Sallie Chisum's Collection of Ferrotypes

[Steve McCarty]

I've found Sallie Chisum's personal/private collection of tintypes and carte de visits. They came from Sallie's relatives who moved to Oregon after Walter Pitzer Chisum's death in 1919. Over time the family pretty much lost interest in their history and sold off much of that they had from the old days in a yard sale. I found the pictures in a little antique store and bought them.

Most of the images are of Sallie's family including she and her first husband, their children and her brothers, cousins and John S... There are also images of Sallie's female friends including Lily Casey, Helena and Phoebe Coe, and even Buck Powell's wife Eliza Jane Hestor. Collection includes many Regulators, including Billy, Tom Folliard, Doc Scurlock, Joe Smith, John Jones, maybe Big Jim French, Juan Patron, and maybe Iginio Salazar. We even see Alexander McSween, Godrey Gauss, Sheriff Brady and Dirty Dave Rudabaugh.

Book follows.

[Steve McCarty]

Are you looking for Ara's uncles, or Sallie's? I have a pretty poor picture of John S. and a nice one of James (Sallie's dad), but none of Pitzer Miller, who left the SS Ranch early on.  I have everyone in Sallie's immediate family except for P.M... (as he was called). I have a wonderful picture of Willi and his bride Lina Tucker.  Below is my lousy pic of John S... The others are the Towry family. Old John is smiling!  Rare in tintypes.

[Steve McCarty]

See the women in the center?  At first I thought she was Sallie, but she is not.  She must be Francis Towry, who was married to Tom Towry.  Francis and Tom had the same last name and both were cousins of John S.  They were caretakers of the South Spring Ranch before the job was taken over by Sallie and William Robert.

Here is Francis.  I call her my "Mona Lisa" it's a wonderful picture:

[Steve McCarty]

This has to be Francis Towry.  She is posed like the Mona Lisa and she even has her famous enigmatic smile. The collection includes other pictures of her and several of her children. What a beautiful picture!  Do you see the tow headed girl in the group picture above?  She must have died, because I see baby pictures of her and this one and then no other in later group pictures.  The little girl must have died.  I'd guess in one of the Small Pox epidemics. I am blown away by the complexity of this picture of Francis.  Notice how nicely it enlarges.

[Chris Lampe]

Charley,

 

I've followed alleged images of BTK for some years now and I'm familiar with most or all of the well known ones.  I was not aware that there were several that came from one family.  Do you have copies of these?  It's possible they are images I'm familiar with but didn't know the source but hopefully they are new (to me) images that I can check out. 

[Steve McCarty]

I just saw a new picture of the kid, but it's not for public distribution yet.  But it is the kid, and taken a little ways away. 

[Chris Lampe]

C'mon Steve, you can't drop a statement like that and leave us hanging.  Is this one you've found or is this one that someone else came up with?  As you know, I'm always eager to see any new alleged "Kid" pics. 

[Steve McCarty]

Sorry, Chris the fellow who showed it to me is serious about keeping it hush hush and I'm respecting his wishes.  It is the kid tho.  Dressed like the Siplehamp, think I misspelled that, image. Maybe taken on the same day. 

[Steve McCarty]

So, let's see, that's five pictures of the Kid that I am quite positive of, and with your's it's No. 6.  The boy wasn't camera shy.  It has just taken time for them to filter down to us.

There's the Upham image, my two, the German girl's, this new one and yours.

I hope I haven't said too much about this new one already.  I shouldn't have mentioned it at all. BTW: I don't have it or a copy of it.  I've just seen it.

 

[Chris Lampe]

Thanks for the information on the new image.  I hope he decides to release it soon so that others can study it.  I saw a claimed image several years ago that included several other men, as well as some livestock.  I wonder if it's the same?

I wouldn't count my old tintype as being Billy.  There really is no evidence to even suggest it's a possibility and I haven't even had it in my possession for over 2 years.  It was fun to study it and speculate on it but with no evidence, I've moved on. 

[Steve McCarty]

I was told that the picture showed Billy with several other men, but the one I saw showed him only.  Camera was some distance away.  Sounds like the image you saw.

[Chris Lampe]

If it's the same, it is a fascinating image for various reasons.  We were lucky enough to see an enlarged version of the whole thing and there are some really interesting aspects to it.  I'm not sure I agree with their ID's of the other guys but the Kid looks pretty good.

 

I really hope he releases the image soon.  I've been wanting to study it in more depth for some time now. Also, there was a TV series about ghosts and they did a BTK episode and that photo shows up in the episode. 

[Steve McCarty]

Sounds like the same picture, Chris and I heard the stories of the other men too, and yeah, it is pretty amazing.  It's got to be the same image.