Captain elmer B. Small
Panama Canal Zone

Inscribed in pencil: Captain Elmer B. Small of Panama Canal Zone married Victoria Hall Small of Roscoe, NY

Photographer: Otto Hillig
Dated: Circa 1910 - 190
Medium: Albumen Print
Demensions: 7 x 5"
Country/Origin: American
Frame: In photographers presentation folder
Notes: Otto Hillig's Studio
On the southern edge of the Liberty (New York, Sullivan County) Village Historic District lies the Hillig Photo Studio, 84 North Main Street. It is a narrow, two-story brick commercial building; it was custom-built in 1914 to serve as the studio of photographer Otto Hillig. The design incorporates a decorative tile facade with a large cartouche and stylized pilasters.
Otto Hillig was born in Steinbruechen, Germany in 1874 and when sixteen years of age came to the United States as a poor German immigrant. He first worked as a street car conductor in Brooklyn, later as a bartender and still later as a laborer in a brewery in Ellenville. When about twenty-one years of age and virtually penniless, he moved into the Liberty area and while working on a farm near White Sulphur Springs supposedly found a photo magazine and decided to try his hand at photography. He went on to become the most famous photographer in Sullivan County and the owner of the best equipped studio between New York City and Buffalo. He produced over the years vast numbers of pictures of the county's development and portraits of its inhabitants. By 1914 he was able to build this studio at 84 North Main Street in Liberty.
Hillig died September 12, 1954
Hillig is primarily remembered and appreciated as a History Preserver whose legacy of photographs and postcards provides the most complete history available of Sullivan County in the first half of this century.
Condition Report Few small spots on image. Good Plus

Any condition statement is given as a courtesy to a client, is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Orange County Estate Liquidators shall have no responsibility for any error or omission. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging