My passion for WWI Vermont material is endless and I make every effort to track down unique, original photos and objects related to Vermonters in the Great War. It’s not easy to find and often comes at a price; 26th Division material is popular with French collectors and fetches a high price when purchased on eBay. In this case, I was able to purchase a studio photo of a 102nd Field Artillery Vermonter of Battery A . Curtis J. Sawyer was born in Middlebury, VT on September 13th, 1893 – nearly 120 years ago!
He worked at hotels most of his life, having worked at Clark’s Hotel in Boston in 1917 when he registered for the draft. Previously he served as a clerk for City Hall in Barre, VT – not far from where I work! He started his career early at the age of 17 (at least) and worked as a clerk and hotel man unit his death. He is listed as being tall with a slender complextion with blue eyes and brown hair. He lived nearly 90 years and died in 1980 in Arlington, MA – not far from Boston.
This portrait photo recently arrived from an eBay dealer in New Hampshire and my research bug is in full throttle. The photo was taken at the Burnham Photo Studio in Burlington, VT in 1917 and depicts a 1st Vermont Infantry Regiment Captain posing for the camera. I’ve seen similar shots of other officers taken at the same studio. Not much to go on in terms of an identification, but I feel that a little hard work will pay off. I should be able to narrow down all the captains in the 1st VT and work from there. Most officers would have their portraits listed in unit histories, so my journey may take me in search of obscure tomes. All the more fun!
Here’s the breakdown of the distribution from the 1st Vermont Infantry Regiment:
101st Ammunition Train, 26th Division
1 Major, 6 Captains, 3 First Lieutenants, 3 Second Lieutenants, 700 Enlisted Men
101st Machine Gun Battalion, 26th Division
2 First Lieutenants, 2 Second Lieutenants, 197 Enlisted Men
102nd Machine Gun Battalion, 26th Division
1 First Lieutenant, 2 Second Lieutenants, 212 Enlisted Men
103rd Machine Gun Battalion, 26th Division
2 First Lieutenants, 1 Second Lieutenant, 229 Enlisted Men
With this info in hand, I’ve been able to narrow down our sitter as a Captain who is most likely an officer with the 101st Ammunition Train of the 26th Division. I’ve located a list of the captains of the 1st VT who were transferred to the 101st Ammo Train:
Captain Charles E. Pell, Co. B, St.Albans
Captain Haroll M. Howe, Co.F, Northfield
Captain Dowe E. McMath, Co.H, Montpelier
Captain William N. Hudson, Co.M, Burlington
Captain Richard T. Corey, Co.L, Newport
Captain John L. Shanley, Co.G, Winooski
Our sitter is one of the above-listed men. Now to get down to some ancestry.com research……………..
I started with Captain Pell and quickly found a portrait of him. His long ear lobes are quite distinct and are not a match for our sitter.
Captain Pell
Captain Howe was next and I was able to find a shot from his 1911 Norwich University year book. Not sure on the ID, so I will continue to search……..
Captain Howe
Next step – locate a copy of the 101st Ammunition Train unit history. Hopefully officer photos are listed!
WWI Photos of Vermonters are hard to find and I continually search for superlative examples at flea markets and yard sales. This past May I was lucky enough to encounter a Vermonter dealer at a Massachusetts flea market. Low and behold, the seller had a fantastic image of a WWI Vermonter for sale! Herbert L. French is identified as being from Stratton, VT and as being a member of the 307th Field Artillery of the 78th Division.
I always try to pick up groupings of WWII color slides whenever possible, but they are incredibly expensive. I don’t want to say what I paid for these slides, but they weren’t cheap! This small selection of slides comes from the WWII 35mm slide collection of a fighter pilot who spent some time on Saipan and shot some incredible images of the things he witnessed while on the island. In this set we wee a DUKW of the 2nd Marine Division complete with painted duck logo, serial codes, and prisoners/laborers in the back. A rare color glimpse into the paint schemes and battle-wear of a wartime DUKW. I would love to find more info on the unit, but don’t know where to start!
