The 1889 Tintypes: Noah Ezekiel and Ruthie Ezekiel

Tintype of Noah Ezekiel and Ruthie Ezekiel. 1889.
Courtesy of the Deakin Archives, Mifflin University.

Our online exhibition returns to the Deakin Archives as we present our next photograph from 1889. In doing so, we introduce two very important and significant individuals from the histories here chronicled.  Our fourth featured tintype showcases Noah Ezekiel and his sister Ruthie Ezekiel.

Noah and Ruthie were born into slavery in Union County, South Carolina; Noah in 1855 and Ruthie in 1857.  They and their older brother Zed were orphaned in early 1865 as General William T. Sherman was marching his Union army through the Carolinas.  The trio fled their plantation in early February of that year and found themselves in nearby Columbia just as the city surrendered to Sherman.  During the subsequent, infamous and still controversial burning of Columbia, Noah and Ruthie became separated from Zed and fearfully assumed he had perished in the mayhem and destruction.  The pair were rescued by Union soldier Captain William Carr of the 10th Illinois Infantry and taken under his care.  They accompanied him to Chicago where he was mustered out in July of that year.

Noah and Ruthie remained in Chicago and survived largely on their own for the next eight years, adopting their late father's name Ezekiel as their surname.  Notable is that the two possessed remarkable intellects that even slavery, racism and discrimination could not suppress. Earlier in their lives they taught themselves to read with a stolen Bible, and later each became especially adept at learning skills in mathematics, mechanics and engineering.

During the summer of 1873, while working as a stagehand at Chicago's McVicker's Theatre, Noah met Magnus Maddock and his daughter Falynne.  Maddock, known famously as the European stage magician the Grande Hyperion, was performing at the theater. Noah and Ruthie immediately took to respectfully deconstructing the Maddocks' carefully and artfully created illusions, and then subsequently suggesting enhancements and designs of their own.  Taking no offense, father and daughter disregarded social conventions and invited the siblings into their repertoire where they stayed for the remainder of the Grande Hyperion's American tour.  In October, Noah and Ruthie accompanied the Maddocks back to London where they also fell under the tutelage of Berkley Vanderzee and Geoffrey Hawkins.

The exhibited tintype features older and certainly more seasoned depictions of Noah and Ruthie Ezekiel.  The photo was taken by Robert Deakin as members of the Society of the Mechanical Sun were preparing to confront Enoch Cyncad in his underground stronghold.  Behind the siblings is what appears to be a Hawkins Steam Coach. This tintype is the first and perhaps only photographic record of the vehicle.

The 1889 Tintypes: Berkley Vanderzee

Tintype of Berkley Vanderzee. 1889.
Courtesy of the Deakin Archives, Mifflin University.

Scientist and inventor Berkley Vanderzee is the subject of our second exhibition relating to the 1889 tintypes discovered as a part of the Deakin Archives.  This tintype is especially significant in that it confirms that Vanderzee did in fact lose his right arm and ultimately replaced it with a rather sophisticated æther-powered mechanical prosthesis.

"Based on numerous written accounts, we knew that Vanderzee lost his right arm in an accident that occurred in his automaton laboratory during the summer of 1885," notes Archer Bowens, Documents Archivist for the Victorian Mechanical Museum. "We had encountered some written references to experiments with æther-based replacement arms, but the tintype is the first visual confirmation of his use of an actual mechanical device."

As with the other 1889 tintypes, the photograph was taken by Robert Deakin as members of the Society of the Mechanical Sun were preparing to confront Enoch Cyncad in his underground stronghold.  The image shows Vanderzee standing near two combat modified IA Æther Collectors.  The intelligent automations were originally created by Vanderzee in the early 1880s for the purpose of extracting æther from remote and inaccessible deposits in caverns and catacombs deep beneath London. They appear to have been retrofitted with æther-powered particle beam cannons.

The 1889 Tintypes: Geoffrey Hawkins

Tintype of Geoffrey Hawkins. 1889.

Courtesy of the Deakin Archives, Mifflin University.

