[Texas Photographica]. Philpott, Horatio Vabzarigo

[Collection of 19th-Century Images of the Philpott-Smith Family of Alabama and Texas, Including Two Portraits of Family Scion, General Horatio Philpott]

[Various locations in Texas: ca. 1850s to 1880s]. One daguerreotype, five ambrotypes, two tintypes, two CDVs, and five images mounted on card. Some significant wear and fading to a few of the earliest images, some soiling and surface wear to later images. Good. Item #3624

A significant grouping of images documenting multiple generations of a notable Texas family that put down roots in Freestone County in the mid-19th century. The images begin with an ambrotype of the family's scion, General Horatio V. Philpott. General Horatio Vabzarigo Philpott (1789-1871) was born in Frederick, Maryland. He married Nancy Ann Allen in 1808, and the couple gave birth to one son, Benjamin Allen Philpott. Horatio served as a judge in Morgan, Alabama in the 1850s. He died on March 11, 1871, in Fairfield, Freestone County, Texas, at the age of 81, and was buried in the town’s Fairfield Cemetery. The elder Philpott is pictured in a quarter-plate ambrotype in a military uniform - perhaps from his service in the militia during his time in Alabama. The collection also includes a sixth-plate ambrotype of Harriet Paxton Philpott (1792-1856), Horatio's second wife; a quarter-plate ambro of Horatio's first son Benjamin Allen Philpott (1811-1892); another image of Benjamin - a later sixth-plate ambro showing Philpott in a three-piece suit with considerably less hair on his head; a quarter-plate Daguerreotype of Joseph Paxton Philpott (1817-1889), son of Horatio and Harriet Philpott and half-brother of Benjamin Allen Philpott, and his son, Horatio B. Philpott (grandson of Horatio and Harriet, and nephew of Benjamin Allen Philpott); a sixth-plate ambrotype of Horatio B. Philpott (1852-?), son of Joseph Paxton Philpott, pictured by himself; two small mounted images of Mary Philpott Matthews (1864-1949), daughter of Joseph Paxton Philpott; and images of later Philpott-Smith family members, namely two tintypes and a CDV of Fannie Philpott Smith (the CDV produced in the J.A. Arvin Gallery in Mexia); a CDV of Thomas Smith (1862-1928), produced in the Waxahachie studio of P.F. Devenport; and three mounted images of "Uncle Henry Philpott" and family and friends playing at the Chautauqua Grounds of Waxahachie Creek.

The earlier ambrotype of Benjamin Allen Philpott is significantly faded, but features him in his Texas Confederate uniform, with his cap emblazoned with a lone star above the bill. Benjamin Philpott spent some of his life in Alabama before moving to Texas in 1841. According to the Handbook of Texas: "When the Civil War began, Philpott joined the Twelfth Texas Infantry (also known as the Eighth Texas Infantry) and served as a lieutenant colonel. The Twelfth was assigned to East Texas from February to May 1862. In August 1862 they were ordered to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they joined Col. Overton Young's First Brigade. Philpott returned to Fairfield after serving eighteen months in the Confederate Army." One source refers to the Twelfth Texas Infantry during the Civil War as "Philpott's Infantry." A wonderful collection of images capturing at least four generations of a Texas family, including a notable Confederate officer.

Price: $4,500.00