Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1910s – 1920s. Cyko stamp box.
Price: $7.00
A boy standing with his arms folded back behind his head, feed bag hanging from one shoulder, surveying his charges: a yard full of about 35 chickens. Directly behind him is a wagon, its two rear wheels standing just taller than the boy. In the background is what we take to be the chicken coop: a good-sized structure with wooden siding, tall windows and door, and a steep roof with cupola.
Copy of old photo originally taken circa 1900s. Unknown photographer.
Price: $15.00 Size: 10 x 8″
The first in a series of (mostly) copies of old photos of Salinas, California and environs:
This one was labelled on the plastic sleeve as “Salinas River, Flooded, 1900s.” It shows two horse and buggy sets and a third horse-drawn vehicle, maybe a wagon, it’s hard to tell. In any case, all three are being driven up a wide, flooded dirt road, traveling toward the photographer. The lighting doesn’t let us pick out too many details for drivers and passengers. And the photo’s exact location is unknown at the moment, but within the scene we find a couple of great clues: In addition to some farm buildings, a weather vane and a utility pole, we see a couple of two-story wooden buildings – the one on our right, shows “Tavern” painted on the side, (see the horse standing in front?) and the one on our left appears to say “Riverside Hotel.” Hats off to you if you can make out the sign above the entrance way (Pederson?) In the far distance is part of the mountain range that surrounds the Salinas Valley. All in all, a great photo….but we’ll keep looking for that hotel.
Update: Be sure to read the comment from Nick dated October 8, 2018 and click on the Google map view he included. The location of our photo appears to have been the small community of Hilltown, south of Salinas.
The scene in this Real Photo Postcard is of three women, ready for travel, who are seated in a wagon that is hitched to a team of light-colored horses; a gentleman standing at the horses heads, probably steadying the team so the shot can be taken; and in the immediate background, a high wooden fence and beautiful barn. (Photos of old barns now immediately remind me of the t.v. show Barnwood Builders – Mark Bowe and his crew restoring old log cabins and barns or re-purposing the old logs. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.) And the expressions of the women are wonderfully varied. It’s a great shot, despite a little blurriness at the bottom center. And, if you read on, you will see that the photographer was likely not set up professionally; therefor, this photo might have some relation to the photo artist’s family or friends. The back of the card shows the stamp:
“Photo By Jessie Westbrook, Defiance, Iowa.”
You go, Jessie girl!
So, Jessie does not show up at all in city directories as a photographer; nor do any of the State or Federal Census records show her listed as such. This is the first time we’ve run across a female photographer.
The 1910 Federal Census for Defiance, Shelby County, Iowa, shows Jessie, born Iowa, about 1885, living with parents Charles H. and Maria Westbrook. Charles’ occupation is Pharmacist. Jessie’s occupation is Proof Reader in a printing office. Charles was born in Pennsylvania, and Maria born in New York.
The 1915 State Census for Defiance has Jessie M. Westbrook, no occupation listed, church affiliation Methodist. Entries on the 1915 are on separate cards, but she’s presumably still living with her parents.
The 1920 reveals she is still single, living with her parents in Defiance. Her occupation on the 1920 is listed as Operator, the rest is hard to read (looks like Register).
By 1925 Jessie is married to William Uptegrove, who was born about 1864 in Missouri. They’re living in Portsmouth, Shelby County, Iowa. His parents are Edward L. Uptegrove and Elizabeth C. McKinsey. Jessie’s mother’s maiden name is Ashton. (How heavenly are these 1925 Iowa State Census records! They even include the parents’ place of marriage.)
We wonder if there is any more photography out there by Jessie Westbrook…Oh, well lo and behold, I do have one more by her. See the next post. And did she still do photography after she got married? I like to think yes.
On one last note: Playle.com estimates this particular style of postcard back header as being from about 1914 to 1917.
Divided back, unused Real Photo Postcard. Photographer: Jessie Westbrook. Circa 1914 – 1917.
Price: $12.00
Sources: Year: 1910; Census Place: Union, Shelby, Iowa; Roll: T624_423; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 0177; FHL microfilm: 1374436. (Ancestry.com)
1915 State Census, Defiance, Iowa. Ancestry.com. Iowa, State Census Collection, 1836-1925
Year: 1920; Census Place: Union, Shelby, Iowa; Roll: T625_513; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 196; Image: 840. (Ancestry.com)
1925 State Census, Portsmouth, Iowa. Ancestry.com. Iowa, State Census Collection, 1836-1925
“Real Photo Postcard Stamp Backs – Unknown Manufacturers.” Playle.com. (Accessed April 12, 2016.)
Another Real Photo Postcard with horse and buggy: this one showing two gents in suits and derby hats. It looks to be maybe late winter, as the trees in the background are not leafed out yet. Also showing is a utility pole, and a house (or church or school?) with a cupola. We see some buildings further back: the one on the left makes us think this is farm land.
The always helpful Playle.com website dates this particular Sailboat stamp box as from year 1908.
Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. Sailboat stamp box, circa 1908.
Price: $4.00
Source: “Real Photo Postcard Stamp Boxes, R – T.” Playle.com. (Web accessed April 10, 2016.)
