19th Century Colorado Photographers

The Union Colony of Colorado was founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker as a utopian agricultural community.  The town’s name was changed to Greeley in honor of New York newspaper editor, Horace Greeley, one of the town’s financial backers.  Photographers arrived in Greeley shortly after its establishment.  This is the first of three blog posts discussing Greeley’s 19th-century photographers.

1870                                                                                                                                           John Wilkinson (bc 1840) is listed as a photographer in the 1870 federal census for Greeley.

J. M. (or I. M.)  Johnson opened the first photography studio in Greeley, working briefly between November 1870 and February 1871.  His gallery was known as the Pioneer Photographic Gallery as well as Johnson’s Rocky Mountain Gallery of Art.  He sold stereoscopic views of Greeley and the Rocky Mountains.

Johnson & Frisbie had a studio on Main Street in Greeley.  

1871-1891                                                                                                                                 Benjamin Franklin Marsh and his twin brother, Clark, were born on December 26, 1833, in Southport, New York to Belorman Marsh and Mary Heller Marsh.  The Marsh family lived on a farm seven miles from Elmira.  On December 27, 1859, Benjamin married Sarah S. Smith in Southport.

Between 1864 and 1870, Marsh worked as a photographer outside Cleveland, Ohio, in Painesville, on the Grand River.  In 1870, B. F. Marsh moved west and became one of the original residents of the Union Colony, an experimental utopian farming community now known as Greeley, Colorado.  His family arrived the following year.  Marsh set up the town’s first permanent photo studio in Nichols’ Block, on Main Street, purchasing supplies from E. and H. T. Anthony of New York City, the country’s largest manufacturer of photographic goods.  The Rio Grande Railway commissioned Marsh to make stereoviews in the Pike’s Peak region.  

In addition to running the photo studio, where he also sold ice cream, Marsh served as Greeley’s town clerk, recorder and treasurer.  In June 1883, B. F. Marsh’s daughter, Kitty, spent three weeks in Denver learning the finer points of retouching photographs.   In the fall of that year, while Marsh traveled back to Ohio and New York to visit friends, he leased his studio to E. W. Pierce.

Marsh did not resume work in the studio until May 1884.  That summer he erected a new gallery with modern improvements.  Later that year, his twin brother joined the business, forming the Marsh Brothers.  They worked together until April 1886.  

In addition to making portraits and views of Greeley and the surrounding area, Marsh photographed the only known lynching in Greeley.  On December 29, 1888, Wilbur D. French was arrested for the suspected murder of a mill merchant.  French was reviled in the community as a cattle rustler.  It was also assumed that he had killed his wife a year earlier.  Since no one witnessed the murder of the mill merchant, residents feared French would not be convicted, so they took matters into their own hands.  Marsh produced  a cabinet card photograph of the lynching.  (The same photograph, published on a C. M. Clark cabinet card mount, was probably printed later.)

In 1891, Marsh took a position in Greeley’s assessor’s office and shuttered his photography business shortly thereafter.  Benjamin Franklin Marsh died on July 10, 1900 of Bright’s disease.  Survivors included his wife and eight children.  Marsh was laid to rest at Linn Cemetery in Greeley.  

1874                                                                                                                                     Frederick Christopher Warnky was born at Malchow, Germany, on August 27, 1838.  At nine years of age, he emigrated to the United States to live with family in Milwaukee.  At age fifteen, Frederick joined a wagon train heading for California in St. Joseph, Missouri. He met his future wife, Mary Jane Brownell, in 1865 outside Stockton, California.  They married on December 19, 1865 in Benton County, Oregon.  The following year Frederick and his wife farmed in California’s San Joaquin Valley.  

While in California, Frederick attended lectures by members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) and decided to join the church.  He would continue to be an active member of the church throughout his life.  

The Warnky family moved to Colorado Territory in the fall of 1874 as the first missionaries for the RLDS church in Colorado.  Warnky, who had learned photography by this time, traveled around the Territory with a horse and wagon and his photography tent, taking pictures during the day and preaching in the evenings.  They spent five years in Colorado, living in Greeley, Golden, Fairplay, Lake City, and Leadville.

While working in southern Colorado, Warnky met photographer Charles L. Abbott. They would partner as Warnke & Abbott in Garland and Alamosa, Colorado, and in Abiquiu, New Mexico.  In November 1879, Warnky’s wife and four children moved to Independence, Missouri, headquarters of the RLDS, while Frederick pursued business opportunities in New Mexico.  

After working several months in New Mexico, Warnky established a photography studio at 214 West Lexington St., Independence, Missouri, until 1891, when he relocated his business to Argentine, Kansas.  Mr. Warnky advertised his work at this new gallery as a portrait and landscape photographer.  When his daughter joined his business, she taught painting “of different kinds” and also fancy work.  Warnky maintained a photography studio until 1900 when R. E. Lauck advertised his studio at Warnky’s old stand.  

Frederick C. Warnky died in Independence, Missouri on December 24, 1920.  He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Independence.  

1876-1877                                                                                                                               Mrs. E. A. Masters moved to Greeley, Colorado by the summer of 1876, offering portraits, cartes de visite, large photographs and views of residences. She claimed she made a specialty of portraits of babies.  A couple of months later, she advertised her photographic work under the surname of her first husband, Mrs. E. A. Hammatt. 

1878                                                                                                                                           David Clinton Broadwell was born just south of the Canadian border in Fort Covington, New York around 1855.  He learned photography as a teen.  The 1870 federal census for Deerfield, Michigan lists Broadwell as a photographic artist, only fifteen years old.  Between 1873 and 1876, he operated a studio in Lansing, Michigan, described as the “only gallery in the city situated entirely on the ground floor.”  His time in Lansing included a short partnership as Broadwell & Wood.  Broadwell relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1877.  Health issues led him to Greeley, Colorado a year later, where he set up a tent gallery across from the drug store.  Sadly, D. C. Broadwell succumbed to consumption on February 27, 1879, in Windsor, Michigan.  He was just 24 years old.  Broadwell left a wife and a young son.  

Thank you to Miranda Todd, Archives Assistant at the Greeley Museum for research assistance and to Beverly W. Brannan for proofreading.