If you go to an internet search engine, and type in “M C G Kimball” — you will get results similar to those I have just checked, over 1600 results, almost all of them to the photographer in Concord New Hampshire. But wait a minute … there never was a photographer named M C G Kimball in Concord.
Many members of the Kimball clan became photographers. The first, it would appear, was William Hazen Kimball, who learned the trade in 1844. By 1850 he was joined by Joseph L Kimball, probably his brother, who was a year or two older than William according the census records. Joseph named one of his sons William H Kimball. It was William Hazen Kimball, however, who started the photographic dynasty, as his three eldest sons all took up the business, Richard H (the eldest), Willis G, and Howard A. Howard, born about 1845, was the only one whose birthplace is listed as Pennsylvania, the rest were born in New Hampshire. William may have taken his family to Philadelphia when he decided to learn the daguerrian arts.
All records from 1860 on (when he was 17 year old music student) list Willis with two middle initials, Willis G C Kimball. In that year, the William Hazen Kimball family was living in Franklin New Hampshire, and William was listed as a Photographist. The eldest son, Richard, had stayed behind in Concord, where he is listed as an Ambrotypist, and living in a residential hotel. William’s brother Joseph was living in Nashua New Hampshire, and listed a Daguerreian.
During the Civil War Willis joined up, and by 1865 held the post of Captain in the 18th New Hampshire. He married Ella Lois Gove probably just before entering the army.
By 1870, William and family were back in Concord, and operating a photo gallery. Son Howard is listed as a photographer, and living with is parents. Willis, now in his mid-20s, is a photographer in Concord too, probably in his father’s studio. His second son is named Richard, after his brother who is no longer listed anywhere nearby, and may have been deceased. Joseph Kimball has given up photography, and is a farmer in Zeandale Kansas.
Sometime before 1880, Willis took over the photo studio, and his father went to work as a librarian in the state library. Howard continued working as a photographer in Concord, specializing in stereo views. He may have had an arrangement with Willis to print the stereos in his darkroom.
It was in the late 1870s or very early 1880s that our problem with the alleged M G C Kimball began, as Willis used this imprint on the back of his photographs:
W G C Kimball of Concord NH imprint
That poorly chosen font design is doubtless the cause of all subsequent confusion. It does look like M G C Kimball, does it not? Unless you look very closely, and even then there is room for doubt. But wait, that imprint has a monogram!
People often ignore monograms, but they are in important clue to photographer identity. A great many imprints have just the photographers surname. When a monogram is present, it is usually possible to distinguish between photographers of the same surname, based on the initials. If the monogram is well formed, it is even possible to get the initials in the correct order, though sometimes they are poorly done, and misleading regarding initial order. Let’s decipher this monogram and see what we get:
Well that clears that up. No doubt about it, you could put them in a different order, the those are the letters there. W G backward-C K. Reversing a letter is not unknown, but it is fairly unusual — probably due to the similarity with the G and the fact that this monogram had to accommodate four initials instead of the typical three.
There was no M G C Kimball. Myron H is the only M Kimball I found who was a photographer, and there is no evidence he worked in New Hampshire, let alone Concord. The monogram proves that this imprint, which resembles M G C Kimball, belonged to Willis G C Kimball.
Willis continued to be listed as a photographer in Concord through the 1910 census. Howard is still listed as a photographer in 1920 — when he would have been 75, though he is only shown as 70 on that census. And M G C Kimball? Well, he never existed. I’m sure of it.
W G C Kimball
