Every once in while, as i rummage through piles of stuff i continue to try and organize, label, and toss, i find amazement.

Amazement rolled all over me Saturday afternoon. i was straightening up my “Briar Patch” in the garage and moving some boxes of photos in order to put some reasoning into when i actually get to going through them for real.

i opened up one of the boxes to pull negatives and put them in a separate box. Near the bottom, i found it. i don’t know how it got in that box as i have a separate place for my Aunt Naomi Jewell Martin’s memorabilia my cousin Maxwell gave to my father who subsequently passed them to me.

i have posted photos of several earlier.

This one lives in unknown history:

i am pretty sure the man on the left is my great grandfather, Hiram Carpenter “Buddy” Jewell. i am reasonably sure the man on the right is Barbee Carpenter Jewell, Buddy’s older brother. i did not know either played fiddles. They both were born and lived in Statesville, Tennessee.

It struck me fiddle playing ran in the family. My cousin, Graham Williamson, who recorded several bluegrass records and occasionally played the fiddle in Roy Acuff’s band at the Grand Ole Opry.

The red marks on the photograph come from the glass plate back of the black piece of paper, which backs the image itself on a transparent film. Without the black paper and glass behind it, the image is barely discernible. The red is from a date written on the glass. It was taken in 1866.

i am far from an expert in old photographs, especially ones that old. i think it is an Ambrotype. From Google’s AI explanation: “Popular in the 1850s–1860s, these are wet-collodion negatives on glass that look like positive images when placed against a black background. They are usually found in protective cases.”

That pretty well describes tis photograph of Buddy and Barbee. Regardless of what type of photo it is, i wish i had met them and wish i could have heard them play those fiddles.