The Clues to the Glass Negative Mystery

We identify the photographer of the 216 mystery glass negatives. Or do we?

To solve a mystery, you need to uncover clues and follow them wherever they lead.

In 1978, I found 216 glass negatives from the early 1900s in a cardboard box in the basement of a house I bought in Glenside, PA.There was no indication who took the photos or why they were even there. Even the previous homeowner didn’t know.

Luckily, I had a trail to follow: a paper trail. The envelopes in which the photographer had stored the glass negatives.

Many were in bad shape. The paper, crumbling to the touch and sticking to the emulsion of the glass plates. Years of being stored in a damp basement will do that.

To preserve the negatives, I removed them from the paper envelopes and put them in newer, safer, glassine and acid-free paper ones. But I kept the old envelopes.

You can probably figure out why I thought they were important. On many of the envelopes, the photographer had written the date the photo was taken, the subject of the photo, and where it was shot.

The challenge was to decipher the handwriting. The envelope (above) says the photo was taken on May 15, 1905, in Glenside, PA. The title is “View from Woodlyn Ave.” I recognized “Woodlyn Avenue” because that’s the street that the house I owned was on. It took a bit more staring to figure out the first word was “View.”

(The “5-sec-Argo” was either related to developing or exposure times of the photo. Not sure yet.)

But the supreme shock—and the biggest clue—came when I found the envelope below.

It was taken on August 21, 1911, in New Hanover Square, PA. At first, I thought it read “Ada, Mr. & chickens,” until I realized the “r” was an “e” and it was “Ada, Me & chickens.”

It’s saying that the photographer was in the picture! Check it out below.

The woman on the left was Ada, and the woman on the right looked like she was the farm owner. So could the photographer be him? The next clue practically proved it.

This was labeled “Mr. Johnson and I.” Below is the pic taken in Wildwood, NJ.

The man on the right must be our photographer. But what was his name? He only identified himself as “Me” and “I.” Then I found the next self-portrait in this envelope.

What does that say?!! I couldn’t read it. I still can’t. It looks a bit like “Johnson.” What do you think it says?

If it does say “Johnson,” then the guy in “Johnson and I” would be the photographer. But that didn’t make sense. He wasn’t with Ada and the chicken.

I was certain our friendly, mustachioed man was the photographer. I knew it back in 1978, when I catalogued the negatives. But his name and identity were a total blank.

Until this past Memorial Day weekend, when I finally figured it out.

You’ll learn his name, his family history, and why the negatives most likely ended up in my basement… in our next post.