One of the hardest parts of collecting WWI panoramic photography is presenting it in a manner that allows for many people to view it. Each of my scanned examples takes at least an hour to scan in sections, and then digitally splice together. Here is a particularly good example from H Company of the 115th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division. Note the Native American soldier as well as two soldiers wearing the ribbon for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). Sorry about the large file size.
This photo was made into a giant panoramic painting!
I actually was able to do some research on Company H of the 115th and found some info on a few members that I was able to identify in the photo.
Robert S. Landstreet
Robert S. Landstreet
Place of Birth: Maryland, Baltimore
Home of record: Baltimore Maryland
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to First Lieutenant (Infantry) Robert S. Landstreet, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 115th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, A.E.F., near Bois-de-Consenvoye and Bois-de-la Grande Montague, France, October 8 – 16, 1918. On October 8 First Lieutenant Landstreet led his platoon through machine-gun and rifle fire in an advance which resulted in the capture of 300 prisoners and 12 machine-guns. On the morning of October 16 lie volunteered, with one sergeant, and straightened out the line of an adjacent unit. His movements were under constant machine-gun fire, and so close to the enemy that he, with his sergeant, captured two prisoners while accomplishing their mission.
Hugh P. McGainey
Place of Birth: Maryland, Baltimore
Home of record: Baltimore Maryland
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Sergeant Hugh P. McGainey (ASN: 1285511), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 115th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, A.E.F., near Verdun, France, October 8 – 15, 1918. In the Bois-de-Consenvoye, east of the Meuse, Sergeant McGainey, in command of his platoon, led his men, under heavy machine-gun fire, and captured approximately 500 prisoners, three fieldpieces, and many machine-guns. On October 15 he voluntarily exposed himself to warn his men against gas, and was wounded by shrapnel. He refused to go to the hospital until ordered to do so by the medical officer.
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 3 (1919)
Company H, 115th Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Verdun, France, October 17th, 1918. In the Bose de Consenvoye, east of the Meuse, Pvt. De Berdaninis, acting in the capacity of a runner, carried three successive messages through heavy barrage of both own own and the enemy’s artillery, traversing a patch where two men had previously been killed by the same barrage.
One of my favorite neighbors growing up was a member of the 31st Dixie Division and always took time to tell me about his experiences during the war. As I grew older, he told me some of the more intense stories of his time on Mindanao and of his being wounded while attacking a Japanese airport. Those memories have always stuck with me, and with those memories come an attachment to photographs from the 31st Division. It’s one of the hardest divisions to find on eBay and I was especially excited to find this set of 8 images listed as “(8) Vintage WWII photos / Happy American GI Soldiers with Names – Old Snapshots”.
My WWII patch radar went off when I recognized a portion of a 31st Division patch in one of the shots. I did quick searches on each of the soldiers and found a website for Mr. Fred B. Kearney of Kokomo, Indiana. The name matched with the town on the reverse of the photo and the writeup mentioned his service with the 31st Signal Company of the 31st Division during WWII. Bingo, my hunch was correct that this group was a portrait collection of soldiers of the Dixie Division.
Company members identified in the images include:
Fred Kearney of Kokomo, Indiana
Fred Kearney in 1944
Jack Parsons of 905 Kramer Ave, Lawrenceburg, TN
Joseph Kalmiski (sp) of 26 Willow Street, Plymouth, PA
Edwin Wilson of Oakwood, MO
“Shaw” of 220 N. Lewis Street, Staunton, VA
Merrell Warren of Box 84 Bowdon, GA
Eugene W. Carroll (identified through draft records) of 3140 Long Blvd., Nashville, TN
It’s not often that I’m able to link an amateur still photograph with a professional moving film, but I’ve been able to do it here. In this particularly crisp shot, a member of the Anti-Tank Company of the 222nd Infantry Regiment snapped a shot of a group of Munich city officials and policemen surrendering in the main center of Munich. I thoroughly researched this set of images and was able to track down living members of the Company who remember the events in the images. A rare opportunity!
