1870s-Era Sonora, California Photo Album with Image by Pioneer Photographer Daniel Sewell of the Town and Native Americans [With] The Record Book of the Literary Society of St. James Parrish (aka The Red Church)

Author: SEWELL, Daniel
Title: 1870s-Era Sonora, California Photo Album with Image by Pioneer Photographer Daniel Sewell of the Town and Native Americans [With] The Record Book of the Literary Society of St. James Parrish (aka The Red Church)
Publication: (Mostly) Sonora, California: 1863-1884

Description: Hardcover. Photograph album. Small quarto. Measuring 8½" x 10" x 2½". Deeply embossed morocco with metal clasps and thick card pages with edges gilt. Metal clasps present, and functional but the decorative element lacking. Album contains slots for 200 images of which this album contains 126 (mostly) albumen carte de visites and a few tintypes (some have been removed from the album and should be reinserted at the appropriate places after fuller identification). Some of the California views have trimmed corners or edges; the final two pages contain photos of artwork of Royal Family members, along with other souvenir type "filler" photos sold by photographers of the era.

The album appears to have come from the family of Grove George Bradley (1813-1868) and Elizabeth Lucinda (nee Cady) Bradley (1816-1901) with images of their immediate and extended families. The couple, who married in 1835, lived in Cayuga County, New York and had three children: son Curtis C. Bradley and two daughters, Ellen Smith (m: Enos Smith) and Marietta A. Remington (m: Martin C. Remington), with each having several children. Scattered notations appear throughout the album in ink and pencil in various hands on the mount and on the photos, both front and back. Identified are a number of the families: Bradley, Smith, Remington, and Seymour of New York State; the Cady and Barrett families of Massachusetts; the Randall and Lambert families of Iowa; and the Goodyear family of Chicago. Notations throughout caption many of the photos and further describe their relations to the original owner (“My mother’s parents,” “Uncle Dan’s daughter,” etc.).

Westward progress is displayed with more than a half dozen from Dubuque, Iowa. However, a considerable number of the images are from California with 30 from Sonora, California backmarked by known Western photographer Daniel Sewell and dated between 1874 and 1875. The photographic studio was first opened in the 1850s by William Rulofson and acquired by Sewell in 1873. Notable images include several of the Sewell family and friends (Sewell himself, along with daughters Della and Eldora, and assistant Lizzie Worden); several views of Sonora (two views of Washington St. and one of St. James Church); Sonora district attorney E.A. Rodgers and his wife, and one of the Reverend Eleazer Thomas, who was killed during the Modoc War in 1873. While there are three images of Bradley-related family members, the remaining Sonora images are not identified, including several unknown young children, a floral cross, and five images likely produced from earlier negatives of Rulofson’s featuring Miwok Indian dancers posing in the studio, two of Miwok Indian girls, and two of Chinese women.

Accompanying the photo album is the *Record Book of the Literary Society of St. James Parish, Sonora* for which a number of the people pictured were members (Rodgers, Worden, Cady, Cohen, Pitts). Octavo. Approximately 200 pages. Unlined pages bound in dark brown leather boards. The binding is fair with the spine in lacking, rear board detached and with moderate rubbing to the both boards and toning a few pages, but with the text block quite sound and page bright. A few pages have been excised, trimmed or, in one example, pinned to a stub, all appear contemporary.

The Literary Society volume, which starts on February 26, 1879, describes the first meeting at the home of Mrs. E.A. Rodgers, the first member (“Mrs. A. Pitts, Mrs Lizzie Worden, Miss Gabriella Gallut, Miss Marri Burden, Rev. W.H. Dyer, Wallace Cowie, Miss Nettie Parsons, Mr & Mrs. J.S. Cady, Miss Ada Bradford, Miss Thirza McSean and Mrs. E. Sewell.”) and the election of officers. The group gathered every two weeks at a different person’s home and each meeting followed a similar format: a devotional exercise, a review of the previous meeting’s minutes, a selection of literary readings (which are usually noted), and a short break, followed by a few quotations or songs, then the setting of the agenda for the next meeting. The book totals roughly 200 pages and contains numerous entries written in ink or pencil in the hand of various recording secretaries, but in is legible and with the final entry dated March 20, 1884 ending with a references to the next meeting.

A wonderful and largely complete and captioned mid-19th Century album, with a sizable portion of early images from Sonora, California, was well as an album from its first Literary Society.

A wonderful and largely complete and captioned mid-19th Century album, with a sizable portion of early images from Sonora, California.

Seller ID: 415383