Rare Books
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Visual Materials
A collection of 145 photographs, primarily cabinet card studio portraits, of notable figures in 19th-century territorial New Mexico. Compiled by William Gillet Ritch, territorial secretary of New Mexico from 1873 to 1885, the photographs were originally in three albums, each with an incomplete handwritten index of names. The individuals pictured include territorial governors and officials, bishops and clergymen, military officers and militiamen, merchants, newspaper editors, and some studio portraits of Native Americans and photographs of Mexican and native artifacts. Most of the photographs are signed in ink by the sitter, and some are inscribed to the New Mexico Historical Society, which was formed in 1880 with W. G. Ritch as its first president. There are a few photographs of paintings or etchings, such as four portraits of Charles Bent (1799-1847), first governor of New Mexico Territory. The studio photographs include portraits of President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife, Lucy, and President James A. Garfield, which has printing on the mount: "Taken at Chicago, June 8, 1880, on the day he received the nomination for President." Figures of note in New Mexico include Manuel Garcia and Juan P. Romero, 1882 legislators; Jose Chaves y Castillo, acting governor in 1845; Robert Black, first mayor of Silver City, New Mexico; and Major Albert J. Fountain and Captain Francisco Salazar, posing with guns drawn and signed with "Campaigns against the Rustlers, 1883." Native Americans pictured are: Kiowa chief Big Bow with Santanoni and Tomion[?], a Mexican interpreter; two Isleta women; Wa-ja-to-ye, last governor of Pecos Pueblo; and Young Black Dog, Osage. There are 19 unidentified people, including one woman.
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