Welcome to Hidetown- This time we are looking at a photograph circulating on the Internet, supposedly of Wild Bill Hickok.
A town to town rifling through the long-protected legacies of the American West. Texas artist and historian Russell Cushman digs for the unvarnished West beyond the popular myth, and finds meaningful lessons and useful truths- and a wagon load of deceptions- about our American pioneer heritage.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Anatomy of a Doppelganger
DOPPELGANGERS! Just a few years ago, I had never heard the word. But any collector of photographs will run into a doppelganger (a look alike) occasionally. This has become a sideline for me! Below is my struggle dealing with them as I find real photographs of historical characters... AND in fact here is my blog specifically about them: https://doppelcatcher.blogspot.com/
You can see from all of the entries below that I take western history photographs pretty seriously. As I expanded my collection, I had to devise a way (which I trusted) to make the decisions about which of my photographs were actually treasures and which were just wanna-be's. I call that trick “Quintangulation,” or just Q-5 for short, and it is a digital technique which I have come to trust in very much.
In a nutshell, Q-5 is built on the assumption that adult facial features have certain mathematical ratios which never change, especially the distance between the eyes (pupils), and between the eyes and the nostrils... and to a lesser degree the upper lip and the chin which might change a little, but also taking into account the ears and hairlines, and jaw or cheek bones if they are prominent. The weakness in this technique is that it depends on a good photograph of the person to already be extant, and from nearly the same angle. But for famous people, this requirement is usually surmountable.
This face has been marked to see how well it compared to Morgan Earp. Short of a match, it scored about 90%, similar to the photo above.
Some faces might be quite similar to a famous person, but will fail this kind of scrutiny regarding proportion. I see on Ebay that many people claim to have found and are trying to sell a rare, “important historical image,” which they have successfully run through some kind of computer facial recognition program, which now (they believe) qualifies their image to sell for millions of dollars. And yet my technique almost always says they are mere doppelgangers. I am not saying that I am smarter than a computer, but computers are only as smart as the persons operating them... and very well might be ignoring eye or hair color, appropriate period clothing, or some key feature which was obscured by a shadow... in other words it takes human judgment, based on historical knowledge to really authenticate such a treasure. And that after the two likenesses have been carefully compared to discern whether they are mere look- alikes, or in fact share these mathematical facial relationships.
I believe that part of the problem with the facial recognition technology is that there is a margin of variance left for changes which happen to every face over time. This fudge factor might facilitate the erroneous crowning of an otherwise average tintype, and propel a flurry of stories in local newspapers excited about the “new discovery,” all cultivated by non-historians who trust in the technology a bit too much. The technology is merely saying that over all, comparing this face and that face, measuring many variable traits such as the hair, the eyebrows, facial hair, etc, all features which could change, are some percentage similar to one another. The hard, unarguable proportions I speak of with my technique are not near as important to the more popular digital analysis. The user of the facial recognition program may or may not build their results on the pupil's and nostril's spacial relationships first, and might subjectively want to share in the discovery of an important historical find. And those variables are too low a bar for objects which might be worth a great deal to collectors and to history.
Thankfully, Wild Bill was well documented from his youth through his abbreviated life. He was (to be kind), a beady-eyed, hawk nosed, raw boned hunk, who probably killed more men than all the other gunslingers in the west combined. Not bragging, he confessed to have killed hundreds of Confederates while serving as a Union sniper during the Civil War. He was a nervous character, unafraid to kill and not ready to die, who survived by being a little sharper than his enemies, and willing to pull the trigger without hesitation... regardless whether his foe was facing him or not. Anyway, I gave this fuzzy visage a higher score for a doppelganger, (than usual) because I could only find a few discrepancies after the Q-5 was applied. It is very close... but I believe a clearer version of this photograph would reveal the nose is not drooped or pointed enough. I gave it a “90” score, where “95” is the highest score I ever give anything. But I also require a 95 to recognize any image as a possible authentic likeness of an historical personality. The eyes and the nose must be very close, or the rest does not matter.
Yes, in the interests of history, I am willing to perform this technique for people who think they have a historical discovery. The technique pretty much speaks for itself. It is just math. But the math creates a pretty high bar- so high that many famous pictures of various famous people do not pass the test! But that is another story... some of which you can find down below...
Feel free to search the site as well, you might find other subjects of interest! And thanks for pulling up and sittin' on the porch for awhile. It gets lonely out here at Hidetown!
A sixth generation Texan, landscape painter, sculptor, photographer, writer and historian, Russell Cushman shares his passion for the music, art and history of the Brazos Valley.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
U. S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves
Digital illustration by Russell Cushman
Western History may have neglected the story of Bass Reeves, and there are understandable reasons for it. Still, Oklahoma historians knew of him and wrote about him as much as any of the lesser known deputy marshals. And there were scores of them. He was treated like all of the rest, and since he did not make it into the famed “Three Guardians,” so often written about, his story took a back seat in most histories where Western lawmen were the subject. Most of us, when reading about him, were ignorant of his race, and just saw a name next to an event. Local historians sometimes did not make an issue of his race, since Oklahoma was the true melting pot of the West, and Black, Native American and White persons and various mixtures of the same were the norm in the Indian Territory. But as “Black History” has become more important in recent years, so has Bass Reeves. And thankfully, Oklahoma had good objective journalists and historians like C. W. “Dub” West to gather the facts before writers from all corners began to create his myth.
