Visual Materials
Gervaise Purcell family photograph collection
- Description
- A collection of approximately 200 photographs related to the life and family of Gervaise Purcell (1844-1925), engineer, surveyor, and owner of Rancho Las Tunas, San Gabriel, California. Purcell and his wife, Helen Augusta (Pope) Purcell, and their seven children all appear in portraits, as do a few other Purcell and Pope relatives. There are carte-de-visite photographs of Gervaise Purcell's family in Dublin, and images of the Purcells in Japan in the 1870s, such as baby Hugh G. Purcell on the lap of his Japanese nurse or "amah," Noe Fuchizawa (1850-1936), and a portrait of Gervaise Purcell by photographer Baron Raimund von Stillfried of Yokohama. Views in San Gabriel include the Purcell House, also known as the Las Tunas adobe, on Rancho Las Tunas, showing the house and grounds (1880-1920s); Hotel San Gabriel interiors and exteriors (1890s); an artesian well on Titus Ranch, San Gabriel; and girls at school in Sunny Slope (1896), with names written on verso. Other subjects include construction of the Outer Harbor Dock & Wharf Company in San Pedro (1910), for which Gervaise Purcell was engineer, and a travel scrapbook that belonged to Thomas Purcell, brother of Gervaise, containing snapshots from around the world prior to 1871, including scenes in Africa, Singapore, Alexandria, Egypt, and Malta. The collection also contains clippings and some correspondence related to the Purcell family and the history of Rancho Las Tunas, and a few pencil sketches of Japan by Helen Purcell, 1877.

