February 7, 2012

• Identity of Mystery Man Solved!

  I posted this on Facebook and daughter Valerie (aka “murisopsis”) and a Facebook church friend helped me solve the mystery. Here’s the information about him and the portrait the glass worker may have used to design the frosted image in the pressed glass paperweight……which is not a “sulphide weight” after all. I was mistaken thinking it was called that. In sulphide weights the objects are white and appear to be solid inside the glass.

  If you guessed President James Garfield, you were right. He was called “the last of the log cabin presidents.” My elementary school was named for him. After his assasination in 1881, commemorative objects were designed like my paperweight and glass plates, etc. He had only been in office for four months when he was shot by Charles Julius Guiteau, an attorney. Below are photos about this president born in a log cabin in 1831 in Moreland Hills,  Ohio. I think my friend or her neighbor were mistaken about how or when or where this weight was obtained….of course it is possible they were given as souveniers to those who attended the next political convention after Garfield’s death September 19, 1881.

   

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  • 8:54 pm
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