Please skip ahead to 00:44 to view the quick clip of this scene. Trucks of the 222nd Anti-Tank company can be seen escorting thousands of German POW’s in the next scene. I’ve included a screengrab for those of you who can’t view the video. The film was shot by Sgt. Fred Bornet, a well-known combat photographer who made recent news when he gave an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered in 2004. Please check out this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1914938
One of my favorite WWII color slide groupings was shot by a US Engineer who was stationed in Berlin at the end of the war. Quite the shutter bug, he was able to track down German Agfa color film and shoot some of the scenery around Berlin. In one image, Captain Smith captures a brisk October, 1945 morning on Curtiusstraße in Berlin. An intrepid researcher was able to track down the original location using information from the store signs. Special thanks to Berliner Niko Rollmann for reshooting the image for me.
Followers of this blog know that I love to identify WWI photographs using obscure bits of information to track down census and military records. In this case, I purchased a series of three postcards on eBay with no solid identification in hand. When the postcards arrived, I realized that I had a slight chance to identifying the Marine. His hat is sporting a Marine Corps EGA insignia as well as some unit designation. 13 M identifies him as being in Company M of the 13th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Division. Included with the photo was a postcard note sent to a loved one when he returned from overseas service.
The unknown Marine scribbled his first name and middle and last initials. Evald A J. He also sent the postcard to a Mrs. C F Poulson of Idaho Falls, Idaho. A quick census search for a C Poulson of Idaho Falls brought up a record for a Mr. Christian Poulson and a Esther A. Poulson. My gut instinct told me that he was likely sending the card to his sister to announce his arrival back home in the states, so I did a series of census searches to find some clues………
Sister-in-Law
The 1910 US Census record for Esther and Christian Poulson show a mystery resident. Ms. Ebba Johnson is listed as being a sister-in-law who happened to be living with the couple in 1910. Bingo! Now I have a last name to research for Esther. I quickly found the 1900 census record for Esther and Ebba………..
Bingo! Evald Johnson is listed as a brother to both Esther and Ebba. The mystery is solved! Now to confirm his service with the 13th Marine Regiment.
I easily tracked down his WWI draft card and matched up the signature with the postcard. A perfect match.
WWI Draft Card Evald A. Johnson
From here I had a hunch to track down the Marine Corps muster role for Company M of the 13th Marine Regiment. Another solid hit.
Marine Register
And to top it all off, I did a newspaper search for the Idaho area in 1919. With some luck I found a brief article mentioning his return and his service with the Marines.
“They have come back bigger and better men than when they went away and have taken up their work with the Register and filling their places with credit. The three men are Evald A. Johnson, who has been with the Register for some fifteen years, and who resigned the position of foreman to enter the service, enlisting in the marines, going to France, where he put in abmout one years of service.”
Sometimes it takes a good bit of time to lock down the identity of the sitter in a photograph. I wouldn’t be able to do it without the help of dozens of research friends and an equal number of archive websites. With that said, I was able to purchase, research and identify and post a positive identification of a recent eBay purchase! It’s not an easy endeavor, but it’s something that will be worthwhile at some point in the future.
Russell Studio Portrait
Backside of the RPPC
What are we working with for an identification? The soldier has a definite first name of Russell and is cousins with a male named Forrest Martin of Watson, Illionois in 1919. Given the intro and body wording, he’s likely to be close to the recipient.
I started by researching the recipient, Forrest Martin, and found his 1900 census entry:
1910 Census Forrest Martin
From here I decided to research his mother and father in search of a series of siblings to track down as aunts and uncles to Russell. An aunt or uncle would produce a cousin which should provide me with the proper identification for the 33rd Division soldier!
After over an hour of searching (tiring for sure) I was able to identify his mother’s sister as a Laura A. Humes. Laura had a son named Russell in 1897! When I clicked on his military burial record it all came together. Please keep in mind that this took hours of research!
Forrest’s Aunt Laura
Russell Humes’ Burial Card
Russell Humes, first cousin of Forrest Humes (recipient of the postcard), was in Company G of the 130th Infantry Regiment of the 33rd Division in WWI. He achieved the rank of Corporal and was wounded in action at some point during his service. His portrait photo was taken in 1919 long after his wounding. He passed away on 11-5-1957 at the age of 61.
Portraits of War 