Anatomy of a Back-Mark: Belva Wiles and Raymond Lycurgus Kelly, Frederick, Maryland

I gathered in this oversized cabinet card portrait of miller Raymond Lycurgus Kelly and Belva Grace Wiles Kelly because I knew they were life-long residents of Frederick County, Maryland. What has stumped me is the name of the Frederick photographer who took the photograph.

The blind embossed mark was used in the early days of carte de visites by photographers such as the Bendann Brothers and Henry Pollock. After the great excesses of photographic advertising back-marks of the 1880s and 1890s, the blind emboss made a comeback as a tasteful, restrained style that comported with early 1900s tastes.

But if an impression is not made deeply enough, such marks can be hard to read. One can make out “Frederick, Md.”and “Studio,” but the name of the studio or photographer, written in flowing script, is nigh impossible to decipher.

One thing I could see was that the photographer’s name had to be short.

My investigation started with research into the portrait’s subjects to get a sense of the time this photo might have been taken.

Popular miller and auction sales clerk Raymond Lycurgus Kelly (1890-1958) married Belva Grace Wiles (1887-1956), daughter of Sarah Hummer and Lewistown farmer Americus Wiles (1846-1905), about 1910-1911. After their marriage, Raymond and Belva lived in the Walkersville area, and were active in the Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church, just south of Walkersville.

Raymond was just 21 when he married, and he certainly looks quite young in this photograph, so the photo could have been taken ca. 1910-1915.

Next stop: a 1915 directory of Frederick and environs. I found several people listed as photographers:

Samuel E. Homer, 236 Dill Avenue

John F. Kreh, 217 W. South Street

E. Gay Leidweidge, 334 N. Market Street

John W. Ridenour, 108 E. South Street

Gibson Clinton Smith,  39-1/2 N. Market Street

In a May 1917 “Who’s Who” business directory published in the Frederick Post, I found several other photographers:

Rogers Studio, 7 N. Market Street (George E. Rogers and his sons Charles A.  and Philip, and  daughter-in-law Ruth)

Byerly’s Studio, 27 N. Market Street (Charles Byerly, son of J. Davis Byerly)

W. A. Burger’s Studio, 19 N. Market Street (William Alexander Burger)

I ruled out the surnames Ridenour and Leidweidge as too long. My best guess is that the mark is that of John Frederick “Frank” Kreh (1861-1939).

Kreh, like Burger, was trained by J. Davis Byerly, starting at the age of 15. In 1895, Kreh went out on his own, calling his business “Kreh’s Art Studio” and “Kreh Photo Co.”

For 60 years, he did all sorts of photographic work, until his retirement in 1935–landscapes and historic sites for postcards, architectural and construction photos, photos of all sorts of events, as well as studio portraits. Chances are good that if you have family who lived in the Frederick area during the 20th century, you have a photo by Kreh in your album somewhere.

Got an idea about the name of the photographer on this portrait? Let me know.

Frederick Kreh is buried an unmarked grave in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Frederick, Md., next to his son, Leslie Kreh (1892-1903).

A Byerly Beauty

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This ca. 1880s cabinet card portrait was taken by John Davis Byerly (1839-1914) at his studio on Frederick’s Market Street,  founded by his father, Jacob Byerly (1807-1883), in 1842.

John joined his father’s business ca. 1863-1869, during which period their photographs bore the business name J. Byerly & Son.

Around 1869-1870, photographs began bearing the name J. Davis Byerly. In 1899, John retired and turned the business over to his son Charles Byerly (1874-1944), who ran the studio until it was destroyed in a building collapse in 1915.

A number of details, both of setting and of dress, place this photograph in the 1880s.

The advertising that  fills the card’s reverse employs a japonisme decorative motif, with a bamboo frame accented with small blossoms.

The subject’s dress features mid- to late-1880s details such as a high round collar, relatively tight sleeves set high on the shoulder, a bodice decorated with buttons, dark velvet trim and tucks. Her hair is worn pulled back, low on the head, with  curled bangs typical of the decade, as is her small, high-crowned hat, known as a “capote.”

Increasingly, photographers of the late 19th century used props and painted backgrounds to more closely approximate the naturalness of the best painted portraiture. Darrah distinguishes this more elaborate “staging” of a portrait from simple posing (William C. Darrah, Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth Century Photography, 33).

Byerly may have been thinking of M.A. Root’s instructions in The Camera and The Pencil to “place the model in a very easy and graceful manner” (quoted in Darrah, Cartes, ).

