Bicknell Photograph Collection

Frank W. Bicknell Photograph Collection, 1905-1920, PhC.8

North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC

All photos in this set were arranged in an album entitled "North Carolina Views" and were taken primarily by Frank W. Bicknell. Copies of all the individual photos are here in this set. The photos are titled by the number Bicknell gave them and are described as Bicknell described them; however, they are not in the order in which they appeared in the album due to constraints of this medium.


Biographical Note by Tense Franklin Banks, bankstense@aol.com

Frank Wade Bicknell who moved to Linville Falls in 1908 was a ninth-generation American. The Bicknells were one of the oldest families in the United States, being descended from Zachary Bicknell, an English naval officer who with his wife emigrated from Somerset, England to America in 1635. They came seeking religious freedom. The Bicknell family ended up in Oneida, New York where Anson Dodge Bicknell was born generations later in 1835. He later married Sara Ann Mills. The couple homesteaded in Iowa, founding several villages including what is today known as Humboldt, Iowa. Here were born to them three sons and a daughter, including oldest son Frank born March 20, 1866. Anson Dodge Bicknell was a prominent attorney and very involved in local politics, church affairs, and education. He also with his family traveled extensively and used his wide ranging interests to write for the local press. He became among other things a mayor, a school superintendent, a college teacher, and a newspaper writer. His children were exposed to a wide variety of people, places, and ideas. Son Frank used this exposure and inherited abilities to become himself a newspaper man of excellent reputation. In the 1890's, he wrote for several Iowan papers including Des Moines, Jefferson Souvenir, and Humboldt County Independent. The fairness and good judgment that would serve Frank Bicknell throughout his life was pointed out in editorials written about him in the early 1900's.... "The Souvenir will always have a high regard for F.W. Bicknell the brilliant Des Moines newspaper correspondent.........he has daily furnished impartial digests of the senatorial fight and in looking over these reports,....we can see that the statements he made and the careful predictions when given were so accurate and so deeply truthful and fair that it occurs to us some of the members of the Des Moines Newspaper Syndicate must now feel a blush of shame in looking over the past claims to fairness and to truthfulness. Mr. Bicknell may now spell Reliability with a capital R and there's no one to call him down."-Jefferson Souvenir

"Mr. Bicknell's many Humboldt friends are glad to note the high standards he has attained with the press of the state. His ability as a genial newspaper correspondent is conceded in all the principal cities of the country and his services are being sought by the strongest and best papers in the country. He is also called upon to do special writing where none but a well-read, steady-minded writer could do the work." The Humboldt County Independent-Thursday, January 18, 1900.

In 1902, Frank Bicknell was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve as a Special Agent for Agricultural Research and was sent to Argentina. He was very interested in improving farming methods and developing hardy farm products. He would later carry this interest with him to the mountain farmers of the Blue Ridge.

In 1895, Frank Bicknell had married Jessie Vaupel who was at the time teaching school in Chicago. Jessie was born in Elkader, Iowa April 4, 1869. Her parents were John Christian Vaupel and Clara Sanganger both born in Germany. There families had emigrated to Iowa in the 1840’s and were among the earliest permanent settlers of the state. John and Clara Vaupel raised nine children, five daughters and four sons who became productive and often prominent citizens. Jessie was the youngest child. Her older sister Katie was born in Iowa ca. 1857. In 1880 Katie married Frederick W. Hossfeld who was born in Germany ca 1854 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1875. Hossfeld was in later years a US ambassador to Austria but perhaps because of health problems moved to Western North Carolina, specifically Morganton in 1906. His wife Katie Vaupel Hossfeld and the five surviving of their six children moved with their father into the house that had been the town home of the Avery family. Hossfeld became an active and vital part of the local economy which at the time was centered on real estate development, banking, tourism, and resource development. This allowed the Hossfelds to be involved in the purchase of the Linville Falls property and its future.

In 1908, Frank and Jessie came south to visit Jessie’s sister Katie and her family, the Hossfelds. Both apparently fell in love with the area and moved to a speculation house that had been built overlooking the Falls by the Morganton Land and Improvement Company in 1890. Though sometimes going back to Iowa for winters, Linville Falls became the permanent home of the Bicknells until Frank’s death in 1934.

Over the years, the Bicknells became an integral part of the village of Linville Falls. They were accepted, trusted and valued as friends by the local citizens which was not often the case for “outsiders” coming into the area. Mr. Bicknell was a notary public and was often called on for legal advice and help in researching deeds, titles, etc. He wrote for the local newspapers including the Morganton News Herald and the Avery Advocate. His obituaries have become a source of invaluable research for genealogists and historians. Frank and Jessie Bicknell also were among the original founders of the Linville Falls Community Church. They helped raise funds and donated materials for the original church built in the early 1930’s to be an interdenominational church to serve the whole community. That building burned down in 1963 and was replaced with the building that sits today on the same spot beside Hwy 183 and still serves any and all denominations. Bicknell over the years bought other properties which he rented and also bought and operated a sawmill on Camp Creek, tributary to Linville River.

