On June 22, 1840, Boston dentist Samuel A. Bemis used his new daguerreotype camera to take the first-ever photograph of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
The daguerreotype process had only been introduced by French artist Louis Daguerre the year before. Bemis’s photographic equipment weighed more than 50 pounds and the images were developed using heated mercury.
A seasonal and later full-time resident of Crawford Notch, Bemis used the new invention to capture images of the unspoiled natural beauty of the White Mountains at a time when the region was being discovered by artists and tourists alike. Bemis is believed to have taken the earliest known photograph of the Old Man of the Mountain in 1841.
N.H. Historical Society