This is an engraved portrait of D. M. Bennett, the editor of The Truth Seeker, from the front of his 1876 book, The World’s Sages, Infidels, and Thinkers. The book looks very interesting. What particularly interested me about this portrait is the very faint attribution below it: “Eng’d by J.I Pease, from a photo by W. Knowlton.” Willis Knowlton was the youngest child of Dr. Charles Knowlton and Tabitha Stuart Knowlton. He was born in 1837 in Ashfield and lived there to adulthood with his mother after his father died in 1850. Willis became a professional photographer and had a studio in Elmira and then in New York City. Although I’m not sure Willis was a freethinker like his parents, I suspect that he was. If nothing else, he knew famous freethinkers in New York!
I love this little thread of connection!