Mr. Bicknell worked with local farmers to improve crop production and introduce better farming methods. He and Jessie had a large garden where in later years the two trails to the Upper and Lower Falls separated and the Park Service installed a water fountain and rest rooms(now torn down). The descendants of Guerney Franklin still grow lima beans and sunflowers from seeds introduced by Frank Bicknell.

Frank and Jessie Bicknell both loved to hike and camp in their backyard, the Linville Falls and Gorge. Fortunately, they were both excellent photographers and recorded their exploits in the Gorge and in the surrounding village of Linville Falls. Trips made by them and their local guides as well as later trips with family and friends who visited them provide the earliest record of the area as a place of recreation. They also photographed local families in daily activities of work, play, worship, and ceremonies of life and death. Many local families had family portraits taken by Mr. Bicknell who portrayed them as they were and not in a light to garner outside interest as was the style of the Doris Ulman’s of the day. Most Linville Falls families have at least one photograph taken by and given to them by Mr. Bicknell. The Bicknells were also friends with resridents of other locales, including Sheppard Monroe Dugger and Finley Mast. His body of work includes photos of Banner Elk, Linville, Valle Crucis, and Newland.

The Bicknells had no children as did none of Mr. Bicknell’s siblings. At their deaths, many of their possessions passed to Jessie’s family, the Vaupels, which included the children of F.W. Hossfeld and his wife Katie. The Hossfeld heirs, William, Fritz, Eleanor, Marion, and Giula had spent much time in the Linville Falls area. Over the years, they married, moved away, started their own families as children do. Son Fritz never married and lived his life in Morganton, keeping some involvement in the Linville Falls property. At his death, Giula Hossfeld who had married Christian Luginbuhl became the last heir and sole owner of the property. The Luginbuhls later sold the property to the US government who purchased it with funds donated by John Rockefeller. The Vaupel and Hossfeld families later donated many of Frank and Jessie’s photographs to the North Carolina Archives.

The people of Linville Falls and those interested in the history of the area own a great debt to the Bicknells and the Hossfelds for their part in our history and its preservation.

In the 1980’s, Emma Franklin and her daughter Tense Franklin Banks learned of the photos in the NC Archives and purchased copies of the collection. Years of research have gone into identifying all subjects in the photos and the histories of those identified. Mrs. Franklin was stricken with Alzheimer’s in 1992 and died from such in 1999. Her goal was to make the history of the area available to anyone interested. The fact that the Bicknell Collection is now available on the internet would have pleased her very much. The information in this article is provided by Tense Banks and is based on original sources including deeds, census records, county records from Iowa and North Carolina, newspaper articles, personal documents once belonging to Frank and Jessie Bicknell and interviews with Hossfeld descendants. Source info can be provided on request. Tense Franklin Banks at bankstense@aol.com.

Description:

The Bicknell Photograph Collection album was donated on September 10, 1959, to the North Carolina Museum of History by Mrs. G. J. Christianson, 1934 Cedar Avenue, Long Beach, CA. It was transferred from the Museum of History to the North Carolina State Archives on July 27, 1977, and accessioned on August 8, 1977.

The photos in this collection are spectacular and uniquely document remote western Burke County in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Linville RIver, Linville Gorge, and Linville Falls in the first two decades of the 20th century.

There are numerous photographs showing the Linville Gorge and Linville Falls and the surrounding area’s rock formations and mountain views including Hawksbill, Table Rock, Linville Bluffs, Wiseman’s View, and others. These photos appear to have been taken during the course of several expeditions to explore various parts of Linville Gorge and include photos of women camping, hiking, and fishing as well as men. Besides photos of natural splendor, many pictures of the mountain people, their homes, crops, fields, mills, farms, and activities are found in the album including several scenes of corn shucking, apple butter making, planting, and bear hunting.

Other interesting photographs include pictures of the Yonahlassee Road, 1912; a view of Linville City, 1909; the dedication of Linville Falls School, 1911; Pisgah Church, 1906; Linville Falls Sunday School, 1911; and a Holiness baptizing, 1909. There are also construction shots of the “crest of the Blue Ridge Parkway,” 1913; pictures of the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway’s cuts, tunnels and bridges; 1908; and pictures of damage in the Linville area caused by the flood of 1916.

Individuals depicted include F. W. Bicknell, F. A. Olds, Turner Vance, John Deane, Mitch Burleson, Adam Wiseman, and Tommy Dellinger, and partially identified people by the names of Dr. Clark, Dowle, Watrous, Carpenter, Turner, Peterson, and Commodore Burleson.

300 photos | 15631 views