ALEXANDER HESLER ( 1823 - 1895 )

Alexander Hesler was born in Montreal and came to Racine with his parents when he was a boy. He married Helen Dorchester (1831-1894) here in 1849 and a few years later established a photographic studio in Chicago. His pictures of the upper Midwest made him famous. However, Hesler’s photographs of Abraham Lincoln are historically his most important. They were taken in 1857 and 1860, before Lincoln became president, and show him without the beard that he grew after his election. The 1860 photographs were used in Lincoln’s first presidential campaign. Hesler remained a photographer all his life, and has been called "the Mathew Brady of Chicago." Six of the Hesler children are also buried in the family plot.

Submitted by Deborah Crowell