Interior of a Crow lodge by Henry Bird Calfee ca. 1871-1874

[Californian]

Interior of a Crow lodge by Henry Bird Calfee, photographer of Bozeman, Montana Territory ca. 1871-1874

Henry Bird Calfee (1847-1912) is primarily known for his series of stereo view photographs of the newly created Yellowstone National Park. 

click onto images to enlarge

[carlo]

Any idea who the white man on the middle left might be?

[Californian]

hi Carlo, the image is currently for sale at Tschanz Rare Books in Salt Lake City, Utah

you can look up the listing on this page: www.tschanzrarebooks.com/pages/books/7249/henry-bird-calfee/indian-lodge-or-wigwam

Kent Tschanz states that the white man on the left is H. B. Calfee - but then someone else would have needed to handle the camera, that is to lift the lens cap, then replace it. Calfee had a partner for while, Nelson "Nelse" Catlin who could have been the one operating the camera. Very little is known about Nelson Catlin.

Comparing the white man in the stereo view with a known portrait of Calfee it indeed could be him in that image 

Attachments:

[allenc]

Photo taken Iron Bull's camp on the Yellowstone River at a place called Lone tree.

[Californian]

thank you Allen C - I was just going to state the same, there is a period print with seemingly Calfee's own writing on the front at the Smithsonian - link: www.si.edu/object/archives/components/sova-naa-photolot-90-1-ref663

click onto image to enlarge 


detail (click onto image to enlarge)

 

[carlo]

That’s great. So the man in the middle, at the seat of honor, could possibly be Iron Bull. Although difficult to confirm, compared to the known photos of him.

[grahamew]

I think the bearded white man may be Texas Jack Omohundro - see the list of Calfee images here for my reasoning: amertribes.proboards.com/thread/3508/henry-bird-calfee-bozeman-montana?page=1&scrollTo=27670

[Californian]

thanks Grahame, that is a distinct possibility, there is a resemblance and it is difficult to be sure either way.

[grahamew]

Well, I thought I was sure but now I'm not. For one thing, Texas Jack died in June 1880 and had been living in Leadville, Colorado and prior to that, in Lowell, Massachusetts in the late 1870s. For another, the fellow in the Calfee photo of the village seems to have a lot of hair sticking out the front of his hat and looking at the photos of Texas Jack, I suspect the hat was hiding a receding hairline. Are we sure the Crow photos were taken 1879 - 1881?

Here's Calfee's photo taken during the Nez Perce War in 1877:

Part of the Cowan party following there capture and escape from/release by the Nez Perce Indians who were fleeing the U.S. Army through Yellowstone National Park. Individuals include: Boney Ernest, packer; Texas Jack, scout; Capt. Bailey, British Army; Mr. Birmingham, British Army; Miss Carpenter; Mrs. Cowan; Mr. Carpenter. Illustrated by Calfee & Catlin, Bozeman, Montana

Text from www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/71845?keywords=calfee&type=all&highlights=WyJjYWxmZWUiXQ==


Is Jack the flamboyant guy in the centre with hat pushed back on his head or perhaps the man in the shirt with fringes on the shoulders to the right? This, of course, was in June, whereas the Crow photos were clearly taken in winter. As far as I can work out, Jack was 'acting' with his own company in the late 1870s - not to say, of course, that he couldn't have visited with the Crow...

We may be on safer ground sticking with Calfee as the possible subject. Maybe...


Now that this is blown up, I don't think the man at the right is Iron Bull after all.

[Californian]

thanks Grahame, these attributions can take twists and turns as new information comes to light and truly this is really the great fun of researching altogether.

[carlo]

I agree Grahame, that’s not Iron Bull.

[grahamew]

This post is probably best combined with this thread: amertribes.proboards.com/thread/3508/henry-bird-calfee-bozeman-montana?page=1&scrollTo=27670

According to this site - www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=369564315170527&set=pb.100063508842523.-2207520000.. -  the man with the hat pushed back on his head is, indeed, Texas Jack:


Back row left to right: Boney Earnest, Texas Jack, Captain Bailey, Mr, Birmingham. Front row left to right: Ida Carpenter, Emma Cowan, Frank Carpenter.

Reading the story, complete with improbabilities, we learn that there were TWO photographers present, so Calfee and his partner Catlin, presumably.

If the Crow village photographs were taken earlier, then it's possible it's Jack because he was in Yellowstone in 1874 with the Earl of Dunraven and the latter, at least, visited a Crow village. www.dimelibrary.com/post/texas-jack-in-yellowstone?fbclid=IwAR3C_wcuv2cQXVssManeiQpzjcBqcJsYGv-uXJqYH81c2zNY5DE3-KdJ9ew

The dates for Calfee's images in the Crow village are usually given as around 1880. I don't know the rationale behind this; maybe there is some documentation, but as you can see from Californian's post, he's found an 1871-4 date, which would fit with Jack's potential presence in Yellowstone, at least for a brief time. The fact that one of the Crow children is wearing a hat and jacket likely points to him attending a school at the agency during this period. There's certainly a resemblance between the man in the Crow lodge and Texas Jack, but when you see the exterior image, you can see he has a lot of hair underneath his hat brim, whereas we have photos of Jack from the early 1870s to show his hair is thinning, so it probably isn't, but the close up of the man at the back of the lodge certainly resembles him:


Jack in 1873 - by Gurney of New York


Texas Jack, circa 1878/9


Nov-Dec 1877


Man in the Crow lodge in Calfee's photo




I'm assuming this is the same man in another Crow village photo and that the man in the lodge looks lighter because of the light falling on him. Note the hair under the hat brim.


Jack without his hat, 1873. You can see Jack's thinning hair.

Or is the man in the lodge Calfee himself, the camera being operated by his partner, Nelson Catlin?





Or, of course, it was somebody else...

[Dietmar]

I got this message from Mike Cowdrey who identifies the man in the Crow Lodge as Tom Leforge:


Recently, I noticed some confused speculations concerning the identity of a White man who appears in the Calfee & Catlin series of stereos made in Iron Bull's Crow village near the Yellowstone River, in 1879.

This man is Thomas Leforge, subject of Dr. Thomas B. Marquis's biography, Memoirs of a White Crow Indian.




The woman glued to his side is his second wife, Magpie Outside, the widow of Leforge's pal Mitch Bouyer, who died with Custer at Little Bighorn. The two friends, both with Crow wives, had promised to care for the other's family if either man was killed. After Leforge's wife died from illness, he married Magpie Outside, and helped to raise Bouyer's children.



"Iron Bull's Village on the Yellowstone."



Tom Leforge & Magpie Outside at far left. The child was Bouyer's son.




Leforge's name was not given the English pronunciation of "forge." Originally, his family name was French, Le Forgé (the blacksmith; or the smithy); phonetic pronunciation: le for-GAY. On the frontier, this original French was anglicized to the slant-pronunciation "Le FOR-ghee," as we know from several military dispatches of the period, where it is written out in longhand: Leforgey/ Leforgee.



Leforge, ca. 1895.



Being interviewed (and photographed) by Dr. Marquis, 1926.


Be always well,

Mike

[grahamew]

Nice.