After a number of recent 20th century explorations, we return to the 19th century to showcase items from the Deakin Archive.  Archive curator Matthew Alexander has provided us with a series of photographic tintypes that date to the summer of 1889. The images prominently feature members of the Society of the Mechanical Sun as they prepare to confront Enoch Cyncad in his underground stronghold.

A tintype was an early photographic process by which an image was produced by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer.  The metal sheet then provided support for the resulting emulsion.  Tintypes were widely used during the 1860s and 1870s and remained in use well into the early 20th century.  The format became especially popular due to its portability and ease of use in settings beyond a normal indoor studio.

The 1889 tintypes discovered in the Deakin Archive were likely created by Robert Deakin.  Our first featured image in the series presents Geoffrey Hawkins as he navigates an underground tunnel.  He is clad in a kind of improvised battle outfit and carrying a rifle-type weapon.  Devon Gillroy, Firearms Curator for the Victorian Mechanical Museum, clarifies, "Hawkins is armed with a æther-modified blunderbuss which could blow a hole in the side of a brick building.  In the underground setting, he likely used it for demolition in addition to assault and defense."

Collection Item 98: Cabinet Card of Shannon Kennicot Pepper and Brent Hawkins Pepper

We have discovered little so far within the Hawkins Strongbox that provides details of the passionate and sometimes contentious relationship between Geoffrey Hawkins and Shannon Kennicot. The two met as teenagers in their native Dixton in the late 1860s. A desultory courtship ensued over the next decade, culminating in the birth of their out-of-wedlock son Brent Hawkins, on 1 December, 1877.  Thirteen years later, mother and son posed for a photograph at Deakin Bro's studio in London. Collection Item 98 is a cabinet card of that photograph.

Item 98 has been designated as part of Lot 15: Frontier Ephemera. Robert Deakin sent the card to Geoffrey Hawkins when Hawkins was staying at the Timberjack Ranch in Nevada during the autumn of 1890. Included with the card was the following missive:

Geoffrey,

     I hope this finds you well. Young Brent asked me to send you this copy, despite his mother's objections. Your son is wise beyond his years. He may not know of the Society and the troubles with Cyncad, but he seems to truly sense you are not the devil his mother portrays you to be.  Shannon does it all to protect Brent, of this I am certain, but he will chart his own course, I am sure.

     They live comfortably as Roderick's inheritance provides for their needs. The Society endeavours to keep them safe. I hope the image cheers you as you continue to try to squelch this evil that has beset us these too many years.

                                                              Stay safe my friend,

                                                                             Robert

The note was dated 9 September 1890.

It can be assumed the Geoffrey Hawkins wanted to shield Brent and his mother from the dangers of Enoch Cyncad and thereby initiated the estrangement that Robert Deakin alludes to in the missive.

Shannon Kennicot married book publisher Roderick Pepper in 1879. Pepper in turn adopted Brent on the occasion of  the boy's fifth birthday.  Roderick Pepper died suddenly in 1888, leaving the inheritance that Deakin makes reference to. Upon reaching adulthood, Brent would join the Society of the Mechanical Sun and shortly thereafter, fight along side his father at the infamous Battle of Silver Mountain.

Item 3: The Society of the Mechanical Sun Photograph

Collection Item 3: The Society of the Mechanical Sun Photograph. 1882.

On 9 January, 1882, the Society of the Mechanical Sun was established in a private room in London's famed Scientia Club.  On that auspicious occasion, charter members Geoffrey Hawkins, Berkley Vanderzee, Falynne Hyperion and Timothy Deakin took a moment to pose for a photograph, staged by Deakin's older brother Robert.  A copy of that photograph was discovered within the Hawkins Strongbox and has been classified as Collection Item 3.  It was inscribed on the back with the aforementioned date and the notation, "My colleagues and I travel into the future every day. It is a wondrous, but sometimes dangerous place." The handwriting has been identified as that of Geoffrey Hawkins.