I know very little about Bass Reeves... and probably some of what “I know” is faulty due to the rush to bring Reeves to the fore and lionize him in recent years. Wanting to pass on his real story, I thought it would be appropriate to introduce Dub West and what he found in a Muskogee newspaper about him. Dub West was a kind, old man when I met him years ago, and he had written many little books about Oklahoma's incredible Western history. He published this article in his book Outlaws and Peace Officers in the Indian Territory, over a decade before Bass Reeves was “discovered.” Dub had the advantage of asking the questions we all want to ask when there were people alive who knew his subjects personally. And he understood the value of firsthand sources, and he was a devoted researcher and did many interviews, and he often quoted from them. Here is what Dub humbly offered his readers in 1987, random punctuation and all, lifted from an article written in 1910, about one of the great Western marshals, who happened to be Black:
BASS REEVES IS DEAD
The above headline appeared in the Muskogee “Phoenix” January 13, 1910. A subheadline was MAN OF THE OLD DAYS GONE- DEPUTY MARSHAL 32 YEARS. The tribute given to a black peace officer was unusual for the time. It was as follows:
“Bass Reeves is dead. He passed away yesterday afternoon about three o'clock, and in a short time news of his death had reached the Federal Courthouse where the announcement was received in the various offices with comments of regret and where it recalled to the officers and clerks many incidents in the early days of the United States Court here in which the old Negro deputy figured heroically.
Bass Reeves had completed 32 years of service as a deputy, when with the coming of Statehood at the age of 69, he gave up his position. For about two years then he served on the Muskogee Police Force, which position he gave up about a year ago on account of sickness, from which he never recovered. Bright's Disease and the complications of ailments together with old age, were the cause of his death.”
In the history of the early days of Eastern Oklahoma, the name of Bass Reeves has a place in the front rank among those who cleared out the old Indian Territory of outlaws and desperadoes. No story of the conflict of the government officers with those outlaws which ended only a few years ago with the rapid filling up of the Territory with people, can't be complete without mention of the old Negro who died yesterday.
For 32 years, beginning way back in the seventies and ending in 1907, Bass Reeves was a Deputy United States Marshal. During that time, he was sent to arrest some of the most desperate characters that ever infested Indian Territory and endangered life and peace of its borders. And he got his man as often as any of the deputies. At times he was unable to get them alive, and so in the course of his long service, he killed 14 men. But Bass Reeves always said that he never shot a man when it was not necessary for him to do so in the discharge of his duty to save his own life. He was tried for murder on one occasion, but was acquitted upon proving that he had killed the man in the discharge of his duty and was forced to do it. Reeves was an Arkansan, and in his early days, he was a slave. He entered the Federal Service as a deputy marshal long before the court was established in Indian Territory and served under the marshal at Ft. Smith. Then, when people started to come into the Indian Territory and a marshal was appointed to Muskogee, he was sent over there.
Reeves served under 7 marshals, and all of them were more than satisfied with his services. Everybody who came into contact with the Negro deputy in an official capacity had a great deal of respect for him, and at the court house in Muskogee, one can hear the stories of his devotion to duty, his unflinching courage, and his many thrilling experiences, and although he could not read or write, he always took receipts and had his accounts in good shape.
Undoubtedly the act which best typified the man, and which at least best shows his devotion to duty was the arrest of his son. A warrant for the arrest of the younger Reeves, who was charged with the murder of his wife, had been issued. Marshal Bennett had said that perhaps another deputy had better be sent to arrest him. The old Negro was in the room at the time, and with a devotion to duty equal to that of the old Roman, Brutus, whose greatest claim to fame was that the love of his son could not sway him from justice, he said, “Give me the writ,” and went out and arrested his son, brought him to court, and upon the conviction, he was sentenced to imprisonment and is still serving his sentence.
Reeves had many narrow escapes. At different times his belt was shot in two, a button shot off his coat, his hat brim shot off, and the bridle reins which he held in his hand cut by a bullet. However, in spite of all of these narrow escapes and the many conflicts in which he was engaged, Reeves was never wounded. And this, not withstanding, the fact that he said he never fired a shot until the desperado he was trying to arrest had started the shooting.
[SO BACK TO THE BLOG...] It appears that Bass Reeves was always considered an important Deputy U. S. Marshal, even in his own time. He was not neglected or overlooked by those who knew him in Oklahoma, but loved and appreciated... And even those a generation later who knew of him. But no story of a real lawman could have compared to the super-heroes created by the pulp-fiction writers of the day, who inspired the purified, romanticized depictions of Earp and Masterson, and the Texas Rangers etc.. The American Public did not care that much about history, just in gratuitous violence and the "bad guys" getting what they deserved... but that only happened consistently in the mythical West. We have to wonder, what was it or is it in the American character, which would rather be entertained by misleading fibs about real-life pimps, gamblers and hired killers, who briefly posed as lawmen, than true stories of heroism in law enforcement. Note: The picture in this article of Reeves is not from a tintype as it appears, but an "artist's concept" created with Photoshop, by me.
A sixth generation Texan, landscape painter, sculptor, photographer, writer and historian, Russell Cushman shares his passion for the music, art and history of the Brazos Valley.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About the Blogger...
I grew up in Texas, in a home where the Old West shaped our culture and our perspective on the world. For many school days I spent my after...
-
If you gathered all of the Old West buffs and historians in the world and had an election, and picked the most notorious, most mysterious w... -
The heart of this story which belongs in the "Mandela File," has almost been lost, except for a casual mention in a newspaper fro...
