I have this weird thing.  I can sit and stare at the faces in old photos for hours.  There is something calling about an old - a really old - photo of a person that I had only known from paintings.   As if we can glimpse around some corner that had only let words past and finally see the people speaking those words, which we had read in history books.

We've all seen photos of Civil War soldiers and Civil War dead, or photos of Abraham Lincoln.  But photos of men who lived before that era are few and far between.  

That's the reason I find this photograph of John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, and son of John Adams, 2nd President, so compelling.  Taken in the early 1840's just before his death, he was born in 1767, and witnessed to the Battle of Bunker Hill, was in US government by the turn of the 19th century and before the War of 1812.  

And who doesn't know about Andrew Jackson, the face on the $20 bill.  The man who earned a gash on the head by a sword-swinging British officer during the Revolution after he refused to shine his boots.   The hero of the Battle of New Orleans.  The man who cleared Indians from the East and sent them West on the Trail of tears.  The only known photograph of that ancient man...

You're not weird, I think old photo's are interesting also..  Can you imagine how much that chair he is sitting in would be worth today?  And the carpet?

Imagine the smell!

Maybe its the angle of the picture, but John Quincy Adams Head in the first picture looks giant, in compariosn to the rest of his body. Otherwise those are some very interesting photos. Thanks for posting.

Nice post Micro. I also find it fascinating.

You're not weird, I think old photo's are interesting also.. Can you imagine how much that chair he is sitting in would be worth today? And the carpet?

I was looking at the old fireplace mantel thinking the same thing