According to Victorian Mechanical Museum archivist Archer Bowens, the photograph is significant for other reasons beyond its four prominent human subjects.  On the table in forefront of the image is an early prototype of a Vanderzee Critical Engine, what Bowens describes as "a second generation Babbage-inspired processor constructed in 1878."  Bowens notes that, "Vanderzee refined the design and used it as the 'brain' component on nearly all of the intelligent automatons he created and built in subsequent years."  Prominent among those creations was Ian, an IA biped designed to find and retrieve æther resources in the tunnels and catacombs below London.  Ian can be seen in the background of the photograph standing next to a grandfather clock.

Also displayed on the table is a heavy stock Hawkins Æther Repulsor. Firearms Curator Devon Gillroy informs: "The Repulsor was designed by Geoffrey Hawkins and constructed at the Hawkins Industrial Laboratories in early 1881.  It was only one of its kind and Hawkins retained it in his personal arsenal for nearly two decades. It was reportedly damaged beyond repair during the Battle of Silver Mountain in 1899."

An unidentified optical instrument, likely belonging to Timothy Deakin, rests on a small table in the right background of the photograph.

A matching negative of the photograph was found in the Deakin Archive and catalogued as Negative DA1882-01.

Beyond the Strongbox: The Deakin Archive

The Deakin Bro's London studio at 127 Fulham Street.  1885.
Courtesy of the Deakin Archives, Mifflin University.

The focus of our online exhibition is most certainly the Hawkins Strongbox and the fascinating and often enigmatic items contained therein.  But what we have discovered frequently over the course of the last eight years is that there are many, many resources beyond the Strongbox that also document the lives of Geoffrey Hawkins and his associates.  After deliberation with our sponsors at the Victorian Mechanical Museum, we have decided to showcase items that, while not originating in the Strongbox, relate directly to the histories revealed and studied here thus far.

Foremost among these recent discoveries is the Deakin Archive. The archive is part of the Mifflin University Library Archives and Special Collections.  It is administered and curated by Matthew Alexander, who is a direct descendant of Timothy Deakin.

It took Alexander a number of years to trace the origins of the collection. He explains:

In October 1962, twenty-three nondescript cardboard boxes were found at an estate sale in Munhall, Pennsylvania.  The boxes were filled with an enormous number of photographic negatives, prints, daguerreotypes, cabinet cards and other miscellany that appeared to date back to the Victorian era. They were discovered by Gabriel Sherman, a librarian at the nearby Carnegie Free Library of Duquesne. Sherman almost immediately recognized the value of his discovery and transferred the boxes to a storage room in his library's basement, where he planned on cataloguing the contents.

Just mere weeks after his acquisition of the materials, Sherman died of a fatal heart attack.  He had not shared his discovery with anyone and his initial research notes on the collection were clumsily mixed into one of the boxes by indifferent library staffers.  The boxes were subsequently relocated to a remote corner of the storage rooms and forgotten.

A few years later, the library was sold to the Duquesne School District which in turn demolished the building in 1967.  Prior to its demolition, many of the library's assets were deemed unusable by the school district and were donated to the nearby Mifflin University Library System.  Unfortunately, the collection was relegated again to storage where it went unnoticed for nearly thirty years.

The boxes were rediscovered in 2007 by a Hunter Schwab, a librarian conducting an inventory of undocumented assets.  Schwab was intrigued by what he found and noticed that most of the materials were associated with the name Deakin and the Deakin Bro's Photography Studios.  By fortuitous coincidence, Schwab happened to be a close personal friend. When describing the collection contents to me, I noted to him that my maternal lineage was Deakin and that my great-great grandfather was a rather renown scientist and inventor. Scott immediately invited me to examine the materials and we quickly verified the connection to my family lineage.  I have since spent the last ten years cataloguing and digitizing the collection contents.

Alexander found Sherman's original notes and was able to piece together the chronology of events he has here described.  He discovered our online exhibition in late 2015 but was disappointed to see that it had not been updated for a number of years.  He described his new awareness of the Hawkins Strongbox as revelatory and was anxious to share his own discoveries with both myself and the researchers at the Victorian Mechanical Museum.

