The Liars’ Bench

Frank M. Hohenberger

The Liars’ Bench was located on the courthouse lawn of Nashville, Indiana. It was apparently 17 feet long and could accommodate six or seven men. The Lilly Library at Indiana University lists the names of the liars in this photograph as Scott Moser, Jack Woods, Bub Henderson, Sam Anthony, Harry Kelp, and Duard Calvin. Across the street and facing the liars is the John & W.D. Calvin Hardware Store which offers its customers hardware, stoves, tinware, and sadlery (sic). The Calvin hardware store was the backdrop in Gustave Baumann’s color woodcut Clinching the Argument of 1910.

Frank M. Hohenberger photographed the people and places of Brown County, Indiana for forty-seven years. The signature photograph of Gustave Baumann in his Nashville studio printing his blocks for The Mill Pond is by Hohenberger.

The Lilly Library holds the estate of Frank Michael Hohenberger and the negative number for The Liars’s Bench is 448.