Smallwood & Ball: Colorado Stereo Photographers

Smallwood & Ball were listed as photographers in the 1876 Denver City Directory. Although no views were published under their combined names, the same stereoviews were often published under both Smallwood’s and Ball’s names.

William John Smallwood was born in St. Joseph, Missouri to William Jackson Smallwood and Mary “Polly” Fox Smallwood.  In 1850, his father traveled to the Lake Tahoe area of California in search of gold.  He appeared in California’s 1852 census and supposedly died shortly thereafter.

William Smallwood grew up in Knox County, Missouri.  In the 1870 census, he is listed as a photographic artist.  By 1873, Smallwood had moved to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as a dyer.  In 1876, he formed a partnership with photographer George Ball. He made photographs south and west of Denver.   

Garden of the Gods
William Smallwood, photographer. Balanced Rock, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado, circa 1876. Albumen silver stereograph. History Colorado, accession number 84.192.690

A few years later, Smallwood returned to Knox County, Missouri.  He married Anna Amanda Roberts on June 4, 1882.  They spent their married life on a farm, raising six children to adulthood.  William Smallwood died on January 7, 1912, and is buried in Knox County’s Baker Cemetery.

George E. Ball was born in Ross, Herefordshire, England, around 1848.  He worked as a photographer in England before immigrating to the United States in November 1874, where he settled in the Denver area.  He was the junior partner in the photographic firm of Smallwood & Ball.  In 1876, he opened his own gallery in Golden, Colorado, specializing in stereoviews.  He exhibited his views at Boulder’s Mineral and Agricultural Fair of 1877.

Green Lake stereo
George Ball, photographer. Green Lake, Georgetown, Colorado, circa 1876.  Albumen silver stereoview.  History Colorado, accession number 84.192.8.

By 1878, he was a popular resident of Golden, operating a lunch stand at the railroad depot.  He organized a shooting club in the city and served as its president.  Ball spent four months on a survey party for the southern portion of the Denver & Rio Grande railroad.  

On January 18, 1881, the desirable bachelor married Miss J. M. A. Pearlburg in Golden.  In July 1882, he sold his lunch counter and moved to a ranch in Middle Park, Colorado with his wife.  The couple often wintered in Golden.  
However, in the summer of 1886, George Ball’s life took an unexpected turn. Word from England revealed that while George had been living as a single man in the United States, he had a wife and three children in England.  After George stopped writing home, his British wife assumed he had died in the United States. She took action to find him.  In early 1886, an affidavit taken before a United States consul in Leeds, England, made by Elizabeth Ball, provided the details of their marriage.

The press reported that he could be arrested for bigamy or have a divorce brought against him by one or both of his wives.  But, about two years later, George Ball surfaced in Alameda, California, as a photographer.  He made portraits and a rare series of stereoviews with the mount “The New Series of Pacific Coast Views.”

In the fall of 1897, he left the Bay Area and headed to Sawyer’s Bay in Siskiyou County, California, where he had a placer claim.  Further details about his life have not been uncovered.

Thank you to:  W. G. Eloe;  Krista N. Hanley;  Jori Johnston and Aaron Marcus, History Colorado; and Beverly W. Brannan.

 

Arthur J. Stephens, Photographer and Poet

Arthur J. Stephens was born in Juneau, Wisconsin around 1867 to Isham Stephens and Susan H. Rowland Stephens.  In the 1870s, the family moved to Iowa, where Arthur attended college.  In 1890, he settled in Paonia, Colorado and married Lela Minniette Wade later that year.  Stephens operated a photography gallery in Montrose, Colorado in 1891.  He continued business in Paonia, Colorado until 1896, when he moved to Pomona, California.

Stephens
J. A. Stephens, photographer. Portrait of an unidentified man, 1891. History Colorado, accession number 2014.137.56

Stephens continued to operate photography studios in southern California for his entire life, with studios in Pomona, San Diego, and Los Angeles. He also wrote poetry and published poems in local newspapers. In 1924 he released a collection of poems called The Bells of San Gabriel.  Arthur J. Stephens died in January 1930 and is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

The Pageant by A. J. Stephens                                                                               The Glory of Nature beneath a California sun,
And flowers and beauty combined with the strength
Of young,lusty manhood all welded into one,
Made a pageant of wonder many miles in length,
While the blue sky above looked benignly down
On the radiant splendor perched high on youth’s crown.


There were maids that stood for ripened wheat;
Others that swayed like the swell of the ocean;
Some that danced like nymphs on tireless feet;
While hundreds waved garlands in a wave of motion,
Weaving and circling in lines true and long,
All vibrant with life and–six thousand strong.


The far frozen north and the hills of old Spain
With the  East and the West were mated and blended,
Till by magic formation was born a rare strain
Only found in California–may it never be ended.
O this land of romance, of flowers and gold,
Fires the heart with a thrill that never grows old!


Sweet maids of summer, young men and strong!
Your day of real effort is yet to dawn;
Here’s hoping success to your labor and song
While the pageant of life sweeps on and on.

Poem reproduced in the Los Angeles Evening Express, June 8, 1915, page 14, column 6

Thank you to Elena Jones, Digitization Assistant, History Colorado for providing the scan for this post.