The Coolidge examiner., 1932-06-03

- ONE time this summer gray-haired
49, New Yorker will be setting out upon
IN a romantic journey. For William
H II. Jackson, eighty-nine-y -year-old
pioneer photographer" and at pres
ent research secretary of the ore
gOn Trail Memorial association, is
going to back-track the trail of
youth. Here is the way he told
about it recently in announcing his
plans:
About the end of June the SHOWS of the
Rocky mountains will subsde for another season
and the roads will again be passable. Then
will start out my annual trek over the Old
Trail. You know, first went the trail back
in the days of the Indians and the covered
wagons with my little mule, 'Hypo' for company
I'll use an auto this trip. 1t won't be much like
an ox-cavt for seeing the country, but it's be
some better than the train. And guess man
who could 'bullwhack' can handle a steering
wheel the Old Trail, even If he is close TO
four-score and ten. This time I shall go alone
But probably will pick up various friends along
the way folk we have interested in our
project of placing monuments and markers at the
historic spots on the Trail. Last year we placed
100 from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast
and GO more on the pony express trail of 61."
Indebted the posterity of America will be
to this association and its active gray-haired re-
search secretary for their work in marking his
toric spots on the famous highway of a west
ward-faring nation" the Oregon Trail pos
terity is even more indebted to the work which
William II. Jackson did many years ago with his
camera in preserving scenes which soon passed
away forever and for the work which he is
still doing in preserving more of those scenes
through another medium-that of brush and
canvas.
Jackson. was born in Keesvile, a little town
in the Adirondacks of New York state in 1S43
The travelling which was TO characterize his
whole life started early. for when he was Just
one year old his family moved to Georgia. They
soon returned TO New York but so strong was
the wanderlust which became inbred in young
Jackson that he refused to 90 to school after
he had finished the eighth grade. At the age
of fifteen he had only one desire and that was
TO draw and paint. He came naturally by that
ambition, for his mother was a landscape artist
and his father experimenter in the making of
daguerreotypes, the forerunners of modern
photography.
Various kinds of picture making occupied my
time for q while" says Mr.. Jackson "I made
family portraits; | painted landscapes on win
dow screens, fashion in those early days; and
painted row of big jars as part of the scenery
for play about The Forty Thieves of the Old
Arabian Nights. The chief scenic artist for the
local theaters gave me approving slap on the
bdCh AOI Luy SOOu III lLlS urSI attempt at
scene painting.
None of these beginnings brought in much
money but they were good practice. To this hit
and-miss art training added few months
work in the studio of a portrait painter which
improved my technique somewhat"
But the opening of the Civil war put an end
to this work and when Lincoln issued his call for
100000 more" Jackson Joined the Rutland Light
Guards. later entering Company X. Twelfth Yer
mont Infantry which with other troops became
the Second Vermont Brigade As soon as Jack
sons commander discovered his talent for draw
ing he was detailed to sketch maps of picket
lines along Bull Run so at the age of nineteen
he held an important and dangerous post in the
Union army After the over. Jackson
returned to his home in the Adirondacks where
for some time he was busy making photographs
of the local heroes home from the war. At that
time he earned what was considered a munif-
cent sum, S25 a week. But soon the wonder
ios. asserted itself again and he decided to go