochran, Janet Cochran (1773-1863), Henry Moose, Mary Woodbury, Issac Boyd, Thomas Wildey (founder of oddfellows in america) and others.

There are several photographs with no identification. In total, there are 49 photographs. If you are interested, please let us know before the weekend. Thank you.

They later sent us sample pictures from the album. Some of these are very similar to, but slightly different from, photographs that appear in the two-volume "History of Goffstown". We believe that some of these may be from the same sitting as those used in the History, but do not know this as a fact. Some of the photographs have cancelled revenue stamps with dates in the 1860s, indicating the date of the photograph, or at least when the print was made. (These revenue stamps were for a tax on certain goods to recover expenses from the Civil War. There are several sites on the internet that talk about these stamps).

After exchanging a few notes and making some contacts, we got a group of interested folk together who chipped in so we could buy the album. We agreed that after scanning the pictures, we'd donate it to the Goffstown (NH) Historical Society. We received the album in early August and began photographing and scanning the album and its contents. This web page summarizes these scans. Each of the contributors will soon have a CD with higher-resolution scans and photographs. By the time you read this, the Goffstown Historical Society will likely have the album. Contact them if you would like to see the real thing.

Photography and Scanning Notes

Note: These notes are primarily for the benefit of the contributors who each recieved a CD with photographs and scans in a variety of resolutions and formats. I'm too lazy to make two versions, one for the CD and one for the web page, so if you don't have a CD, most of this is of little interest. Brad.

The album is approximately 4-1/2" by 5-1/2". Its cover is leather with a brass clasp. Both the front and back covers have four white beads. The clasp has one matching white bead. The edges of the pages are gold colored.

The album and its contents were photographed and scanned in a variety of manners before being donated to the Goffstown Historical Society. Picture files are named using its position in the album, e.g. "page 1 front" and "page 1 back".

First the album and each page was photographed at 2MP using indirect natural sunlight. These photographs appear in folder "Initial Pics". They capture the appearance of the album itself, the contents of each page, and each photograph in its original position in the album. There are two sub-folders: unedited and cropped. The cropped group just have extra material removed; no editing or cleanup. Many of the pages contain hand-written notes identifying the subject of the photograph on that page, which can be seen in the photographs. In the scans described below, just the photograph is included, so the only place you can see the hand-written notes on the album pages is in these folders. We do not know who made the notes, when they were made, and how accurate they are.

Then each photograph contained in the album was carefully removed from the album and scanned. The front of each picture was scanned at 300dpi. The backs were scanned at 150dpi, unless it contained something of particular interest, such as a revenue stamp, in which case it was scanned at 300dpi. The raw (unedited) scans are contained in the directory "raw scans". No cleanup or editing were done to the scans in this folder. I did not edit or restore the backs of the pictures, some of which have hand-written notes, so "raw scans" is the only place you will see the backs.

After all pictures were scanned, I edited each one to remove major problems such as spots, scratches, creases, mold etc. (There was quite a bit of mold, which you see clearly when you zoomed in). I also attempted to improve the color (e.g. reduce yellowing) and contrast. These are in the "edited scans" folder. Opinions vary widely on what types of "improvements" should be made to old photographs. If you disagree with my adjustments, use the raw scans.

The notes under each picture are either from the back of the photograph or on the front of the page in the album. This information may or may not be correct.

If you have any questions of comments, sent them to bradh@bradhadley.com.

The album and its pictures.