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Show iut 97, William H. JacksonT Pioneer I Photographer, Looks Back Over His 80 Years' Recording (and Making) History wwm 1 ;MmW?MS:m$MmiM h;: March of the Mormon "Handcart Battalion" over the Oregon Trail. From painting by VV. II. Jackson all t By ELMO SCOTT WATSON y fte : (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) ir if-. TWO recent events have brought into the limelight again one of the most remarkable Americans living today. , One was the announcement from Scottsbluff, Neb., that William H. Jackson, 97-year-old photographer-painter- historian, had given to the Oregon Trail Memorial associa-t- tion a collection of 100 paintings and water colors, represent-tag represent-tag Mr. Jackson's work of the last 40 years and based upon ofr his photographs and sketches of the Old West from 1866 to 1872. The other was the publication by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York publishers, of Mr. Jackson's autobiography under the highly-appropriate title of "Time Exposure." y . veterans two Union and two Confederate Con-federate soldiers who flew over the battlefield in an airplane, broadcast from it their reminiscences remin-iscences of that historic conflict and strewed roses over the graves of their fallen comrades in the National cemetery there. He Goes West. Mustered out of the Union service serv-ice at the end of his enlistment, Jackson returned to Vermont, took up again his work as an "artist" in.F. Styles', "Vermont Gallery of Art," became engaged to a charming young girl and when that engagement ended in a lovers' quarrel, he decided to follow the advice so often attributed attrib-uted to Horace Greeley "Go West!" ("Horace Greeley's advice ad-vice was far too obvious to be startling," he observes succinctly. succinct-ly. "Go West? Of course go west. Where else?") He arrived at St. Joseph, Mo., the "jumping-off place" for the frontier in 1866 ' 1 ' ,-rV if ' $ i s; ' 1 horses were loaded on a train and shipped to Omaha. Here Jackson obtained a job with some local photographers whom he later bought out. In the spring of 1868 his brother, Ed, came on from Troy to join him and the firm of "Jackson Brothers, Photographers" Pho-tographers" started 'business in the little frontier city. Later Ed withdrew from the firm and William Wil-liam became the sole proprietor of the business. Photographer of the Frontier. During the next 12 years Jackson Jack-son firmly established his reputation reputa-tion as the foremost photographer of the American frontier. Loading Load-ing his bulky apparatus for making mak-ing pictures by the old wet plate process on pack mules or horses he traveled far and wide over the plains and mountains of the West, securing thousands of negatives neg-atives ranging in size from stereoscopic stere-oscopic views to huge ones measuring meas-uring 20 by 24 inches. Some of his greatest work was done while accompanying the expeditions ex-peditions known officially as ,tha "United States Geological Survey of the Territories" which began in 1869 under the leadership of Dr. F. V. Hayden and continued for the next nine years. During this time he took pictures of Indians which are priceless historical records rec-ords of the red man in his native na-tive state, untouched by the white man's so-called "civilization," and views of the magnificent Western scenery never before pictured and, in some cases, never nev-er before visited by white men. In fact, the list of Jackson's "firsts" is an impressive one. He took the first photographs in what is now Yellowstone park and the showing of these pictures had much to do with the establishment establish-ment of the national park there. He took the first pictures of the cliff dwellings in the Southwest and of the famed Mount of the Holy Cross in Colorado. (Incidentally, (Inci-dentally, it was one of Jackson's photographs of this mountain which inspired one of Longfellow's Longfel-low's best-beloved poems.) The full record of his amazing career is too long to be condensed con-densed within the scope of this article. Some of his activities and adventures can only be hinted hint-ed at his work as a photographer photogra-pher for various railroads, his 18-months' 18-months' picture-taking trip around the world for Harper's Weekly, including a 3,500-mile trip by pony sledge across Siberia in the middle mid-dle of winter; his career as head of the Detroit Publishing company compa-ny which made post cards and other pictures in color. (Its collection col-lection of nearly 40,000 negatives are now in the Ford museum at Dearborn, Mich.) In 1929 he was named research secretary of the Oregon Trail Memorial association. associa-tion. The next few years found him now nearing 90 going over the old trail again, snapping pictures, pic-tures, this time with a "vest pocket" pock-et" camera, and doing some more painting. Three times William H. Jackson Jack-son has tried to "retire" once at 60, again at 81 and "finally" at 92. But it was no use in 1935 the department of the interior commissioned him to paint a. series se-ries of murals for its new building build-ing in Washington and he did