223
He spent the next thirteen years working for various
establishments, including Currier and Ives, producing
portraits and historical and marine lithographs, some-
times on his own, and occasionally in partnership with
others. In 1841 he exhibited his work at the National
Academy of Design in New York.
A younger brother, James Sydney Brown, had also
come to New York to pursue a career as an artist. With
Eliphalet’s help, he began as a silversmith’s apprentice,
then opened his own portrait studio, but soon gave that
up to become the fi rst operator for the newly opened da-
guerreotype gallery of Matthew Brady. By 1846, James
had left Brady to join Eliphalet Brown as a partner in
their own business, but it is unclear if he was making
daguerreotypes during this period. By 1848 James was
working alone as a daguerreotypist at his American
Gallery, and from 1851 to 1854 had moved back to his
original portrait studio at 181 Broadway, but by then as
a daguerreotypist.
It seems likely that Eliphalet had learned daguerreo-
type from James during their partnership together, but
the puzzle is why Matthew Perry selected Eliphalet over
James to be his offi cial photographer for the expedi-
tion to Japan. Perhaps Perry was looking for a more
broadly talented person with a little more maturity and
experience. In 1853, after the expedition to Japan was
underway, James had an exhibit at the New York Crystal
Palace of a series of daguerreotype portraits of Perry and
his offi cers, so he was known to Perry. He was also on
friendly terms with Samuel Morse and Napoleon III, so
he apparently travelled in infl uential circles, but while
James specialty seems to have been daguerreotype,
Eliphalet’s expertise was in drawing and lithography,
and since that was the primary means of reproduction
at the time, those skills probably assumed a greater
importance for Perry.
Eliphalet left his brother’s partnership in 1848 and
in 1851 joined with Charles Severyn, a lithographer,
but by the time he was selected by Perry, he was again
working for Currier and Ives. Apparently his drawing
ability was as important as his photographic expertise,
yet there is no offi cial mention in the fi nal govern-
ment report of his dual role beyond an occasional
reference to “the artists.” The lithographs made for
the government report listed twenty-fi ve drawings in
which Brown was listed as co-artist, almost always
credited for drawing the fi gures, while the landscape
or surroundings were credited to William Heine, a
twenty-fi ve year old German who was the offi cial artist
on the expedition.
The expedition got underway from Annapolis, Mary-
land on November 24, 1852, and sailed the southern
route around Africa, making stops at Madeira, Cape-
town, Mauritius, Ceylon, Singapore and Shanghai before
stopping in Naha, Okinawa, in the Ryuku Islands on
May 26, 1853. Perry rented a house there and ordered
Brown to commence making daguerreotypes.
On 2 July1853 Perry set sail for Japan with the black
painted, four ship fl eet.
Arriving 8 July, after 9 days of tense negotiations,
the Japanese Government accepted Perry’s letter from
President Millard Fillmore, requesting a treaty of trade
and supply with Japan. Promising to return in the spring
of 1854 for the Japanese response, they returned to
Hong Kong and Macao, where they set up headquarters
till the return trip. Many of Eliphalet Brown, Jr.’s da-
guerreotypes produced during this extended stay show
him working in a less formal way, with casually posed
people portraying cultural details, as opposed to the
later, more formal portraiture from Japan.
Returning to Japan on 14 January 1854, the Emperor’s
positive response was received, and treaty negotiations
commenced on 9 March 1854. By 31 March 1854, a
treaty had been signed giving the United States the right
to use the ports of Shimoda to the south and Hakodate
to the north. Perry then sailed to each port for evalution
and diplomacy with the local offi cials, allowing Brown
numerous opportunities to make many of the approxi-
mately four hundred daguerreotypes he reportedly made
during the expedition. On 17 August 1854, they fi nally
set sail again for Hong Kong and Shanghai.
After the return of the expedition to the U.S. in early
1855, a report of the expedition was published by the
Congress of the United States on 1 January 1856, utiliz-
ing ninety lithographic illustrations, of which nineteen
were derived from Brown’s daguerreotypes.
It has been widely publicized that all of Eliphalet
Brown, Jr.’s daguerreotypes were destroyed in an 11
April 1856 fi re at the Peter S. Duval Lithographic Com-
pany of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but an examination
of the offi cial report reveals that they only made six
of the nineteen daguerreotype-derived illustrations in
the report, with the balance distributed among three
other lithographic fi rms, one other in Philadelphia and
the other two in New York. Although those six at the
Duval fi rm may have been lost, by no means were all
of them destroyed and, although the rest have not been
accounted for, they may yet turn up in some obscure
archive in Washington, D.C.
After his return from Japan, Brown seems to have
given up both art and photography, instead spending
the next twenty years in the U.S. Navy, as a Master and
Ensign during the Civil War, and later in the Mediter-
ranean as an Admiral’s secretary. He retired from the
Navy about 1875, married and seems to have lived
quietly until his death on 24 January 1886.
Today, Eliphalet Brown, Jr.’s artwork can still be
found in the Library of Congress, the New York Public
Library and the Museum of the City of New York, all
signed E. Brown, Jr. The only identifi ed daguerreotypes