By: Roberto Casagrande

Roberto Casagrande — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:54:11 +0000

Uncovered another portrait of Phineas Gage?
It‚Äôs on you to decide if the picture on this site may be attributed to the younger Phineas Gage. Please consult my website and see some comparison studies and the opinions of some of the leading experts on Phineas Gage.

By: Mattew L Lena (Boston)

Mattew L Lena (Boston) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:56:34 +0000

[apologies for the run-on text below; I can't seem to control the formatting]
As a longtime researcher on Gage, I have some comments. I doubt strongly that this image has appeared in any publication before, and especially not if identified as Gage. It would almost certainly have turned up long before now. Nonetheless please tell me anything you can remember about where you think you saw it.
As to Barnum distributing photos of Gage, again I’m skeptical. My colleague Macmillan ransacked the Barnum main archives as well as significant holding of Barnum material in several cities, plus all the major books on Barnum, and certainly no photo turned up. Each daguerreotype is a unique image (there’s no negative from which multiple prints can be made) so some other process such as lithography would be required for mass-production.
As you’ll see by my “canned” plea for research help below, we have faith that more Gage material awaits us in attics, basements, and town libraries, and I suppose another Gage photo could be hiding there too. We’ll see.
Researchers such as Malcolm Macmillan and I hope readers can contribute to a fuller picture of Phineas Gage by helping answer questions such as those below. Without your knowing, you may already have important information on Phineas, or if you are located in any of the places mentioned below, you could help look for information. Many questions relate not to Gage directly, but to people he met or places he‚Äôd been. FOR MORE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, and how the answers might help us better understand Phineas, please visit http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php .
Information might be in letters and diaries; medical and business records; town, police and court files; local newspapers; or in the archives of churches, hospitals and literary, professional, historical and genealogical societies. We especially hope organizations will search their one-of-a-kind materials not published in book form.
IN CHILE (1852-60): We want to know about Drs. William and Henry Trevitt, Masonic lodges, Methodist churches, and English-language newspapers, schools and businesses. Do you know anyone who can help with such things?
IN NEW ENGLAND (1848-54): Can you find newspaper or diary accounts of Phineas‚Äô accident, of his travels exhibiting himself and his ‚Äúiron,‚Äù or of his reported preaching at Methodist revivals in Sterling, Mass.? In Concord, NH records of the Abbot-Downing coachworks could identify ‚Äúthree enterprising New Englanders‚Äù who may have set up the coach line for which Phineas drove in Chile; in Hanover you might discover Phineas‚Äô duties at Currier‚Äôs Inn, or a Dartmouth professor who met him; and somewhere in Wilton may be the papers of Henry Trevitt.
IN CALIFORNIA (1860- ): Where is the missing undertaker‚Äôs ledger showing where Gage died? What can you discover about Dr. William Jackson Wentworth (Alameda Co.) or the papers of Joseph Stalder (d.1931)? Are you descended from Phineas‚Äôs nieces/nephew Hannah, Delia, Mary, Alice, or Frank B.Shattuck? Can we learn more about Frank at the School for the Deaf?
IN OHIO (1860- ): Can you find anything about Henry Trevitt‚Äôs time at Starling Medical College in Columbus, Prof. J.W. Hamilton, or William Trevitt‚Äôs papers?
ANYWHERE: If you are related to the Cowdrey, Davis, Ames, or Kimball families, are you also related to Phineas‚Äô doctor, John Martyn Harlow? Do you know of ship passenger lists (Boston, New York, Chile, Panama, S.F.) that might show Gage family movements? Do you have Gold Rush ancestors who stopped in Valparaiso, Chile? And of course, letters mentioning Gage could have gone anywhere.
There are more clues in Stillwater and Northfield, MN; Santa Clara, San Rafael, and S.F., CA; Cavendish, Castleton, Woodstock, and Burlington, VT; Lebanon, Enfield and Wilton, NH; Albany, NY, Buda, IL, the National Library of Medicine, and other places. At http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php are details on how you can help by following such clues. Your help or inquiries to malcolm.macmillan@unimelb.edu.au will be very much appreciated. (Please use email instead of posting a reply here.)
We would be pleased to assist teachers (in New England, S.F., even Chile?) in creating a class project involving students‚Äô search for family papers or local lore about Gage.

By: airship1951

airship1951 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:56:45 +0000

I’m 99.5% positive I saw this photo 20-30 years ago, perhaps in the book or magazine article where I first heard about this case. Since he was a Barnum exhibit, I think it’s probable that old P.T. sold souvenir photos of him at the museum. In that case, there would still be thousands of these things in trunks and attics.

By: Vaughan

Vaughan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:24:50 +0000

Thanks for that. Now corrected.

By: talesofacrazypsychmajor

talesofacrazypsychmajor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:23:07 +0000

Gage wasn’t in the circus. He worked at Barnum’s museum in New York. The story got warped because people hear “Barnum” and think circus.
http://deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.php

Comments on: Is that you, Phineas?

By: Roberto Casagrande

By: Mattew L Lena (Boston)

By: airship1951

By: Vaughan

By: talesofacrazypsychmajor