Washington Crossing Card Collectors Club Dispatch #268, April 1995
P.O. Box 39 Washington Crossing, PA 18977 - WC4
LINFORD R. CRAVEN, REAL PHOTO POSTCARD
VIEWS OF YARDLEY, PA
By Lawrence Hale
Linford R. Craven (1858-1915) was a well known, turn-of-the century, Doylestown (Bucks County, PA) photographer. He started photography work in 1883 in connection with Samuel F. Dubois. Dubois was a respected Doylestown portrait painter, who had expanded into photography and is credited with introducing the first Daguerreotype in Doylestown. Linford Craven married Fannie Harper Johnson in Doylestown in 1883. He lived until 1915 and she until 1950. By 1887 he was operating out of a studio, which he assembled at the corner of West State and Court Streets. By 1902 he had replaced the earlier studio with a large house and attached modern studio on the same corner, which was described in a county wide publication as follows:
"Well known place of art, being located here for five years. This gentleman does an excellent business derived from the town and its neighboring country and occupies a fine studio in which may at all times be seen numerous specimens of his artistic talent framed and exposed for public admiration. Fine work of all kinds, including cabinets, crayons, oil paintings, pastels and is done for moderate prices, satisfaction being guaranteed in all cases, while old pictures are copied and made perfect and lifelike renewed, and enlarged to any desirable size. Mr. Craven is an expert and skillful artist, in love with his profession, whose untiring efforts merit complete success, and is a native of Bucks Co."
During this period he produced 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" cabinet cards, as well as his share of studio photos. Craven published a very fine booklet for the Philadelphia & Easton Railway with post card scenes all along the route including one at Willow Grove Park titled "MAXIM CAPTIVE FL YING MACHINE-Designed by the inventor of the Maxim Gun." (If anyone finds this card, please
let me know!). Under a view of his studio contained in the booklet, the caption says "Photograph Gallery of Linford R. Craven, Doylestown. Photographs in this Booklet by Craven."
Craven advertised in The Court Gazette dated September 12, 1888:
"L.R. CRAVEN'S Studio for Fine Work, only ten minutes to wait and you can have your photos taken. Pictures Copied and Renewed, Fine Crayons, Life Size. Always good work. Cor. State and Clinton Streets, Doylestown."
The earliest Craven post card found by the author is a real photo card postmarked December 23, 1903. Craven produced several different types of printed cards mostly of Doylestown during the years 1906 and 1907. Some are the color gray and some are blue; some are numbered and some are unnumbered; some have the Craven imprint and some do not. There are also various combinations of the above.
In Yardley there is a special printed series of cards also published in 1906, at least some of which are definitely Craven images, but there is no Craven imprint and the backs are different from anything that was published in Doylestown.
Craven was one of the early photographers who went around taking pictures of such mundane subjects as grist mills, water wheels, interior views of power stations, construction gangs, store fronts, working people, trolleys, fire stations, bank buildings, bridges, creeks, dams, lakes, family dwellings, parades, picnics, camp sites, and lots of canal views.
Craven is perhaps best known among a small group of avid Bucks County collectors for his many real photo post card views of the numerous villages in the county. Craven without question took the greatest number of photographs for post cards in Doylestown; Yardley probably placed second; Point Pleasant probably placed third. But he also worked in Chalfont, Fountainville, Dyerstown, Plumsteadville, Gardenville, Pipersville, Ottsville, Harrow, Tohickon, Tinicum, Bucksville, Ferndale, Upper Black Eddy, Durham Furnace, Riegelsville, Narrowsville, Mechanicsville, Edison, Holland, Newtown, Wrightstown. Other collectors have certainly found additional locations not included in the above list. He did occasionally cross the river into New Jersey, because I have his cards from Finesville and Carpentersville. On the western side, he occasionally photographed villages in neighboring Montgomery County. He made it at least half way across the Delaware River bridge at Yardley because I have a view taken from the bridge looking back at the Swan Hotel (Fig.1).
Craven often produced many editions of his various views. Sometimes early versions are faded, and subsequent editions of the same image are much improved. Later editions are also improved by cropping to get rid of the unwanted parts. For example, a person who is standing on the edge of the picture looking out of the picture has been eliminated by shifting the negative slightly to the left in the contact printer. Obviously his negatives must have been somewhat larger than standard post card size. Sometimes Craven made two which appear to overlap. By placing the two cards side by side you get a panoramic view.
