Picturing 1867 Utah Tax Assessments

I’ve been looking through 1860s Bureau of Internal Revenue records from the district of Utah for a project I’ve been working on. (It’s a really interesting project; once I get a handle on what I’m going to write, I’ll blog some interesting tidbits.)

As I was looking through the assessment lists, I came across a (pretty decent) doodle of a person’s head. I don’t know anything about who drew the doodle (was it the assessor? the assistant assessor? somebody who got his or her hands on the list later?). I don’t know who the doodle represents (is Stubb or Stout or Shoebridge? or is it a self-portrait? or a generic picture?).

Whoever drew it, and whomever it represents, though, it was an unexpected—and rather fun—find.

Comments

  1. Is it Brother Brigham?

  2. Yeah, BY would be my first guess, but neckbeards certainly were the style of the time, as demonstrated by Thoreau:

    See also Horace Greeley:

    I think Bryce Harper, having recently gotten his her did, ought to consider trying to bring back the neckbeard.

  3. That does look like Stout, but it also looks suspiciously like Zerubbabel Snow, or perhaps several dozen other residents of Utah Territory.

  4. Kevin Barney says:

    Fun find! And the project itself sounds interesting, too.

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