Two copies of this card have been required to sort out even part of the mystery it poses. This is the first copy I acquired. It's a real-photo card, and like the North Main Street view postmarked 1915, it appears to be an amateur photo, although perhaps taken on a glass plate rather than Kodak roll film (witness the chips in the emulsion and the edge that prints across the bottom of the view). It is captioned in pencil, "The Chapel, Salem Ind." The back is clean: there's no postmark to help date the card. The back design is closest to one the Playle Real Photo Stamp Backs Page assigns to the period 1910-1918, but I've included it in the decade of the 1900s because the photograph may be considerably older than the print of it. Two clues: the glass-plate negative, and that top hat on the gentleman standing in front of the building. It might have been a common enough headgear in the 1880s but by the 1900s it had definitely been replaced by softer and smaller styles. The second copy doesn't say anything on the front, but on the back someone has penciled "St. Johns' Church, Salem, Ind." That is substantiated by Warder Stevens' Centennial History, which says, on page 357: After severing his pastorate with the Presbyterian church in Salem, Rev. I. I. St. John built a little chapel on the hill in the west part of Salem, adjoining the Catholic cemetery, where for several years he conducted services regularly every Sunday, with Sunday School. He finally moved back east and latterly services have been conducted in the chapel by the Epicopalians." Both of the captions could have been considerably more helpful. For example, if this is the Rev. Mr. St. John's chapel, is that the Rev. Mr. St. John in the top hat and stiff collar in front of it? I haven't seen a photograph if the good Reverend, so I can't say. Similarly, I can't date the card without more information on exactly when he severed his pastorate with the Presbyterians. (At least one Presbyterian member of this Web site's Historical Advisory Committee is of the opinion that the severing was at least by mutual agreement, if not even perhaps performed by the church, rather than the Reverend. Researches are continuing.) (05/18/04, updated 06/09/04 and 08/17/04.) Home | The 1900s | Next card