Retired Baltimore County teacher shares his love of historic photos

As he pages through a photo album believed to date back to the 1800s, Ross Kelbaugh is delighted to share its contents.

The retired Catonsville High School history teacher calls himself a citizen historian. He began collecting photographs from the 19th century when he was in the seventh grade.

"Because as a kid, I could buy pictures, photographs of Civil War soldiers for 25 or 50 cents.  If they had a sword or a gun, the dealers might charge a dollar," Ross Kelbaugh told WJZ. 

Some of the thousands of historic photos Kelbaugh owns are on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art in an exhibition called: "Flashback: Two Centuries of Baltimore Photography."

Other collectibles will soon be displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Nick Biddle was a former slave who assisted a volunteer militia company known as The Washington Artillerists. He was injured in April 1861 while traveling through Baltimore on his way to D.C. to defend the Capital at the request of President Abraham Lincoln.

"Nick got hit in the head, and he had a deep wound. So, they wrapped his head with a bandana, shoved his hat over his head and moved as quick as they could on down Howard Street to get to the Camden Yards Station to be able to get on the B & O Railroad, to be able to get him to D.C.," said Kelbaugh.

Biddle is known as the first person to be wounded by hostile activity during the Civil War.

Kelbaugh says sharing the stories of men and women from a bygone era is a meaningful pursuit. 

"When you're able to know who they are, be able to dig into them, [they] are incredible stories to uncover, incredible stories of bravery and suffering. That's what the ultimate cost of the Civil War is," he said.

Part of Kelbaugh's collection will be shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. at an exhibition called "Remember Me: Picturing African Americans in Early Photography." It opens on November 7.