Post by Californian on Nov 7, 2018 15:54:17 GMT -5
Camillus "Buck" Sydney Fly (May 2, 1849 – October 12, 1901) was an Old West photographer who is regarded by some as an early photojournalist and who captured the only known images of Native Americans while still at war with the United States. He took many other pictures of life in the mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona and the surrounding region. He recognized the value of his photographs to illustrate periodicals of the day and took his camera to the scenes of important events where he deliberately recorded them and resold pictures to editors nationwide. He was an eyewitness on October 26, 1881 to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which took place outside his photography studio. He took pictures of a number of Tombstone residents including Tombstone founder Ed Schieffelin, pioneer surgeon Dr. George E. Goodfellow, Wyatt Earp's wife Josephine, and others. He served as Cochise County Sheriff from 1895 to 1897. Most of his negatives were destroyed by two fires that burned his studio to the ground. His widow, photographer Mary E. "Mollie" Fly, donated his remaining images to the Smithsonian Museum before she died in 1912. His photographs are legendary and highly prized. In March 1886 General George Crook received word that the Apache leader Geronimo would meet him in the Cañon de los Embudos, in the Sierra Madre Mountains about 86 miles (138 km) from Fort Bowie. Fly learned of the meeting and on March 20th and and attached himself to the military column. During the three days of negotiations, Fly took about 15 exposures on 8 by 10 inch glass negatives. One of the pictures of Geronimo with two of his sons standing alongside were made at Geronimo's request. Fly's images are the only existing photographs of Geronimo's surrender. He coolly posed his subjects, asking them to move and turn their heads and faces, to improve his composition. John Bourke described how Fly took the historic photographs: "Tombstone photographer Fly kept busy with his camera, posing his Apache models with a nerve that would have reflected undying glory on a Chicago drummer. He coolly asked Geronimo and the warriors with him to change positions, and turn their heads or faces, to improve the negative. None of them seemed to mind him in the least except Chihuahua, who kept dodging behind a tree, but at last caught by the dropping of the slide". Fly ran a ranch in the Chiricahua Mountains for a period. Though Camillus and his wife had been separated for years, she was at his bedside when he died at Bisbee on October 12, 1901. She made arrangements to have his body returned to Tombstone, where it was buried in the new Tombstone Cemetery. Fly's Peak, the second highest named summit of the Chiricahua Mountains, is named in his honor.
