40
●
(WATER SYSTEM—WEST BOYLSTON, MASSACHUSETTS)
Album depicting the picturesque town of West Boylston, MA “as the town appeared before the
occupation of the metropolitan water works system.” A comprehensive visual record of 100
photographs depicting this charming hamlet before the reservoir system was installed (in 1905) and
irrevocably changed the town.With a host of images of this lovely setting (with topographic scenes
of the mountains in the distance), beautiful waterways with stone bridges, stately residences of
notable townspeople, street scenes, the Worcester County Training School and other institutions
(including the Congregationalist and Baptist Churches, Odd Fellows Hall, and the local high school),
and winter and summer scenes of people at play. Silver prints, 4
3
/
4
x6
3
/
4
inches (12.1x17.1 cm.), each
with a handwritten caption, in black ink, below the photograph. Small 4to, leatherette, worn;
contents clean. Circa 1900
[400/600]
39
●
(AMERICANVICTORIANA)
Victorian-era album with more than 100 photographs of an extended family (the Barretts, Brewers, and
Blackmans) and their very privileged lifestyle, with handsome group portraits of family members, and
fun images of their pudgy pug, gleaming horses, and hard-working farm animals.The pictures were shot
in the summer and winter, and record occasions where members of this big family gathered and posed.
There are happy children, young women in long white dresses, and men sporting plenty of facial hair.
Their well-loved animals, including the thoroughbreds, each have a proper name: meet Dixie, Caesar,
Erie, Paul, Gypsy, Dan, andVictor; the 18-month old bull is identified as Snippit.Albumen prints, each
is 4
1
/
2
x6 inches (11.4x15.2 cm.), many with notations, in pencil, below the print. Folio, cloth, backstrip
perished, front cover nearly detached; the prints are uniformly very rich. 1885-1886
[1,200/1,800]
39
40