it. Two years later he was again busy taking pictures. It came about thus: In 1937 the surviving members of the G. A. R. met on Riverside River-side drive for what was to be their last Memorial day parade. When Comrade Bill Jackson didn't show up, some of the aged Boys in Blue shook their heads sadly "Too bad Bill can't be here." But a few minutes later they saw him running up and down s long the street with press photographers, taking pictures of the parade! William H. Jackson spoke truly when he said of his picture-making career: "Jt was something without beginning--and is still without an end." 1 Autobiographies of men who had a part in pushing the frontier westward are no rarities But it is doubtful if any of them have had a : longer, more distinguished jA? and more interesting career IllOj! than the author of "Time Ex-E-REE posure." It began away back modes, in 1843 when he was born near the little town of Keeseville, itinfa N. Y., the son of a blacksmith and carriage-builder, who, soon ater e daguerreotyp-erewfo- ing process was discovered in 1839, began experimenting .afe- with a camera of his own. JT I1 This fact was prophetic of his ii I I' son's future career, for, as he re- calls it: "Parts of the first cam- grjj,,s era ever owned by a Jackson a !. ... came into my hands as a toy 5 earV When was a very sma1 by- ,p " hadn't any real idea what the lens-box was intended for; but I ft jot the feel of a camera almost "7 ;1 before I could walk. It may sound i, foolish, yet I can't help believing 1 that this childhood experience t:- helped to direct my life. An un- doubted influence was my moth- 1' er's gift with pencil and water-color. water-color. I can hardly remember . the time when I didn't draw pic- istitef;:- tares. It was something without "roijj begimingand is still without an ,SS; en(J." For that fact Americans ,onyg should be grateful. Had it not Jjji,.;.- been for the camera and the pen- Si w' .Paint brush and Palette of J - William H. Jackson we would not have nearly so clear an idea of the Old West as we do. ition the' started at Fifteen. ocles. At the age of 15, young Jackson turned his artistic skill to good jjccunt. He began making win-7P win-7P Cow cards for merchants, plac-yffl: plac-yffl: ards announcing church sociables fc d posters for political rallies. f; inen he got a job as a retoucher V'1" t leading photographer in , iroy, N. Y., where the Jackson W mily was living, and learned a geat deal about the new art of Photography. A similar job in "inland, Vt., increased his knowl- Se of the subject but the out-edFf out-edFf Creak of the Civil war brought a 1 oi ; cnnge m his occupation. t J?ckson enlisted in the Rutland Jg, 1 Guard, was mustered into TolA' o service in 1862 and be-Dti be-Dti th n 3 soldier in the Army of rfr. !ne Potomac. Even in the army jcc;f.p ie had time to continue his draw-Sfr draw-Sfr S most of it on small cards. f, Practice has brought me a itf.-. mall fame-which is, I regret 'it:' l,Say' quite undeserved," he ti; "ites. "Somehow or other the ffi- has gwn up that I am 'e,mventor' of the picture post S!rd- 1 don't know who really ?; ?a ped the first picture postal "S : hi ,,erman or an Austrian, I SV nk) but 1 am not the man." ever, he has plenty of other , "aims to distinction without that. 'S- witCksn's experiences during the i; b.,r lncluded the battle of Gettys-5! Gettys-5! a'thugh, as he frankly ;lV rr0 ' ls was a minor part. His Vthf7nt was assigned to guard It !('', baggage trains behind the ,tw " iiie h . he missed the actual fiht-WV fiht-WV cort a afterwards his outfit es-f es-f e ,d 2,300 Confederate prison-H prison-H I rnor ,ort McHenry near Balti-tiy Balti-tiy erj u Incide"tally, 75 years lat-Jr lat-Jr ackson was one of four of its WILLIAM H. JACKSON and for the next three-quarters of a century his life was to be intimately inti-mately bound up with the history of the West. Jackson secured a job as a bull-whacker with a wagon train that was departing from Nebraska Nebras-ka City up the Missouri river for the Montana mining camps. That was the last year of "covered wagon" migration across the Plains (the railroad was already pushing west and would soon supplant sup-plant the prairie schooner) and Jackson's first trip over the Oregon Ore-gon trail was made in company of 300 Mormons and other immigrants immi-grants who banded together for protection against hostile Indians Indi-ans (In after years, Jackson was to go over the trail, or parts of it in other forms of transportation-train, automobile and airplane). air-plane). In Wyoming he left the Montana-bound train, went to bait Lake City and, after three months there, joined a mule train for Call-ornia Call-ornia which brought him at last to Los Angeles, "a town of less San 5,000, which had in 1867 aU the charm it lacks today . . . Los Angeles was honestly quaint, rather than merely blatant " Soon afterwards he started east again thta time with a party of nine IrX starting out on the perd-CtaVS perd-CtaVS driving a band of 200 wild mustangs back across the mountains and plains to the Missouri Mis-souri river settlements. This three-months' trek ended at Julesburg, Colo., where the |
