PEOPLE FROM COOKSVILE’S PAST: EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS

Many people from the Village of Cooksville’s past---from the 19^th, 20^th, and the early 21^st centuries---appear in old photographs and in some painted portraits in the Cooksville Archives. There they can be seen today, although they have passed on.

                                                            

Electa Johnson and L. Rowley in a family album.

 

William Porter c.1860

Two boys, tintype (unlabeled)

                      

New dresses (unlabeled)

Some of the earliest settlers in the 1840s village, or in the surrounding Town of Porter, sat for portraits by Louis Daguerre’s 1837 invention of photography and later posed for portraits by the improved photographic techniques—glass ambrotypes and iron tintypes developed in the 19^th century.

"Leut. Hoyt" and unknown, 1st Regiment
of the Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, album

About 250 of these early 19^th century metal, glass, tintypes and treated paper photographs are in the Archives.

Unfortunately, a number of the people in the older photographs are not identified: no names are written on the old albums’ pages or on the backsides of many of the more modern photos.

Here are more of those portraits of people from Cooksville’s past:

Millie Leedle Osborn

Phebe Rebeeca Porter (1824-1854), in a painting

Modern photos are in the Cooksville Archives as well.

 

Ralph Warner (1875-1941)

E. Marvin Raney (1918-1980)

Chester Holway (1908-1986)

  

Michael Saternus (1936-1990)

Hank Bova (1936-2013) and Maurice Gras (1928-2003)

Eddie Julseth (1915-2011)

 

Karl Wolter (1930-2021)

Other photographs—old or new, people or places— related to the Village of Cooksville or the Town of Porter are always welcome. Contact the Historic Cooksville Trust at (608) 873-5066.

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