The Lake's Earliest Photographers

Introduction

By the 1850s there were numerous photographic studios in Wikes-Barre, Scranton, Plymouth and other towns in the Wyoming and Lackawanna Valleys. They were generally limited to portraits of individuals, couples or families.

It was another two decades before local and itinerant photographers produced views of the region's lakes, rivers, industrial and mining scenes.

This article will review the earliest photographers who captured Harvey's Lake scenes for sale to the public.

But the Lake's photo history was greatly enlarged by the explosion of the souvenir photo postcard industry in the early decades of the twentieth century. This article should be read as a companion piece to the article Collecting Postcards which also appears on this website.

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C.F. Cook

The earliest set of Harvey's Lake photographic views were made by Charles F. Cook (1834-1894) whose studios were located along S. Main Street, Wilkes-Barre, near the present-day Boscov's department store.

Cook opened his Washington Portrait Gallery in 1858 at the corner of Public Square and W. Market Street, before relocating to South Main Street for the balance of his career. During the Civil War he served with the First Army Corps. He was discharged after being wounded at Fredericksburg, VA, in 1863.

In his time, Cook was considered the finest photographer in the Wyoming Valley, known for his individual and family portraiture. But he also produced stereographs of many Wyoming Valley scenes.

Cook was born in Hanover, Germany, married a Wilkes-Barre woman, Mary E. Dailey. He frequently would retreat to Harvey's Lake for short vacations.

At some point in the 1870s-1880s Cook produced a series of stereo views of the Lake. The number of views he made is not known but it is not likely a large number as only fewer than a dozen are known. Stereo views are side-by-side twin photographs which were viewed at home with a hand-held stereo viewer which resulted in a 3-D viewing experience. They were quite in vogue in their time and millions of stereo views were produced all over the nation. Niagara Falls was one of the most popular sets of views produced. Three of Cook's stereo views are shown in this article. Fig. 2 is a camping party at the Lake. Camping excursions for men and women to the Lake for a few days or a week were quite common before boarding houses and other accomodations were widely available. Fig. 3 is a large Victorian cottage along the Lake shore. Fig. 4 is a view looking across the Lake with the Lake House Hotel (later Rhoades Hotel) at Sunset barely visible among the trees on the opposite shore.

 

Fig. 2 Camping at Lake C. F. Cook

Fig. 3 Victorian Cottage C. F. Cook

 

Around 1889-1890 Cook produced 22 "cabinet size" views at the Lake shortly after the completion of the Lehigh Valley Railroad from Luzerne to the Alderson section of the Lake, near the Picnic Ground. Cook's "Picturesque Views of Harvey's Lake" are generally photographs along the shoreline, or from the shoreline looking across the Lake. There are also a couple views of Alderson train operations, but none of the Picnic Ground.

The Lake cabinet cards produced by Cook were four and one-half inches high and seven and one-half inches in length. Previously, the most common form of photographs, for individuals or family members, was the "tin type" which typically were two and one-half inches by three and one-half inches. The tin type was usually enclosed inside a paper cover. Occasionally, a Lake tin type will appear for sale on Ebay. The larger cabinet card was more ideal for landscape or other natural outdoor scenes.

Only one complete set of Cook's Lake scenes seems to have survived. It once was owned by the late Stanley Hoyt, Kunkle, a collector of Lake memorabilia. It is now in a private collection and four photos from the 22-card set were released for this article.

 

 

Fig. 5 is the steamboat landing at the Lake Grove House hotel at Sunset. Fig. 6 are cottages (one identified as H. B. Payne's) looking toward the Barnum plot near the Picnic Ground. Fig. 7 is Lynes' landing just beyond Fig. 6. Fig. 8 is near the Lake Grove House looking down the dirt road toward the Outlet.

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Picnic Ground Photographers

The early history of Lake photographers at the Picnic Ground is not entirely clear. George L. Burnett likely had the first studio in 1891, but it may have been along the Lake shore opposite the Picnic Ground where Burnett had a restaurant and an illegal speakeasy where alcohol was sold without a license. His enterprises collapsed after a conviction in 1903 for alcohol violations. He resumed his liquor sales in 1907-1908, with a license, but sold his Lake interests in 1909.

C. F. Cook opened a branch gallery at the Picnic Ground in May 1892. In part, he felt the Lake site would improve his health. On June 23, 1894, Cook returned to his Plymouth home after some time at the Lake and stated he was much improved, but he suddenly died on June 24, 1894, of a heart attack. He is buried in the Hollenback Cemetery, Wilkes-Barre.

