The Oldest Photo in my Collection (I Think!)

This photo, dated 1867 on the back, is a family home in Sabbatus, a tiny town in southern Maine, not too far from Lewiston. My mother's grandfather on her father's side, came down to Connecticut from Maine in the 1850s to work in the granite quarry. He ended up marrying the quarry owner's daughter around 1865 and they were given a 1766 saltbox home and hundreds of acres of land as a wedding present. That saltbox home, eventually my grandmother's, is the house I've spoken about here before, and posted photos of. This well-kept house, with fantastic detailing around the porch, is, I believe, his family's home.

Many old homesteads in Maine, and upper New England, have the barns and outbuildings all built together with long covered hallways, so that in the dead of winter, they could easily tend to the animals etc, without having to deal with the 4-8 feet of snow they usually received. The spacing of the people is very interesting to me, they're not all grouped together like one would think for a family photo. In fact, it doesn't really seem to be a photo of the family at all, but rather a photo of the home itself. Perhaps it was a memento for my great-grandfather to remember where he came from.

A close-up detail shot from the photo above. You can see a little girl (presumably) holding a doll, the woman of the house wearing a striped shawl and a couple of {what I think) are young boys. I wonder if the one on the far left was perhaps a neighbor believing he wasn't in the photo, or perhaps he was just staring at the photographer. I can't imagine photography was very common at this very early date. I wonder if the lensman had to stand under a black cloth like you see in old movies? Click on both photos to see in much greater detail.