2000.139.1

inscription: Below image printed on front mount: Our glorious Star-Spangled Banner, "By Angel hands to valour given." Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1866, by FREDERICK COOMBS, in the Clerk's Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Printed on reverse of mount: FROM THE Philadelphia Inquirer, November 7, 1866. The city of Philadelphia has been honored with a visit from a gentleman whose dress resembles the old style of 1776. His carte de visite and mental resemblances to our Revolutionary fathers is very striking, and this very day (5th November, 1866) is the anniversary of his advent in this city, twenty-seven years ago, when he was on a mission of benevolence, viz., to carry passengers by electricity; and there are many of our citizens who remember taking a ride on that car propelled by electro-magnetism, in 1839, at Peale's Museum, it having been the first application of it as a motive power. He has the certified copy from the National Intelligencer of January 28, 1840, of his exhibiting the first telegraphic operation on this continent. As a pioneer of California in 1849 of the most beneficial sciences, he was the most successful,--sufficiently so, to help every poor applicant by the hundred and thousand dollars in gold, and never they complaining of receiving nothing back. His importing above fifty cases of beneficial apparatus to benefit California in 1858, in order to found a beneficent Institution there, for want of appreciation and support resulted in a very severe loss; a large portion of said importation returned to New York, having been destroyed by fire. He is energetically at work to repair the great loss by selling his CARTE DE VISITE and his "POPULAR PHRENOLOGY," which are commended to public patronage, as he is worthy of encouragement and fully entitled to the titles he assumes of "Washington, the Second Conqueror," "The Modern Franklin," "The Matrimonial Promoter," &c. P.S.--It might truthfully be added, F. COOMBS' Fine-Art Galleries were totally destroyed by fire May 4, 1850, June 22, 1850, May 4, 1851; yet, remitting hundreds of dollars unsolicited to poor widows and orphans, from whom he declines receiving anything back; but forty relatives, who have become rich by his charities forty years ago, deserve "hanging slightly," if they won't repay him only forty years' interest. JAMES JOHNSON, Pioneer Artist of California.