The following years at the Picnic Ground cannot be stated exactly. In 1903 the Lehigh Valley Railroad leased a plot of ground to D. E. Frantz to operate a merry-go-round and photo studio. But the railroad, without explanation, suddenly cancelled the lease. Frantz was not able to persuade a court to restore the lease to him. He relocated his merry-go-round to Mountain Park, near Wilkes-Barre, and later moved it to Fernbrook Park, Dallas.

William F. Clark (1868 -1950) was a Wilkes-Barre photographer who had a studio near the Lehigh Valley Railroad station in the downtown. In the summer of 1907, he had a studio near the Oneonta Hotel at Sunset, probably at the Oneonta steamboat landing. In 1909 he relocated his summer studio to the Picnic Ground. Late in the year it was reported he sold the studio but the deal must have failed and Clark retook possession of it. He was still operating it as late as 1916. He is buried in the Hollenback Cemetery, Wilkes-Barre.

In their earliest years these photographers largely produced tintype photographs for Lake visitors. But photography was quickly evolving. A tintype indeed looked like a photograph on a thin sheet of tin. Actually, a tintype was a thin sheet of iron lacquered with a black varnish. It was then light- sensitized with a collodian mixture which would enable the plate to capture a photograph from inside a camera. The exposed plate was then finished with a chemical developing process. This was known as a "wet-plate" process. Later "dry-plate" processes, including glass-plate negatives, made possible the more popular and traditional paper photograph including the small carte de visite or "visiting card" and the larger cabinet card. A later vogue was the popular "photo postcard" for summer vacation guests-a photograph on a postcard as a keepsake or to be mailed home.

 

 

Fig. 9 is a W. F. Clark tintype of an unknown family at Clark's Picnic Ground studio and Fig. 10 is a later Clark "photo postcard" taken at his Lake studio.

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W. J. Harris

William J. Harris was widely known in the Wyoming Valley and at the Lake for his "photo postcards" from the first decade of the twentieth century. His Lake cards were made in 1904-1907.

A history of the postcard craze in the Valley and at the Lake can be found on this website under the title Collecting Postcards in the Community section of the homepage. That article covers the history of postcards and several of the many photographic artists and production firms which mass produced Lake and Valley postcards.

The highly skilled and self-taught W.J. Harris was active at the Lake from 1904-c.1907. Of the many Lake postcard photographers, Harris produced the most dramatic black and white photo postcards of the Lake's rise as a vacation and recreational center in the early 1900s. The best example is his iconic Fig. 1 c. 1906 photo of the Oneonta Hotel at Sunset. This photo headlines this web-article, and over a century later Harris' Oneonta card, and his cards of the Lake and the Valley's city and coal mining scenes, are frequently available on Ebay.

William J. Harris (1868-1940) was born in England and came to the United States with his parents in 1870. The family settled in south Wilkes-Barre, where the father, John, was a gardener. By 1887 W.J. Harris had become a professional photographer. The family moved to West Pittston in 1892, and Harris had a studio at 5 North Main Street in Pittston for a few years.

Then Harris became an itinerant photographer who specialized in city and lake scenes. The photo postcard craze hit the country, and from 1905 to 1915 Harris produced numerous views of Pittston, West Pittston, Wilkes-Barre, Harvey's Lake, Lake Carey, and Lake Winola. He also photographed the Finger Lakes in New York and produced hundreds of Lake Hopatcong postcard scenes in New Jersey.

 

 

Fig. 11 is a Harris view of the Rhoades Hotel (not Rhoads) at Sunset. Fig. 12 is the Acoma steamboat in 1905. Fig. 13 is the Wilkes-Barre steamboat with another steamboat in the background near the Oneonta landing at Sunset. Fig. 14 is the original inlet basin at Sunset, much larger than the present-day basin, later filled for development. Fig. 15 is a Harris comic card labeled Harvey's Lake but the same photo postcard was also labeled Lake Carey and Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey for sales elsewhere.

Harris views of the Pittston area are the only known substantial visual record of that community at the turn of the century. His Harvey's Lake photographs record the Lake's pre-World War I resort era, when the steamboats and grand hotels served 100,000 visitors during the summer season.

Harris spent most of his later life in St. Augustine, Florida, where he produced photo cards of the community and served as curator of the St. Augustine Historical Society for a number of years before his death in 1840.

