1910There is a man there who polishes a plate of metal so that when you look at it your likeness remains on it…
Book page, cropped, excess text removed
Internet Archive"I remember hearing my parents tell of a dinner at Grandfather Phelps's at which they were present in 1841, soon after my uncle Anson, then twenty-three years of age, returned from an extended tour. He said at the dinner: "Father, I saw a strange thing in Paris. There is a man there who polishes a plate of metal so that when you look at it your likeness remains on it." Mr. Phelps, Sr., pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, looked at his son, and said : "My son, if you are weak enough to believe such a thing, you ought to have sense enough not to tell it." Uncle Anson replied : "Father, I saw it myself. The man's name is Daguerre."
Anson Phelps Stokes, 1910,
Stokes records; notes regarding the ancestry and lives of Anson Phelps Stokes and Helen Louisa (Phelps) Stokes, (New York: Privately printed for the Family), vol. I, pt. 2, p. 151
I'm indebted to Jeremy Rowe for bringing this to my attention (10 May 2018)
LL/82737