The collection is especially notable in that many of the photographs include notes and annotations, providing descriptive details and identifying individuals and locations.  Items date from the Victorian era to the mid-twentieth century, and feature places that stretch from Great Britain to locations scattered all across North America. Needless to say, the archive has become an invaluable asset to the Hawkins Strongbox research team.

With the Hawkins Strongbox exhibition now restored to ongoing publication, we will very soon be sharing content from the Deakin Archive, courtesy of Mifflin University Library Archive and Special Collections.

Item 47: Timothy Deakin Cabinet Card

Item 47: Cabinet Card of Timothy Deakin. Estimated date 1882-1883.

The legacy of Timothy Deakin is proving to be very tangible within the Hawkins Strongbox, as evidenced by our recent posts.  Collection Item 47 finally provides us with an image of this scientist, inventor and photographer. The item is a cabinet card portrait of Deakin produced by his own studio.

Robert Deakin, Timothy's brother, once described his younger sibling as " . . . an exemplary but often bored student."  He was considered a mechanical and engineering genius while still a teenager, and patented his first invention at age twenty.  In that context, it is not hard to understand why he was so often underwhelmed when fulfilling his more mundane academic requirements.

Charles Hawkins introduced Timothy Deakin to his older brother Geoffrey sometime during the autumn of 1877.  Charles and Timothy had become acquainted during their time together as students at the College of Science at the University of Edinburgh.  Timothy and Geoffrey became fast and close friends, sharing passions both scientific and philosophical.  Together with Berkley Vanderzee and Falynne Hyperion, they would form the nucleus of what was seemingly one the 19th century's most covert secret societies.

Item 47 is undated, but the photo is likely to have been taken around 1882-1883.  Archer Bowens notes that, "Deakin is wearing his own Model II Mechanical Spectacles which he first manufactured in 1882.  He also is wearing a Mechanical Sun brooch on his jacket lapel.  Members of the Society began sporting these brooches sometime in early 1882."

ADDENDUM:  Item 47 is part of a set of four portraits associated with the inception of the Society of the Mechanical Sun in January of 1882.  The other portraits are of Geoffrey Hawkins (Item 46), Berkley Vanderzee (Item 48) and Falynne Hyperion (Item 49).

Item 31: Deakin Bro's Trade Card with Missive

Item 31: Deakin Bro's Trade Card.  1882.

Numerous items contained within the Hawkins Strongbox bear association with Timothy Deakin and the Deakin Bro's Photography Studio.  The brothers Deakin were Robert, born in 1851; Timothy, born 1855; and the youngest John (though most often referred to as Jack), who arrived in 1860.  Parents Landry and Edyln Deakin also had two daughters, Glynnis born in 1853 and Kendra in 1857.  Tragically, both girls drowned in a boating accident during the summer of 1867.

Item 31, a trade card for the Deakin Bro's Studio, would be otherwise quite mundane if not for the enigmatic message penned across its reverse side.  The card is somewhat unusual in that it only featured printing on one side, but this did afford Timothy Deakin the space to write what appears to be a hastily composed note to Geoffrey Hawkins.

The text of the message:

Geoffrey,

I beg your forgiveness for the format and nature of this rushed missive. Word of Jack has been delivered to me this very afternoon and I fear that if I do not act swiftly I will forgo this opportunity that fate has so generously granted.

I have little doubt that this trail will take me to Cyncad, and thus should I fall into peril I wanted to leave you with some record of my impending course of action. 

I have until now spared Robert and Mother the details of this unfortunate affair.  They know only that Jack has been on extended holiday.  I trust that you will provide an explanation to them, both suitable and comforting should I not return.

                                                                                            T.

                                                                                           17 Sept. 1882

Archer Bowens, Documents Archivist for the Victorian Mechanical Museum provided these comments on Item 31:

"The Deakin Bro's trade card is part of a group of items we have classified as Lot 7 -September 1882.  It includes the trade card, a newspaper clipping, a number of sketches, and a lengthy narration written by Timothy Deakin.  These items all relate to events surrounding the disappearance of Timothy's younger brother Jack during the late summer of 1882.  I am currently transcribing the pages written by Timothy and hope to have that text available for exhibition sometime in the near future."