E Butler 1880
Today, I thought a little stronger challenge was about due, rather than simply finding people for whom we have lots of clues. So I took a look at the photo of E Butler. It is a cdv on green cardstock, with an inscription on back that reads: “Truly Yours, E. Butler, July 2, 1880″.
There is no photographer’s imprint on back, but there was one on front — however — most of it was trimmed off when somebody decided to shorten the card. So that is where the detective work began. A close look at the name convinced me that it must be Barker or Parker. Only the tips of letters were left on the right, where the location is usually shown, but enough remains of the first letter to be fairly sure it is a W. That is followed by another mark, and some space — so it looks like the location is upper and lower case, with only the longer letters leaving marks. The first letter after the W is one of those long letters, and the possibilities are: Wb, Wh, Wk, or Wl. The Wh is of course the most probable, since town names beginning with the other prefixes are rare.
Next I turned to the ClassyArts.com Database of Photographers, a list of historic photographers approaching 60,000 records and still growing. I looked first at all the Parker listings, but none of the towns for those photographers began with Wh. I checked Barker, which had fewer listings, and there was listed James Barker of Whitehall, New York, who was aged 35 in the 1880 census, and born in Vermont. Well that not only places a photographer Barker in a town beginning with Wh, but it places him there the very year we are interested in — 1880.
Now, to confirm the probable identification of the photographer, I filled in the letters for Whitehall, New York under the marks on the cdv, to see if the tall letters match the marks:
The clipped imprint and proposed restoration.
They match perfectly! There can be little doubt then that James Barker of Whitehall was the photographer for this image.
Now, what about E Butler? Are there any candidates for him in or around Whitehall, New York? Again we turn to the 1880 census, since that is the same year as the photograph. Our photo shows a man in middle-age, his hair is greatly receded, but he doesn’t appear very wrinkled, so my guess is that he is between 35 and 55.
There is only one E Butler in Whitehall, Ebenezer Butler, age 46, a school teacher, born in New York. I searched various online resources, but could find no other photograph of Mr Butler to confirm this identification. I suspect this is Ebenezer, but we do not have enough evidence to say so with a high degree of certainty. It could be Edward Butler, age 27, who also lived in the same county, though not the village of Whitehall. Or it could be any of hundreds of E Butler’s who lived elsewhere in the country, and may have had some reason to visit Whitehall. For this one, we can only say ‘probably’ — until more evidence surfaces.