The Palisade Photographs
Three daguerreotypes from a Nauvoo photographer's unmarked studio, dated July 1844, depicting a mushroom-shaped cloud rising above Carthage.
Acquisition
The three plates were purchased at a Marion, Iowa estate sale in the spring of 2017, bundled inside a hollowed Book of Commandments whose spine had been re-stitched with cotton thread dyed to match the original 1833 binding. The seller, a granddaughter of a Hancock County deputy, had kept them in a tobacco tin for sixty-one years.
Two of the three plates have been authenticated by the Smithsonian’s Conservation Labs as genuine 1840s-era daguerreotypes. The third — the one depicting the mushroom column — was originally classified as a retouched 1890s novelty plate. It has since been re-examined by Dr. ████████████, whose findings (reported in the Journal of Optical History, vol. 41) confirm that the retouching is consistent with airbrushing applied after the original exposure, not during.
What the plates show
- Plate A: The Nauvoo Temple at night, lit from within by an unmistakable ██████████.
- Plate B: A line of figures in white surplices walking single-file toward the river, each carrying what appears to be a hooded lantern. The lanterns are not lanterns.
- Plate C: A column of disturbed air rising from the Carthage Jail grounds, approximately 1,2██ feet high, photographed from a hill six miles west of the town.
Why the plates were hidden
The story told to the deputy by his employer — a stake president whose name we are withholding — was simple: “The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and so do the plates.” He then paid the deputy, in cash, to never look at them again.
“I have examined these plates personally. I have handled the airbrush patterns under raking light. I can state with reasonable confidence: the column in Plate C was not painted. It was photographed.”
— Dr. ████ ████████, Materials Science Department, Brigham Young University, personal correspondence (2019)