Lt. Thomas Wilhelm

[Dietmar]

Remember we had a discussion about Lt. Thomas Wilhelm, the first of several photographers at Red Cloud Agency:

www.american-tribes.com/Photographers/BIO/Wilhelm.htm


Ephriam Dickson wrote in his Nebraska History article about him as well:

www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH2007Photographers.pdf


Now, I found an old photograph at Ebay that has been taken at Red Cloud Agency, there are chances that this is one of Wilhelm´s pictures, but I am not sure.

In any case, a great image:




(1) Red Cloud´s wagon


(2) Red Cloud, (3) trader J.W. Dear, (4) Blue Shield, (5) J.W.Dear´s Trading Post


(6) Office & quarters







"From a recent estate sale is this old cabinet photo. As you can see the original owner has marked numbers with a black pen on the image and put a key to those numbers below the photo. According to the key the photo shows Red Cloud and Blue Shield on either side of J.W. Dear. J.W. Dear was a trader at the Red Cloud Agency and I believe later, when the agency was moved, he set up another trading post nearby. The photo comes from the descendants of John J Saville who was a physician and Indian agent from 1873-1875. The cabinet card is 10" by 12" and the actual image is 7" by 9". There is a spot on the image at the left top and a chip in the image at the bottom left. The card has a tear at the right edge and some chipping around the edges. When I look with the loupe there are signs on the building for a Post Office and a Restaurant."

Trader J.W. Dear is also in other Wilhelm photographs. I haven´t heard of Blue Shield that much yet.

Does anyone have some details?

[ephriam]

Thank you, Dietmar, for posting this image. However, I do not think it was taken by Lt. Wilhelm. As far as we know, all of his images were tintypes. This image was created from a wet plate negative printed on photo sensitive paper.

There are two other known original examples of this image, both at Wyoming State Archives. One of them is signed by J. W. Dear. There is also a reprint of this image at Nebraska State Historical Society which includes a label identifying it as having been printed by D.S. Mitchell. I suspect this image was taken in 1877 by either D. S. Mitchell or by Pvt. Charles Howard. The log building is the trading store of J. W. Dear and his brothers (notice the signs Post Office and Restaurant on the building). The wood structure at the far right is the edge of the Red Cloud Agency compound. There is a second photograph taken by the same photographer from the same location, looking slightly to the right, showing the whole Red Cloud Agency compound.

What is new about this image is that it includes some written identifications on it. We have long suspected that the man standing in the center was J. W. Dear; it closely matches his known portrait. This is the first copy to identify Red Cloud and Blue Shield as also being in the photograph.

[Dietmar]

Thanks for the hint Ephriam,

the picture is online at the Nebraska State Historical Society:



nebraskahistory.pastperfect-online.com/35987cgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=3A61AD03-9DE0-4525-84EE-250983863980;type=102