Historic images revealed at upcoming museum presentation

Research at the Tioga County Historical Society Museum has uncovered over 100 Civil War era Carte de Visite photographic images not seen since 1926, if ever. Forty-four other large-format digital images from the same era have just been donated to the museum after the originals left Owego back in 1949.

Associate Director of the TCHS Museum, Randy White, rediscovered the museum’s holdings of famous Civil War era photographer Mathew Brady and his associate Andrew Burgess. 

In plowing through the museum records and then the vault, Randy discovered a box, unopened for decades. That box was part of a treasure trove of materials donated to the museum in the Last Will and Testament of Eudora Tiffany Burgess in 1926. 

The box contained an album of Carte de Visite images and Cabinet Card images, which will be revealed in a presentation at the TCHS Museum on Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. 

These images include pictures of President Abraham Lincoln, President U. S. Grant, Grant’s youngest children (Nellie and Jessie), General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. 

There were over 100 cards, which have now been scanned into the museum’s digital collection at 6,400-dpi. The images are a component of the growing digital database being created for the Museum. The database was recently enriched by 3,900 images of the Owego Village Historic District. 

Forty-four large format images of notable figures including General George A. Custer Civil War era will also be on display. Ansco Binghamton purchased these images in September of 1949 from George F. Andrews, former District Attorney and the son of a prominent Owego lawyer. This set of 44 glass plate negatives was found in the barn/garage at 333 Front St. here in Owego. 

Bill Ryan, former ANSCO Binghamton employee stated that Mr. Harry Panko, ANSCO sales promotion manager, says his phone rang with a call from a Mr. George Andrews who had located those negatives. 

Those came into the Andrews’ possession upon the death of Eudora Tiffany Burgess, willed to the wife of her lawyer (Andrew’s father), whom some have suggested was her childhood friend. The will was created four years before Eudora’s death. Peter Gordan, Owego Town historian, is working to determine the relationship between Eudora Burgess and Fancelia Andrews. 

Eudora Tiffany Burgess (1845-1925) lived in her parent’s house when she was in Owego, even after her marriage to Andrew Burgess. The home of Austin (1810-1901) and Abigail Woodard Tiffany (1819-1899) was on Glenmary Drive (on the Tioga/Owego line), North of Ballou Road and across the street from where Mill Race Road diverges from Glenmary. It appears, by accounts in the local social columns, that she often spent winters in St. Augustine, Fla., especially in her later years and after the death of her husband.