Bolton, New York Civil War Photographic Archive 

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American History: Live Salesroom Auction

By Cowan's Auctions

Jul 21, 2014 - Jul 22, 2014

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• Lot Description
  A related group of two fine military images, including a sixth plate tintype of two 22nd NY privates and a ninth plate ambrotype of another, together with ambrotypes of an unknown woman and three children, all accompanied by an older but undated typed piece of paper folded up behind the sixth plate that relates a story we were unable to document. The note in full reads, Civil War Veterans / Tin type on the left is Don Carlos Davis, Bolton / man in center is Henry Davis, Bolton (father of Ray Davis) / Man on right is Fifer Rawson, Schroon Lake / Story as told to Dell Kingsley by Ray Davis, Veteran. / Henry Davis became fast friends with Fifer Rawson in the Civil War. / Rawson played the fife. He had two daughters. A big / battle was shaping up and Rawson had misgivings about it. On / the eve before the battle he asked Henry David if he would take / care of his two daughters if he did not survive the battle. / Rawson was killed in the battle. / Henry Davis came home from the War, looked up the daughters / and brought them up. He also brought home Rawson’s fife, / which Ray Davis now has.
  
  The sixth plate tintype shows two twenty-something privates standing rigidly at attention, one holding a M1858 Hardee Hat having brass bugle insignia and “F/22,” the other wearing a rectangular script NY belt plate. The image is not otherwise identified.
  
  The ninth plate ambrotype depicts a teenage private uniformed in the distinctive New York state M1861 fatigue coat piped in light blue with cloth shoulder straps. A small pistol is stuck into the outside slash pocket. He wears an example of the oval SNY belt plate. Accouterments abound. The chained stopper of an M1858 canteen is visible in the left lower margin as is the cross strap of the tarred haversack and round eagle breastplate, worn on the cartridge box sling.
  
  Two companies of the 22nd New York including Company F were raised in upstate Warren County, which includes the small town of Bolton. Unfortunately, none of the names listed in the typed story could be found on 22nd NY roster. A “Private William Henry Davis,” age 21, was the closest and he was discharged for disability in November 1861 before the regiment had seen any real fighting. No one named “Don Carlos Davis” served from the state of New York, while there are 28 soldiers named “Rawson.” Just one, an “Ira W. Rawson" of Company B, 161st NY, was a musician.
  
  The typed note would appear to be a transcription of some earlier recollection known contemporaneously based on the fact that Ray Davis is said to be the son of veteran Henry Davis, one of the men in the photographs. If, as an older man, Ray Davis related the story to a much younger Dell Kingsley (unknown), the group was probably conveyed together with some faulty names sometime in the 1930s at the latest. Ray Davis would then have been more or less a stepbrother to at least a couple of the unidentified Rawson children. The fife is lost. 

  Condition

  Of the military images the sixth plate tintype is undamaged and relatively sharp but slightly dark, still VG+, housed in a complete composition case. The clear ninth plate ambrotype with black backing is likewise undamaged with sharp clarity showing minor mottling in the upper left field with a slight halo of tarnish, VG+. Housed in a separated composition case. The civilian images are undamaged and in VG. condition in separated cases.
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