Letter: rare photographer

It was good talking to you on the phone about the cabinet photo I have, taken by Samuel Cropper of Jamesport. I have all the information on the back of the photo. It dates 1870s, 1880s.

Mr. Cropper died about 1899.

It’s been quite a puzzle to figure out the stamp on the bottom front of the photo which reads, “From S. Cropper, Jamesport, Missouri”. You can see “Cropper” without much trouble. The rest takes good eyes and a magnifying glass.

A woman on the internet, Barbara Langdon, has a website devoted to finding out photographers from 1800s and 1900s, across the U.S.

Since you are a publisher, maybe you can scan the front where the stamp is (on the lower front of the cabinet photo). With digital enhancing, maybe you can fill in the faded parts and make a new stamp to keep with the photo.

I have thought the well-dressed man in the photo may be Samuel Cropper? I don’t know for sure. More than likely he was a businessman, banker.

You may check with the library for 1870s, 1880s, 1890s business directories for Jamesport.

Barbara found him in the U.S. Census on ancestry.com.

Other books from the time that are a lot of help are “Prominent Men of Daviess County.” This is where the person would pay to have his photo of himself and his bio of his life published. All states and cities had them. I hope they survived.

Photographers are interesting because they recorded faces and scenes of the area. Mr. Cropper probably didn’t think that this picture would be around for the next 100 plus years.

I did see a Cropper in Jamesport from the 1920s. He had a pharmacy in the teens and twenties. This could be Samuel Cropper, Jr., or a relative.

This is all I know. Hope this helps. I am sure this is a rare photographer. Now you have a record of his work.

This is a free donation to you for your historical society. Putting it online would increase the chance of identification.

Thank you.

Chris Kidwell, Morgantown, W.Va.