Tag Archives: Harry E. Hill

Fifty Beautifully Preserved Photographs More Than a Century Old

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My husband and I were thrilled when he succeeded in purchasing an album filled with Harry Hill’s photography in an eBay auction in 2006.

The album was sold by Robi & Aundra-Antique Doctors in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, I called Aundra to see where they got the album but she could not remember.

Perry Corell photographed Indian River Drive when it was little more than a trail.

  I was surprised that some of the photographs in the album had “Corell” imbedded in them rather than Hill.

During my Hill research I contacted the Benson Memorial Library in Titusville, Pennsylvania where the Hills had lived before they moved to Florida. I asked the librarian if she could supply information on Corell. She shared clipping from a September 1, 1904 Titusville Herald, that told of Perry Corell an experienced photographer who selling his shop and moving to Ft. Pierce Florida, to join Harry Hill.  Both were “Titusville boys.”

Example of photographs in the album purchase in an eBay action.

The photograph on the left is the Planters Security Bank founded in Jensen in 1904. Today it is the location of Lure’s Bar and Grill. Some of the bricks from the old bank were used in the construction of the building that became Lure’s.

The photograph at right is pioneer home of George A. Saeger on Indian River Drive. He was a director of the Planters Security Bank so maybe that is why the photographs are beside each others. The home still stands at 4511 S. Indian River Drive.

The photograph at left was used for on a postcard.
One of the photographs in the album showed the desk in the Hill Studio.

The Hill Studio has been reconstructed in the St. Lucie County Regional History Center.

Regional History Center

Billy Bowlegs’ Family Portrait taken in Hill Studio

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One of the most important postcards in my collection is of Billy Bowlegs with his sister, Lucy Pearce and her daughters, Ada and Annie. I knew the portrait was the work of Harry Hill because his name is on another version of the postcard. The group portrait also appears on page 100 in A Portrait of St. Lucie County, Florida by Lucille Rieley Rights.

This full color postcard was published by H. & W.B. Drew Co. of Jacksonville, Florida.

Imagine my delight when among the images in a photo album my husband, Tom Thurlow, purchase on eBay in 2006 is one showing the Indians walking down a road after their photo session.

The Indian River can be seen in the distance.

I will write more about the album that contained the photograph of the Seminole Indians in Ft. Pierce in my next blog.

Another Hill Photograph Dust Jacket

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I used this antique postcard for the dust jacket of my third pictorial history book. Just as was true of Stuart on the St. Lucie, I did not realize the image was the product of the Florida Photographic Concern.

At the time I published my books I did not understand that postcard publishers, like Hugh C. Leighton, secured their images from the Hill family’s Florida Photographic Concern in Fort Pierce.

For this blog, I found the postcard I used and was shocked to see that the postcard had been cropped for the dust jacket. Below is the complete postcard. The Alfresco Hotel that appears at right was cropped off when the dust jacket was designed.

The Alfresco Hotel that appears at right was cropped off when the dust jacket was designed.

This Hugh C. Leighton Co. postcard shows the fine quality of printing done in Germany during the “Golden Age of Postcards.”

The Al Fresco Hotel, designed by Louis F. Kwiatkowski for John Jensen in 1893, burned in 1911 after being purchased by R. R. Ricou.

The Hellier Family and the Florida Photographic Concern

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A previous blog focused on Walter Hellier’s book, Indian River Florida’s Treasure Coast filled with photographs from the Florida Photographic Concern

A series of curious coincidences brought me in contact with his granddaughters who had a fabulous collection Florida Photographic Concern photos. They allowed me to scan them. There were several dozen with a wide range of subjects but just a few could be directly .connected to today’s Martin County.

This Hill rattlesnake portrait could illustrate the many that once inhabited the St. Lucie River region.
 

 

This photograph was among the many Walter Hellier’s granddaughters let me scan. It has a local connection because the sailboat is flying the burgee of the Gilbert’s Bar Yacht Club that had a clubhouse south of the House of Refuge on Hutchinson Island. Many of our well-to-do pioneers were members.

Jim Hutchinson, Mary VanDerlofske and Susie Bryant

Walter Helier’s granddaughters, Marilyn VanDerlofske and Susan Bryant, residents of Palm Beach County, were happy to visit me because they could also visit my famous-artist neighbor , the late Jim Hutchinson. This photograph of the three of them was taken on February 8, 2018.

Hill Family of the Florida Photographic Concern

Bee Keeping, Fishing, Florida Photographic Concern, Ft. Pierce, Indian River, St. Lucie River., Titusville, PA, , , ,

Harry Hill, originally from Ontario, moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1884 where he met and married Katherine Nelson.  He studied and worked as an apiarist in Canada, California and Cuba but chose to settle in Florida in 1894. Harry and Katherine’s son, Lowell, was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the year before, so they moved to Florida with an infant.  After setting up an apiary in New Smyrna, the Hills settled in Spruce Bluff on the North Fork of the St. Lucie River.

The Hills moved to Ft. Pierce in 1898 where Harry,  not only was managing editor of the American Bee Keeper, he launched into pineapple culture on a large scale.  Photographs were increasingly enhancing the magazine. Soon Harry’s interest and growing skills as a photographer overshadowed his other enterprises. By 1905, advertisements for the Florida Photographic Concern were appearing in the St. Lucie News Tribune.

This advertisement began appearing in the St. Lucie News Tribune in 1905.

Harry Hill was producing commercial photographs by the turn of the 20th Century.

This appeared in the July 1906. It has Florida Photographic Concern embedded in the photograph but the image was probably made before the company was founded.   James Heddon and Harry Hill were associates for many years.

These almost identical photographs were published in the June 1907 American Bee Keeper. Harry Hill was making the point that photographs on semi-matte stock reproduce better that ones on glossy paper. The article explained his engravers, “one of the best house in New York” preferred matte.

American Bee Keepers subscribers lived throughout the United States and in other countries!  HOW IN THE WORLD DID HARRY HILL MANAGE THIS?

The last American Bee Keeper was published in June 1908.

The Evolution of Picture Postcards

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FRONT

The Hills’ Florida Photographic Concern published postcards like this one before “The Golden Era of Postcards.”

BACK

A colorized version of the Florida Photographic Concern’s photograph of oxen hauling citrus shows it was printed by the Drew Company of Jacksonville.

I Googled the company and it is still in business after 165 years.

The Florida Photographic Concern sold its work to numerous publishers; the most prominent was the Hugh C. Leighton Co. Manufacturers of Portland, Maine.  Publishers took advantage of the superior printing in Germany before World War I made it impossible.

The Hugh C. Leighton Co. published this Florida Photographic Concern image. The exquisite printing illustrates the meaning of the “Golden Age of Postcards.”