Twenty-five years ago, I held a daguerreotype in my hands and thought, “This man is old enough to have witnessed the American Revolution.”

The owner of the image confirmed that it was his ancestor, a Loyalist sympathizer.

That moment changed the course of my research.

What followed became The Last Muster Project, resulting in two books, an exhibit at the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, and inspiration for the final display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. It also led to three documentary films, including A Revolutionary Trio, produced by Verissima Productions, featuring Eleazer Blake of New Hampshire, Agrippa Hull of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Molly Ferris Akin of New York.

Over the years, I’ve written articles, given presentations, and spent countless hours searching for photographs of the men and women whose lives bridged the Revolutionary era and the dawn of photography.

Did I find all of them? Absolutely not.

In fact, I know there are many more images waiting to be discovered.

How do I know? Because readers, museum curators, librarians, and family historians continue to send me photographs and leads. Eric Grundset, formerly of the Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has been one of the most dedicated contributors. New discoveries continue to surface as collections are digitized, archives are opened, and families begin exploring boxes of inherited photographs.

The greatest challenge is not finding photographs. It’s identifying them.

Across the country, there are daguerreotypes without names, carte de visite portraits without labels, and family collections that have lost the stories behind the faces.

So how do you spot someone connected to the Revolutionary era in your own collection?

Start with the basics:

• A very elderly person in a case photograph, such as a daguerreotype, ambrotype, or tintype.
• A very elderly person in an early carte de visite.
• Family stories suggesting Revolutionary War service.
• Photographs linked to families known to have lived in America before 1800.

Of course, age alone isn’t proof.

The next step is verification. Is the person depicted a veteran, actually? A veteran’s wife? One of their children? That’s where research becomes both challenging and rewarding.

I rely on timelines to separate fact from family legend. Pension applications, military records, census schedules, probate files, and local histories can reveal remarkable—and sometimes heartbreaking—stories.

Occasionally, a photograph can even be matched to an earlier painting, engraving, or silhouette. What is unidentified in one collection may be fully documented in another.

Am I still looking?

Absolutely.

Will there be a third volume of The Last Muster?

I’m not sure.

At the moment, I don’t have enough newly identified likenesses to support another book, and publishing a volume would require starting the proposal process from scratch. The first volume took nearly a decade from proposal to publication.

As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I find myself thinking about these men and women who witnessed the nation’s birth and lived long enough to see an entirely new age emerge. Their photographs connect us to history in a uniquely personal way.

Every identified face adds another piece to the story.

And somewhere, in an archive, museum, library, or family collection, there are undoubtedly more waiting to be found.

The Last Muster volumes are available through Amazon.

The post Looking for Faces of the American Revolution appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

This week, I take a look back on my most popular podcast episode from the past year. I’m joined by David Wood, the curator of the Concord Museum in Concord Massachusetts since 1985. 

David and I talk about the exhibits from the museum, and how some leave lasting impressions, not only on the community but in the history that it’s taken part in telling. We also discuss what it means to see history, not only as an adult, but also as a child, and how understanding how we look at history can help foster a deeper love in the exhibits we see and also show to our audiences.

It’s a fascinating look at curation, history exploration, and understanding how moments in history can continue to affect us, even after they’ve long since happened. 

It doesn’t take hindsight to realize you’re living in historic times. This last year has taught us that.  This week’s guest, David Wood, told me that residents of Lexington and Concord immediately recognized the significance of April 19, 1775, and saved pieces to document that day. A few years ago, the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts assembled a temporary exhibit called The Shot Heard Round the World.  It was an amazing display of ordinary and extraordinary bits of history.  Now they’ve created a permanent exhibit of the same name. It’s one of my favorite museums but don’t worry if you can’t travel to see it. Their website is worth exploring.  Concord Museum was the first cultural institution to be officially recognized by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission for this “Shot Heard Round the World” microsite. We’ve plenty of time before the 250th celebration in 2026.   

Related Episodes:

Episode 49: Women Patriots with Mary Tedesco

Episode 79: The American Revolution and Abraham Lincoln

Links:

• Concord Museum
• A Revolutionary Trio
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• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

David F. Wood has been Curator at the Concord Museum since 1985. He has published The Concord Museum: Decorative Arts from a New England Collection and An Observant Eye: The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum, which won the American Association of State and Local History Leadership in History Award and the Historic New England Honor Book award for 2007. He has also published a variety of other articles regarding cabinetmaking and clock-making in Concord, Massachusetts

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 159: The Shot Heard Round the World at the Concord Museum appeared first on Maureen Taylor.