“12 1/2 of these” appears written in pencil on the back of this Real Photo Postcard. Hmmm, maybe this was photography lingo for twelve “half-size” or something to this effect. But it’s a beautiful photo of a young couple posing for the camera, seated in their buggy, with horse hitched, ready to start or resume a jaunt in the country. There are some nice details to pick out: hats for both (of course) the young lady’s is a fairly wide-brimmed straw topped with flowers; a pin-striped suit and bow-tie for the gent; and they are cozy under a fringed lap coverlet (perhaps it was morning, with a little chill in the air.)
Divided back, unused with writing, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1910.
Price: $10.00
Old photo, dated July 1918.
Availability status: SOLD Size: 6 and 7/8 x 4 and 1/2″
On the back, it looks like the location was written as “Greenhorn Mts” and there is an Ed Halbert reference showing up in a Google eBook snippet view that also has an entry for Greenhorn Mountain (A Modern History of Tulare County by Annie Rosalind Mitchell). This is the best guess so far for the photo’s location. (There are towns named Greenhorn in Grant and Baker Counties, Oregon, and also one Plumas County, California, but the writing on the back of the photo does not look like either of these two states.)
The photo, found at an antique store in Monterey, California, shows five children, ages from about three thru ten or twelve, posed in a buggy pulled by two donkeys. They’re on a dirt trail out in the country; it may be farm country, and we see that the terrain is a little hilly.
We’ll look a little further for Ed Halbert and Tulare County in the next couple of days.
Update: The most promising Halbert – Greenhorn Mountains connection is the above-mentioned possibility, Edward D. Halbert (1846 – 1885) who owned a sheep ranch on Deer Creek, six miles south of Portersville, Tulare County, California. He married Ellen Rhodes and they had four children: Lois (married L. N. Sperry), Edward Fay, Roy Dent and Ernest Sherrill. The children in the photo, if the connection is correct, would likely be grandchildren of E. D. Halbert, and possibly cousins rather than siblings.
UPDATE and CORRECTION: This is the WILSON HALBERT family. See the comments from Carrie. The oldest boy in the hat is her grandfather, born 1905. But we’ll leave the other Halbert family info in this post. Just in case anyone is searching for them, as well.
Sources: Mitchell, Annie Rosalind. A Modern History of Tulare County. 1974. p. 190. Google Books snippet view. (Web Accessed April 10, 2016).
Guinn, J. M. History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the San Joaquin Valley, California. Chicago: The Chapman Publishing Co., 1905. p. 561. Google eBooks. (Web Accessed April 10, 2016).
Deer Creek (Tulare County, California). n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Creek_%28Tulare_County,_California%29. (accessed April 10, 2016).
A Real Photo Postcard, VELOX stamp box this time, (they seem to be not as common as AZO) showing an image, a little blurred and the worse for wear, of a boy about age three, with wagon in tow, heading up the walkway to his house. Maybe he is coming home for lunch. We have no major clues to the location, somewhere in the U.S. we presume; the houses are pretty big, with nice big front porches. Is that a flag pole in the photo?
Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. VELOX stamp box. Circa 1907 – 1917.
Price: $2.00
“Visitors enjoy carriage rides around the Island seeing Mackinac’s historic and scenic points of interest. Accommodations are available on the Island to fit any pocket book.”
This vintage postcard is estimated to be from the 1950s and was published by Curteich and printed from a photo by Benjamin’s Photo Art Service of Mackinac Island. Robert E. Benjamin was a photographer hired in 1946 by G. W. Wickman, who had started a souvenir photo and postcard shop around 1900 on the Island, having developed his own line of postcards. This is information from the Benjamin of Mackinac website, and they are thankfully still going strong; their store Benjamin Photo and Gift Shop is located on Main St. between the ferry lines. See their site for a full history.
Besides the publisher and photographer info, we’re always looking at any shops with names displayed on these cards such as Florsheim Shoes and the Palm Cafe prominently showing here. The Palm was owned by the Horn Family and later became Horn’s Gaslight Bar & Restaurant, another that is still thankfully in business today. I say thankfully, as in researching these antique and vintage cards and photos we normally find the businesses no longer around. I don’t know about the restaurant advertising “Light Lunches” but find this sign charming. A light lunch would be helpful, after having sampled lots of the famous Mackinac fudge.
