Augustus Washington was an African American daguerreotype photographer who worked in Hartford from 1844 to 1853.

Born free in Trenton, New Jersey, Washington studied at Dartmouth College before moving to Hartford to teach in the “African School” at the Reverend James Pennington’s Talcott Street Congregational Church. He lasted two years before turning to daguerreotype photography full time, running a successful studio at 136 Main Street, close to Center Church and the Wadsworth Atheneum.

He advertised in abolitionist newspapers and counted Connecticut native John Brown among his sitters. Washington became the preeminent daguerreotype photographer in the city. In 1853, he chose to follow the call of the American Colonization Society and move his family to Liberia in West Africa, despite the strong opposition of Rev. Pennington and Frederick Douglass to African American emigration.

Some of the most prominent citizens of Hartford, many of whom funded the Colonization Society, were among his clients.