Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Benjamin Davis Wilson family photograph collection
- Description
- A collection of photographs of Benjamin Davis "Don Benito" Wilson (1811-1878) and family members, and a few photographs of his Lake Vineyard residence in the San Gabriel Valley, California. The majority of photographs are studio portraits of individuals and family groups, approximately 1860s-1917, many of which are cabinet cards and cartes-de-visite. The primary subjects are Wilson, his second wife, Margaret S. Hereford (d.1898), and Wilson's children from his two marriages: Maria de Jesus "Sue" Wilson (Shorb), John B. Wilson (1846-1870), Ruth Wilson, and Ann ("Nan" or "Annie") Wilson. Others pictured in the collection are: Medora ("Dora") Hereford; Edward Sublette Hereford; Thomas Hereford; Mary Stone, Victor Yorba, Don Bernardo Yorba (photograph of a drawing), and a young man named [A. S.?] Johnston Jr. (photograph of a drawing). Of particular note in the collection is a post-mortem photograph of Maria de Jesus "Sue" Wilson Shorb, 1917. There are a few portraits of unidentified women, including an [African American?] woman in a photograph by George W. Sittler (Springfield, Missouri). Members of the Wilson and Shorb famillies are seen on the porch of the Lake Vineyard house, approximately 1875, and there are two views of furnished rooms in the house. Photographers represented are the Elite Gallery (Payne, Stanton & Co.), Frank G. Schumacher, James D. Westervelt and Valentin Wolfenstein (Los Angeles); and Bradley & Rulofson, G. D. Morse, and Louis Thors (San Francisco).