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The Ace Hoffman Studios

Asa (Ace) Hoffman (1888-c.1950) was born in Santa Barbara, California, where his grandfather George Hoffman operated the first stagecoach line between Santa Barabara and Los Angeles. Ace and his parents moved to New York City when he was four; after completing public schooling in New York, he moved first to Texas, and then back to California, where he helped pioneer the motion picture business. In 1915 he returned to New York City, and in 1919 he moved to Wilkes-Barre and opened a photographic studio in the Anthracite Building at 54 West Market Street.

Within a few years Hoffman had one of the best-known commercial studios in the region, including a special department for educational and industrial motion pictures. He was also one of the early exponents of aerial photography in the Wyoming Valley.

The Ace Hoffman Studios would become the most historically important photographic studios in Wyoming Valley history, in part because of its nearly century-long history, but also because of its photographic contributions to the Luzerne County's Historical Society's archives, and to many publications and newspaper articles reflecting upon local history.

There was also a connection between Ace Hoffman and Harvey's Lake. In 1922 Hoffman opened a summer studio at the Sunset Pavilion. He offered a film developing service, photo postcards of Lake visitors, portrait photography, and he covered reunions, picnics and organizational gatherings. He also sold a series of postcard views of the Lake. For a photographer of Hoffman's reputation his Lake postcards are quite pedestrian. His Lake studio may have lasted only one year. The number of his postal views is not known, perhaps only a couple of dozen, but some examples are reproduced here.

 

 

Fig. 16 is a Hoffman view of the Acoma steamboat approaching the Oneonta landing at Sunset. Fig. 17 and 18 are views of the long concrete bridge which once spanned the inlet basin, Fig. 19 is a view of the once floating docks for swimming at the Picnic Ground (later Hanson's park).

In May 1933 Ace Hoffman also opened a night-club, named Ace Hoffman's, formally the Plantation Club, at Sunset. He was also operating the Airport Inn at the Forty Fort airport. A video of his Lake club is on YouTube titled Ace Hoffman's Sunset, 1933. It was made available by www.harveyslake.org.

In 1935 Ace Hoffman sold his Wilkes-Barre photo studio and relocated to California. It was the new owners, Harold Gittens and William N. Hughes, who in fact built the studio's stellar reputation in the twentieth century. In 1972 they sold the studio to the late Lake resident James T. Kozemchak, Jr.

The Ace Hoffman Studio was sold to John and Maureen Kasenchak in 1999. It was then based in Plymouth. The studio closed in June 2003.

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Edwin F. Munshower

The Picnic Ground found a permanent park photographer in 1922 when Edwin Frank Munshower, a native of Mongomery County, PA, opened his studio there. He remained at the Lake until his death in November 1942.

At the Lake Munshower provided film developing and printing services to amateur photographers and he sold film supplies. In his 20 years at the Lake. he only ran one advertisement-when he opened on September 2, 1922. During the summer months his specialty was the creation of photo postcards for Lake visitors. He had a famous goat and wagon which Munshower used to pose young children for their photographs.

Despite his record tenure at the Picnic Ground there is nearly no information about Munshower. He was born in 1859 in Pennsylvania. In 1909 he was living in Philadelphia with his wife, Louisa, and he was a photographer there. By 1940 he was a widower. It seems he spent the off-seasons in the Philadelphia region.

 

 

Fig. 20 is a 1935 photo of Munshower's studio at the Picnic Ground. The male figure at the far right with the apron is likely Munshower. Fig. 21 is a young girl in Munshower's goat cart. Figure 22 is a rare outdoor scene by Munshower on the road outside the Picnic Ground. Fig. 23 is a group of school boys, possibly from Wyoming Seminary, Kingston. Fig. 24 is another goat-wagon scene.

Munshower was 83 when he died at the home of a niece in Jamaica, Long Island. He was buried at the Morris Cemetery in Phoenixville, PA.

Munshower's photo postcards are frequently found in family collections of older Lake residents, and often the portraits are not identified. After Munshower's death hundreds of his glass-plate negatives were dumped in a pile at the Picnic Grond to be hauled away. A then young Lake resident, now deceased, Alfred Jackson, retrieved a large cache of these negatives which were passed on to a private collector. These negatives are all of unidentified sitters. Fig. 22, 23, and 24 were developed from these original Munshower glass-plate negatives.