Plot thickens in mystery of rare N.L. photographs, as search for unknown photographer continues
Journey to find photographer turns up answers rooted in religion
A series of rare photographs of rural Newfoundland were discovered in rural Ontario, but their true origins have opened up a bit of a mystery.
The fading prints depict candid scenes of how people lived in outport Newfoundland more than a century ago. They were found in a small antique shop in Elmvale, Ont., thousands of kilometres from where they were captured.
Video producer Mark Cumby and I went on an adventure to connect these images with the people and places in them. We discovered the exact locations where some of the photos were taken, and found the great-granddaughter of one of the couples who were photographed.
But some questions remain. For instance, who took the pictures? Why was the photographer in Newfoundland? How did the images end up in Ontario, far from home?
We found answers, and they are rooted in religion.
Pieces of the same puzzle
I've been digging into these mysterious photographs for a while, and after writing a feature story about them, I received dozens of emails from people enthralled with the classic faces and landscapes in the pictures, as well as their unknown origins.
I was told Memorial University's folklore and language archive also has a set of Newfoundland stereoscope cards. So, I started digging again.
Cumby and I met with head archivist Pauline Cox to compare our collections. As we flipped through the stacks of fragile cards, we discovered we had a handful of duplicates.
We each had an image of an older gentleman smiling candidly at the camera, as he crouches down in front of a pile of capelin. One word, "capelin," is written in pen on the back of the image that was found in the Ontario antique shop.
The caption on the back of Memorial University's version of the photograph includes much more information, including the name of the man photographed: Fred Thistle.
"There's this whole caption that says 'drying capelin,'" says Cox, reading a typewritten message pasted on the back of the stereoscope card.
"'This old fisherman is a type of the better class of Newfoundland fishermen. He is too old to do the work of catching fish from the small boats when the danger from storms and exposure is so great. But he's energetic enough for this light task.'"
We found other duplicates, but a lot of the photos in our respective collections are different. So, we kept looking for clues.
I flipped over one of the cards from the antique shop, and discovered it has "Series 29B" and a corresponding number printed in the top left corner. I started turning more photos around, and found a few other cards in our collection that are labelled as being part of the same series.
Cox flipped over Memorial University's cards. Some of them also have "Series 29B" printed in the same font, in the top left corner.
I look at a picture of goats in my stack labelled "Series 29B, no. 198." Cox has two pictures of goats, labelled "Series 29B, no. 196" and "Series 29B, no. 197."
"We have pieces of the same puzzle," said Cox with a laugh.
Finding the photographer
Memorial University's collection of stereoscope images came from the United Church of Canada Archives in Toronto, says Cox.
Forty-five stereoscope cards were transferred to the university in November 1985, and Cox believes they are listed in their records as being copies, not originals.
In the master folder, there's a lot of information about a man named Frederick Clark Stephenson. Cox says he was the secretary responsible for overseeing young people's and foreign missions' groups for the Methodist and United Church.
The United Church has a Stephenson family fonds, with a biography that says Stephenson was the "first and only secretary of the Young People's Forward Movement for Missions, 1906 to 1925."
We know the photographs were taken around the end of the 19th century to the early 20th century. We also know that a lot of the stereoscope photographs of Newfoundland feature churches.
Cox finds a stereoscope card that says Stephenson and his wife visited Newfoundland and Labrador "when starting the summer school movement in Newfoundland" in 1911.
"Of course at the time it was before Confederation, so Newfoundland and Labrador would've been a foreign land," she said.
Could Stephenson be the photographer? Maybe, says Cox. But I wanted to know for sure.
Who was behind the lens?
I hopped on a video call with Christopher Hogendoorn, the United Church's general council archivist, who looked into Stephenson and the stereoscope photos for us.
He told me that the church archives has hundreds of stereoscope photos from across the country and the world. He knows they have 40 stereoscope photographs of Newfoundland, but he says there's no information about where the pictures came from or in what context.
What they do know is that they were collected by Stephenson. Was he the man behind the lens? According to Hogendoorn, probably not.
Hogendoorn found a letter Stephenson wrote near the end of his life, which summarized how he got involved in the youth missionary movement.
Stephenson was in medical school around the end of the 19th century, and to make money, he worked as an agent with Underwood & Underwood — a producer and distributor of stereoscopic images.
He writes that he'd send photographers across the country to take photographs, which he'd then sell commercially.
Selling these photos earned Stephenson more than enough money to pay his way through school. He stopped working for the company in 1902 once he was given a paid job with the missionary movement.
"Maybe he said to the photographer, you know … 'Don't just get scenes of country life or fishermen' or something like that," said Hogendoorn. "'Make sure you pick up on larger things, the Methodist church, the Catholic churches."
'I think they're golden'
Hogendoorn says Stephenson would create magic lantern glass slide shows, the predecessor of the slide projector, and advertise them in catalogues. He'd mail the slides to missionaries, churches or youth groups for infotainment sessions, and Hogendoorn says some of the slides attributed to Stephenson's collections were made by missionaries in the field.
Perhaps the Newfoundland stereoscope photos, some of which we discovered have a series number on the back, are evidence he did the same with stereoscope cards.
"Maybe he bought five or six sets and they would be mailed out, and maybe they didn't send a return envelope," he said. "Maybe some of these didn't get mailed back, and that's kind of how they ended up all over the place."
We know that Stephenson was likely the mastermind behind the photographs, but a lot is still up in the air, including who the photographer is.
What we do know is these photos offer a rare glimpse into a moment of Newfoundland's past. They show candid scenes of people long gone, and rural landscapes that haven't changed.
Sometimes, a mystery can be satisfying even if it remains a mystery.
"It's a connection to the past," said Cox. "We could probably only imagine how they might have lived, but this actually shows what their life was like at that time."
"They're golden. I think they're golden."
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