What’s Happening in This Century Old Photo?

Another glass plate negative, another small mystery

This photo is from a batch of glass plate negatives I received as a gift and which I wrote about in my last post. They came from the estate of “The Sea Captain" in Northern Wisconsin, and the photos appear to be about a century old.

In this photo, some kind of event along the water must be about to happen because people appear to be gathering and waiting around.

Let’s take a look:

There appear to be several women and a child on the riverbank, lower left.

In the center, a large gathering of people look down toward the water. They all appear to be nicely dressed. There are some hands on hips in the crowd.

Impatience perhaps?

Are they waiting for a boat? Let’s look really close here.