Augustus Washington

Augustus Washington was born on the eighth of August 1820 at Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Christiana Washington — a free Black woman of New Jersey — and an African-born father whose name is recorded only as Washington. He was raised in the free Black community of antebellum Trenton.

He was educated at the Oneida Institute at Whitesboro, New York in 1843 and 1844 — among the principal abolitionist-collegiate institutions of the antebellum period — and at Dartmouth College at Hanover, New Hampshire in 1844 and 1845. He left Dartmouth in 1845 for financial reasons before completing the bachelor's degree.

He was hired in 1846 as principal of the Black-segregated North African School at Hartford, Connecticut — and held the principal North African School principal position from 1846 to 1850.

He was instructed in the daguerreotype process about 1846 by the principal Hartford daguerreotypist Lyman Whipple — and opened the principal Washington Daguerreotype Studio at Hartford in 1847.

He operated the principal Washington Daguerreotype Studio at Hartford from 1847 to 1853 — at the principal antebellum Black-owned daguerreotype studio in New England. He produced the principal daguerreotype portrait record of the principal antebellum abolitionist movement — including the principal daguerreotype of John Brown of 1846 and 1847, the principal daguerreotype of the principal Hartford Black abolitionist leadership, and the principal daguerreotype of the principal Underground Railroad operatives of the Hartford district.

His principal John Brown daguerreotype of 1846 to 1847 — at this day at the National Portrait Gallery at Washington, D.C. — is the principal extant daguerreotype of the principal antebellum abolitionist.

He emigrated to Liberia in 1853 under the auspices of the American Colonization Society — at the principal post-1850 fugitive-slave crisis emigration. He opened the principal Washington Studio at Monrovia, Liberia in 1854 and operated the principal Liberian daguerreotype-and-ambrotype studio from 1854 to 1860.

He abandoned the principal photographic practice in 1860 for the principal Liberian commercial sugar planter trade at the Bassa County of Liberia — and was elected to the principal Liberian Senate in 1865.

He died at Monrovia, Liberia on the seventh of June 1875 of natural causes, at fifty-four.

He is honored here as the principal Black-American daguerreotypist of the antebellum period.