This album was given to Tom L. McFarland about 1980 upon the death of his grandmother, Adele Mary Landis, who had kept it for many years before that. The album remained merely a curiosity, since most pictures were unlabeled, and no living person remembered the faces. However, in 2000, the album became a "puzzle" to be solved, and most pictures are now identified : for future viewers, however, note that during 2000-2004 these "identifications" have undergone several revisions, as new data were found, and therefore alternate identifications should at least be considered. In June 2001, Tom L. McFarland recovered a similar album initialed "HPL" (Hannah Potter Landis) from the home of his mother, Dorathy Adele (Landis) McFarland ; also, in 2004, a third album created by Kate Potter was scanned. The three albums share several identical pictures, but most pictures are different. A fourth album is owned by the widow of Thomas Weir, a descendent of Phoebe Davids who lives in Tucson, Arizona : Thomas was childless, but his neice Stephanie is trying to obtain custody of the album for copying.

I will propose that this album was assembled prior to 1900 by Emeline E. Cox and husband Albert Montfort (Maj. A.M.) Cox, who were then in their 70's, living in Sandwich (DeKalb County) west of Chicago. The album was intended as a gift to their 3^rd daughter Alice, since the album's first picture was of Alice. It contains 48 photos dating from about 1850 to 1904, mostly unannotated, all reproduced here. 35 photos have been linked with names. Some photos are tin types, which were available from 1852 and common through 1890. Many are "cabinet cards", a style which became available in 1866. The original order of the photos is indicated by page number just above each photo: pairs of adjacent photos suggest relationship. Many of the prints in this album seem to have been made at approximately the same time (1880's), as Emeline was assembling this gift for Alice.

According to Jeanne (Landis) Illian (one of Alice's granddaughters), Alice's children once owned a house in Delevan, Wisconsin, which was unused except for a hired housekeeper. When the house was about to be sold, the housekeeper left, taking nearly all its furnishings except for a cedar trunk containing this album. One of Jeanne's daughters (Sally Bailey of Springfield, Illinois) had acquired a few similar photos, 1 or 2 possibly extracted from this album; William Walter Landis had handwritten personal information on Sally's pictures in 1951, which has helped identify other photos in this album. In February 2000, Jeanne came with all three of her daughters to Tom M^cFarland in Madison, to compare notes. Sally's photo's and Jeanne's comments are included as a separate photo section called Sally's old album. Carroll (Illian) Flood owns a very old scrap book maintained by the Landis families between 1880 and 1925, containing useful marriage and death notices.

Knowledge of the Cox family structure, through obituaries found by Sandwich historians Ken Bastian and Barbara Hoffman, have been very helpful in attaching names to these pictures. Emeline Cox and A. M. Cox had three daughters (Maria, Ella, and Alice), and one son Henry A. Cox ("A" = "Allonzo" ?); two additional children died in infancy. Copies of this album may have been given to these other siblings, in particular to their older child Maria. The 1860 Illinois census (DeKalb County Pg 245) shows family names and ages, but apparently one son (Henry A. Cox) had yet to be born in 1860. Illinois marriage records and Illinois death records are now available on line.

I also consulted Leslie Bellais of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, who offered her opinion of clothing styles in most pictures. Miss Bellais feels that most clothing dates the images in the interval 1878-1890, but there are some exceptions, noted on each photo. On 1 August 2001, Leslie Bellais also dated the clothing worn in the HPL photos: most were dated 1880's with a few earlier and none later than 1895. Of course, some people, especially men, may have been photographed in clothing bought a few years earlier.