Having grown up in Michigan, I got to visit Mackinac (in the 1960s) with the family. We did the bike rental thing around the island and my memory of that is that at the end of the ride there was a steep hill that everyone was gleefully, I guess, riding down. I was the scaredy cat of the group (I was only about five) and refused. Someone must have taken the bike down for me, but I don’t remember. If anyone else has similar memories of this hill, I’d love to hear them. Was the hill really that steep, or was I just unnaturally afraid of hills at that time? Later on, in my early twenties, I lived and worked on Mackinac for part of a summer, and it was pretty wild. You take a bunch of kids just out of high school or still in college, or fugitives from early lost love affairs, blowing off steam in the ’70s at the start of the summertime. But besides all the drinking and partying, a Toga party even, I remember us all thrilling to the sunsets, and seeing the Northern Lights one night, and a moonlight ride around the island. I wish I’d known back then of my family’s ties to the Straights of Mackinac area through our Ojibwe ancestors, and not by a long shot least, I wish I’d stuck around on the Island to continue those friendships that had gotten started. But just to end this one on a kind of funny note, I remember one day my roommate up there came back from exploring some of the unused rooms in our hotel (I think), with some memorabilia from the movie Somewhere In Time that had been shot there, and a nice ladies razor for me, along with a ton of replacement blades. These razors and replacements had been sitting forgotten about in drawers for some years in the hotel. (And they really were not ours to take, but we were young and they seemed abandoned I guess. I’m not saying it was right, though.) But, I just remember thinking, “Wow, I will never ever have to buy razors again!” Well, this was not the case, but they did last for about fifteen years.
Divided back, unused postcard. Circa 1950s. From photo by Benjamin’s Photo Art Service, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Publisher info: Genuine Curteich-Chicago “C.T. Art-Colortone” Post Card (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.)
Price: $6.00
Victorian Era trade card, Boston, circa 1885.
Size: About 4 and 1/2 x 2 and 5/8″
Price: $15.00
Cheap Suits On Newspaper Row
Wilmot’s, at the time this trade card was printed, was located at 259 and 261 Washington Street; this was next door to the location for the newspaper publication the Boston Herald; the Herald’s address being part of Washington Street’s “Newspaper Row.” It looks like this card was saved for the charming image on the front, since it had been, in all likelihood, glued in a scrapbook; it’s removal from which caused the print to be missing in the four corners. This makes the full company name, that would have appeared at the top, hard to figure out, as there are definitely more than a few possible letter combinations. But whoever they were, they had the misfortune to have needed to declare bankruptcy, and Wilmot’s must have bought part or all of their remaining stock. Imagine buying a man’s suit for as low as $2.98 and boy’s suit for as low as 90 cents! (I know, inflation, inflation, but a 90-cent suit is just so funny-sounding.) The Herald’s six-story structure was built in 1877-1878, and their address was 255 Washington Street in Boston. Though the prior location for the Herald had been in close proximity to their new address, it’s more likely that, at the time this card was printed, Wilmot’s was located next door to the Herald’s more recent one at 255 Washington St. The Herald’s address is a great help in dating the card, but we find that we can narrow it down a little further below.
H. B. Wilmot
It turns out that Wilmot’s got it’s name from owner H. B. Wilmot. Below shows the full page ad from an 1872 Cambridge city directory showing the business name as H. B. Wilmot & Co. An earlier 1870 Boston directory shows the same name and address. Other years (1880-1886) show addresses in Salem, Lynn, Lawrence and Taunton. In the 1885 Boston, under Wholesale Clothing, we see the 261 Washington St. address, so this trade card is likely from this year or close to it. Manager names Joseph W. Rice (Lawrence 1881), J. F. Boynton (Salem 1880) and H. C. Reed (Taunton 1881) also show in directories under Wilmot’s, so it looks like there were several locations running at one time. And from at least 1884-1913, H. B. Wilmot had a summer home in Gloucester, with the latter part of those years, showing a regular residence in Somerville, outside of Boston. It seems, from looking at all these city directories, that H. B. Wilmot had a very successful career in the clothing business.
On the Front
I suppose this is a lithograph though I am really not sure. But as far as the wonderful artwork we see here: Was the image supposed to be of two ladies, one of whom pushes a baby in a carriage, or is it an image of two little girls, dressed in adult-like fashion, one of whom pushes their dolly in a carriage? From the short hemlines we see here, I would guess that these two are little girls, otherwise it would seem that the hems would have been at, or much closer to, the ground. I love the way we see the profile of the girl on the left (love the parasol) who gazes dreamily off into the distance; contrasting to the girl on the right, contentedly pushing the carriage and concentrating on the path ahead.
Sources: The Boston Herald and It’s History by Edwin A. Perry. Published Boston, Mass., 1878. (Google eBooks)
http://goodoldboston.blogspot.com/2011/01/bostons-newspaper-row.html
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. Gloucester, Massachusetts Directories, 1888-91 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2003.
The Lawrence Directory 1881, No. XIV. By Sampson, Davenport & Co., Publishers of the Boston Directory, Boston Almanac and Business Directory, New-England Business Directory, Etc. Office, 155 Franklin Street, Boston. Lawrence: W. E. Rice, 265 Essex Street. Page 252. (Google eBooks)
Old photo, circa 1910s – 1920s, white border.
Price: $3.00
Old photo from about the 1910s or ‘1920s found in an antique store in California, of adorable child in a pull-type wicker stroller or cart, holding his or her stuffed horsie. It looks like this was taken in a city park, or perhaps on the front lawn of the child’s house. It had been removed from an old photo album. The caption on the left says “Trying to smile -” Part of the back has the old black photo album paper still glued to the photo. There were some marks in red showing, and I scraped off more of the black paper, only to find that this was just a number, looks like 3155. Was hoping for a name, date or location. Drat! Still, this is a beauty.