Identifying cards without the Craven imprint is based on the following combination of clues, listed here in order of importance: 1) name of village, 2) handwriting or printing style, 3) type of back, 4) date of postmark (1903-1915+). Once a Craven image is identified, this provides an opportunity of expanding your definition to include possible other identifying characteristics such as a back not previously thought to have ever been used by Craven. After he died some Craven images appeared on a few cards published by Sanders & Sauers of Doylestown who also used Craven imprinted covers on some of their studio photographs. It appears that they may have moved into the Craven Studio in 1915 or maybe purchased some of his materials.
It appears that in many instances photographers in those days respected each other's territories. This may explain why there are possibly 175 Craven post card views of Yardley, but practically none by any other photographer. Whereas in Morrisville, there are real photo cards by William Jackson Pope, but none that I know of by Craven. In Newtown there are a lot of Cravens, but not a disrespectful number (Randall was their photographer who as far as I know didn't do cards). In Doylestown, there may be 500 Cravens, but only a limited number from Miss Clay's Studio (She should have done more) and not an excessive number of views by out-of-town photographers. In Chalfont, where there were out-of-town photographers, there were I’m only guessing... thirty or thirty-five Cravens. One of the Chalfont cards shows what is undoubtedly Craven's horse and buggy pulled up to the curb as though hastily parked on an angle.
When Craven came to Yardley he photographed every conceivable subject from one end of town to the other. He took the earliest photographs known to exist of today's very popular bungalows along the Delaware River, so far I've found five bungalow cards. A good account of the bungalows by Vince Profy, local historian, can be found in the Yardley News of September 14, 1989. Yardley was a resort town. The following is a sample of typical advertising by the railroad:
"YARDLEY;PA. Thirty miles from Philadelphia. Fare... Excursion, $1.07... A handsome little town on the west bank of the River Delaware, with regularly laid out streets and pretty residences overlooking the broad river and far-stretching valley. There are pleasant walks and drives, excellent boating, bathing and fishing, good spring water and no malaria. "
Craven photographed all the major features of Yardley, i.e. the river, the railroad, the bridges, the canal, the mill, the stores, the bleachery, the school, the camp, the trolley. He photographed the streets, the houses, the lake, the ducks, the mules, and people at work. He photographed White's Lake constructed by the Railroad in 1876 (Fig. 2) outside one end of town... all the way to the Duck Farm on William Yardley's Prospect Farm C. 1710 outside the opposite end of town, and everything in between. I'm still looking for a card showing White's Creek at the sluice which is up on the golf course, and of the dam and hydraulic works behind Lake Af1on (I doubt Craven would have missed it). Of particular interest to us was his photo on river road (at the possible site of the original Ferry Landing), from which vantage point he photographed a steam locomotive crossing the bridge (Fig. 3). He then went 450 feet downriver and photographed the Belville Home (Ferry Tavern c.1722) (Fig. 4... note the low windows on the left side). He caught the railroad bridge construction crew on top of the new bridge in 1912 (Fig. 5). He made many cards showing the canal (Figs. 6,7,8). He took as many as 12 views in the vicinity of the main intersection (Fig. 9), and photographed the Bleaching Mill (Fig. 10).
The first person in our times to recognize that a large number of real photo postcards of Yardley existed was Florence White of Yardley who gave her talk to the Post Card Club in 1980; Washington's Dispatch No.85. Betty Davis was the first person to write him up; The Journal of the Bucks County Historical Society, Mercer Mosaic, Volume 1, Number 1, May/June 1984. I hope that my talk revealed the true nature of his work. We are still many years away from seeing his work completely organized and published.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATED CRAVEN CARDS
1. Swan Hotel from the bridge
2. White's Lake constructed by the Railroad Co.
3. Steam locomotive crossing Delaware River Bridge
4. Belville Home, the c. 1722 Ferry Tavern
5. Bridge Construction 1912
6. Canal showing empty canal boat heading toward Easton, note the old railroad bridge in the upper background
7. Same location as figure 6, but looking downstream
8. Canal taken from Afton Avenue Bridge
9. Corner of Main St. & Afton Ave.
10. Cold Spring Bleachery
These ten cards have six different photographic back designs.