Thread by @johnbryanesq

Here’s one of my favorite discoveries… Imagine you’re at a flea market in West Virginia and you see this chair, that nobody wants because it’s sort of impressively ugly. But something about it says buy this thing, because it’s just so unusual. So you buy it for a couple hundred bucks.

Then you bring it home and start researching it. In particular, you Google photos of old chairs, and then you see this… Is that Mark Twain sitting in the chair? It looks similar…

And then you find Ulysses Grant in the chair.

But not to be outdone, is that Jefferson Davis also with the chair?

And then others…

And then Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad? As it turns out, this is a special chair that was gifted by President Lincoln to famous 19th century photographer, Matthew Brady. Which explains its appearance in all these photos.

Brady apparently really liked this chair. But why this chair? What makes it special?

Made by Bembe & Kimbel, a Victorian-era furniture and decorative arts firm founded in 1854 and based in New York. Anton Bembe and Anthony Kimbel one of several firms commissioned to outfit the new House of Representatives Chamber at the U.S. Capitol, carved the Rococo Revival armchairs, designed by Thomas U. Walter, for members of Congress.

One of 262 chairs commissioned for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1857, photographer Mathew Brady – who was responsible for producing the most important visual documentation of the Civil War era – purportedly received the chair as a gift from Abraham Lincoln, a friend and subject he photographed many times over years.

The list of sitters who sat in this chair for Brady is considered a "who's who" of American history-makers. No less than five U.S. presidents sat in the chair for portraits, as well as senators and civil servants, Civil War soldiers, Justices and Native Americans.

This is not Brady’s chair, which was auctioned a few years ack. But, it is one of the 2 or 3 others known to have survived. And unlike the others, this one has its original oil cloth.

How it ended up at a flea market in West Virginia is anyone's guess.... It now resides at my law office, where nobody is allowed to sit on it. 😆

And some additions… Sent to me by a commenter in this thread.

This is his great great great grandfather, Judge Noah Davis--(Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from New York's 28th district
March 4, 1869 – July 15, 1870) from the Brady collection.

And another submission from a descendant right here in this thread. 🙏

General George H. Thomas, a West Virginian. 🍺

General WS Hancock.

General John A Rawlins. #beardgoals

If anyone wants more, I have another find involving an obscure object, which I discovered belonged to an 18th century Scottish lord, who appeared in America as a "mysterious stranger," fell in love, whisking the girl away to his castle in Scotland, never to be seen again...