[...] and we went out into a place called the "Black María," and into a revolving studio, and I drew a sketch of Mr. Edison on a large piece of paper, and a sketch of William McKinley, and a sketch of Grover Cleveland, three sketches, and they made a film of it fifty feet in length, and that was one of the first ten or twenty pictures they sold, or leased with their Vitascope, and later on I saw myself on the screen drawing these pictures; and that was the beginning of the realization in my mind that there was a future in motion pictures, and I became interested with a friend, who later became a business associate, Mr. Albert Smith

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The United States of America petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company et al, defendants. Record v. 4. "Direct Examination" p. 1874, 1915.

Note: The claim that Edison posed for this picture is apochraphal; it is highly unlikely that the film was even shot at the Black Maria.

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Charles Musser, Edison Motion Pictures, 1890-1900, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997, p. 227.

No subject is allowed to grow stale and every view is new except that which shows Edison's portrait developing beneath the crayon strokes of Blackton, the cartoonist. who cares and bows to the audience at the finish.

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The Daily Times, New Brunswick, jeudi 24 septembre 1896, p. 8.