Byerly posed his subject in a faux outdoor setting with fake grass, papier mache tree stump, and painted backdrop, as if the young woman were reading outside her home on a fine spring day. The light emanates from the upper right corner of the frame in imitation of natural sunlight.

The photograph’s decorative framing however, cannot compete with the simple, fresh, confident attractions of its young subject.

As usual, the information and interpretations of the portrait above rely on several key sources: Ross Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers 1839-1900, William C. Darrah’s Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth Century Photography, and Joan Severa’s Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion 1840-1900.

Two Young Men by Jacob Byerly

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These two cartes de visite are probably my earliest examples of the work of Jacob Byerly, Frederick, Maryland’s earliest and most well-known photographer.

The unidentified young men in these portraits may have been soldiers; the vignette style that shows just the head and shoulders makes it difficult to identify their clothing. But bearded and sunburned, these two hale young men in the prime of their lives may, like many soldiers, have had their portraits taken at Byerly’s Market Street studio when passing through Frederick in 1862 (South Mountain, Antietam), 1863 (Gettysburg), and 1864 (Monocacy) during the Civil War.

They could also have been among the 9,000 or so soldiers who convalesced in Frederick after being wounded in these battles.

Ross Kelbaugh’s directory dates cartes de visite with this imprint to before 1866, when Byerly took his son J. Davis Byerly into the business. Since these photographs don’t have revenue stamps, we can be confident they were taken before 1864.

The simple three-line imprint and gold double border lines support this early dating. William Darrah places the double-border style to 1861-1869, so I’m going to guess that these date from sometime between 1861 and 1864.

A Jacob Byerly Carte de Visite

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According to published biographical sketches, the Byerlys came from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania to Frederick, Maryland, where in 1842 they opened a daguerreotype studio on Patrick Street, later moving to North Market Street.

From 1842 to 1915, three generations of Byerlys photographed the people and places of the town and its environs: Jacob Byerly (1807-1883), his son John Davis Byerly (1839-1914), and then John’s son Charles Byerly (1874-1944).

Charles took over the business at 29 North Market Street in 1899. In April 1915, the floor above the studio collapsed and destroyed the gallery. Although Charles rebuilt the Byerly Building (still in use at 27-29 North Market Street), he gave up the photography business. The building still bears the family name and the year 1915.

This carte de visite of an unknown young woman was probably taken before 1864, because there is no revenue stamp, and because according to Maryland photography historian Ross Kelbaugh, cartes from ca. 1863-1865 to about 1869, when Jacob retired, bore the name J. Byerly & Son.

Her dress exhibits the more tapered fullness of 1860s skirts, the full “bishop” sleeves, and the narrow, flat, white linen collar that replaced the wide lace collars of the 1850s.  She holds a book in her hands as if just interrupted while browsing, perhaps to indicate that she is educated beyond the norm for girls.

The Historical Society of Frederick County holds a substantial collection of photographs by and of the Byerlys and associated families.

“Barbara Fritchie’s Home,” J. Davis Byerly

This carte de visite sold by Frederick photographer  J. Davis Byerly depicts the home of the mythologized Civil War heroine Barbara Frietchie. Frietchie and her home became famous after John Greenleaf Whittier published his eponymous poem in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863.

According to the Maryland Online Encyclopedia, Frietchie’s home was destroyed in an 1868 flood of Carroll Creek, and not rebuilt until 1927. This photo had to have been taken prior to the flood.

The photo is identical to the one used on a similar souvenir carte sold by J. Davis Byerly’s father and founder of their Frederick studio, Jacob Byerly. Collector Gil Barrett allowed Maryland photography historian Ross Kelbaugh to reprint an image of the carte in Kelbaugh’s 2001 article on Byerly and Frietchie for the Daguerreian Annual in 2001.

There is a difference in the prints. This print appears to contain areas of damage in the upper lefthand corner. Since the damage is not to the print, it must be to the negative. Byerly, who took over his father’s business in 1868, must have continued to make prints from the same negative his father had used.

Whittier’s poem turnedphotographs of Frietchie’s Frederick home into lucrative tourist souvenirs after 1863.

Thanks to what we know about the destruction of the house and the Byerly business, we can safely date the photograph here to the period 1863 to 1868, but the carte itself could have been sold anytime between 1868 and 1899, when Charles Byerly, son of J. Davis, took over the business started by his grandfather in 1842.