Travel Tuesday: Traveling Photographers (updated 19 Dec 2021)

I mentioned something about local photographers being itinerant and here's a good example of that:

Identified as Josephine Beecher Scoville [1 Sept 1855 - 17 Sept 1905], accession #2013-7-106.
Came to Ellicottville in 1870, married William P. Scoville in 1880. Courtesy Ellicottville Historical Society
with kind permission from Mary E. Dunbar, town historian

L.L. ZUVER (1861-1924)                 
Ellicottville (Cattaraugus Co), NY: 1886-1887 (Partner with MH STEWART)
Pleasantville (Venango Co), PA:
Oil City, (Venango Co), PA: 1905-
Tionesta (Forest Co), PA: photography business & general store
 
L.W. ZUVER (1854-1927)
Duke Centre (McKean Co), PA: 1880-1884
Ellicottville (Cattaraugus Co), NY: (after 1875) August 1884
Salamanca (Cattaraugus Co), NY: after 1875-November 1884
Cleveland, OH: November 1884; engaged in the manufacture of dry plates used in photography
Olean (Cattaraugus Co), NY: 1885-
Operated a steamboat studio covering Olean, NY to Pittsburgh, PA to include the busiest oil centers in Pennsylvania such as Warren, Oil City, Tidioute, Tionesta and Franklin. 
Pittsburgh, PA: 1893-1900
Butler (Butler Co), PA: to 1910. He listed Butler as his headquarters with branches in the PA towns of Parker, Emlenton, East Brady and Petrolia and copyrighted imprints there as early as 1889. 
Sold out to H. S. Sheffler in 1910 and moved to St. Petersburg, Florida.

These names are not listed in the 1874/5 directory of Cattaraugus County, New York. In the Randolph newspaper in August of 1884, it was noted that “L.N. ZUVER hereafter will be at his photograph rooms in the Huenerfeld Building in Ellicottville on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”
The Ellicottville paper noted in November of 1884 under Salamanca news that Mr. L. W. ZUVER had sold his photograph business in this city. It further stated that Mr. ZUVER would relocate to Cleveland, Ohio where he would “engage in the manufacture of dry plates used in photography.”

L.L. ZUVER was at first a partner with M.H. STEWART in Ellicottville in 1886 but by the next year, the partnership had dissolved.

George Emery Zuver and his Susan Goodman had nine children, three of whom went on to become photographers. Their daughter Mary (born 1851) married Jacob West who was listed as a photographer in 1870 in Bradford (McKean County) Pennsylvania. She joined the photography business and eventually became very popular in Bradford. Mary sold her business after her husband’s death in 1906 to Howard Spangler and moved to the town of Butler, PA to live with her family in 1907. (See the blog “Diggin Up Dirt”. This blog goes on to say that Mary’s two younger brothers Lewis W Zuver (1854-1927) and Leander L Zuver (1861-1924) were also photographers and that the brothers can be found listed with studios from Olean, NY, just north of Bradford across the Pennsylvania line and as far south in Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh. Leander (aka Leonard, Richard or “Dick” as his friends referred to him) had the shortest career in the photography business. In 1885 Lewis and a man named Atherly had small steamboat built in order to hawk their wares in the river from Olean, NY to Pittsburgh, PA. This path would allow them to hit some of the busiest oil centers in Pennsylvania including, Warren, Oil City, Tidioute, Tionesta and Franklin. 

Lewis was operating in Pittsburgh, PA from at least 1893 to 1900 and is noted for exceptional work with wonderful detail of textures (see <http://boards.ancestry.ca/surnames.zuver/26/mb.ashx>). Mary West’s granddaughter noted that he lived in Butler, PA and operated two different studios in the area. She also noted that Lewis continued to enjoy the photography profession until selling out to H. S. Sheffler in 1910 and moving to St. Petersburg, Florida.


                Richard (aka L.L.) Zuver’s obituary in the Titusville Herald indicated that he died in Tionesta and “learned the photographer’s trade when a young man and for several years conducted a studio in Pleasantville in a building which stood just west of the Dutton livery in that village. He was united in marriage with Miss Agnes Braneth (or Braniff) who resided near Pleasantville, and in 1905 went to Oil City, where he conducted a studio for several years before coming to this village, where he had operated a general store in connection with his photograph business.”

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