The Clement Hungerford Pollen Collection Clement Hungerford Pollen (1869-1934) was born in London to an illustrious and art loving family that traced Samuel Pepys as a distant ancestor. His parents, John Hungerford Pollen (18201902)—a decorative artist, former Anglican priest, professor and curator—and his mother, Maria Margaret La Primaudaye Hungerford Pollen (1838-c. 1919)—a lace collector, author and historian—were friends with John Newman, William Morris and William Thackeray. His mother was famously sketched by Dante Gabriel Rosetti. When Clement was 6 his family moved to Newbuildings Place in Sussex—a 16th century estate owned by the poet, traveler and Arabian horse breeder, Wilfred Scawen Blunt (1840-1922). It is here that Pollen and his older brother Arthur, credited their transformation to lovers of horses and explorers of the outdoors. After secondary school, Pollen followed Arthur, to Wyoming, where he lived in a cabin and worked with cattle and horses. After an accident with a shotgun, he briefly worked as assistant secretary in the Bahamas to Governor Ambrose Shea. In 1897, once again following his brother Arthur who had illustrated and written the preface for H. Somers Somerset’s, The Land of
the Muskeag, 1895, Pollen traveled to North Western Canada. He settled in the Kootenay River area of British Columbia eventually owning an 814-acre property called Skookumchuck Ranch, as well as a home in Cranbrook, British Columbia. The area was inhabited by the Ktunaxa Nation. Pollen greatly admired the Native peoples and developed close relationships with them. In the early 1900s, Pollen became involved in the design, construction and management of the Kootenay Central branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He served as Lieutenant Colonel, 1st Battalion Kootenay Regiment, and as a Major in the 54th Battalion, Cranbrook, BC during WWI. Pollen returned to England with his wife and children and died in Surrey. Clement documented his years in Wyoming and British Columbia with photographs, written memoirs and by collecting Native North American made objects and fossils. His extensive correspondence includes letters from family friend Neville Chamberlain and Theodore Roosevelt. The collection is a rare historic record of a specific North American time and place: of Western Plains life, exploration, the life and arts of Native peoples, and the transformation of the West.
155 The Clement Hungerford Pollen Collection Wyoming and Western Canada, late 19th century to mid 20th century The collection includes the following Native American clothing and accessory items: a Blackfoot beaded hide War Shirt, circa 1900; two pairs of Blackfoot beaded hide leggings, circa 1900; a fine Cree loom woven quill-worked hide gun case, circa 1890; an Ojibwe beaded hide guncase, circa 1900; a Plains beaded hide pipebag, circa 1900; a Blackfoot beaded hide and wool fabric toy baby carrier, circa 1900; A Cree or Ojibway beaded hide pouch, circa 1890; Blackfoot beaded hide mocassins, circa 1900; Blackfoot beaded hide arm bands, circa 1900; Blackfoot beaded hide woman’s belt, circa 1900; Plains beaded hide jacket, leather chaps and beaded suede gauntlets, circa 1890; a painted bow with arrows. Also included is a box of arrow heads. Natural history items include a chest fitted with drawers of small fossils. Numerous photographs are included in the collection. The largest and earliest album documents pre- and early statehood Wyoming, 1888-1893 and contains 102 albumen prints, of which 27 are large format, depicting cattle drives, cattle branding, campsite life, early ranch housing, Conestoga wagons, wildlife, and identified views of Carbon County, Shirley Basin, Snake River, Yellow Lake, Teton Mountains and the ranch of Joseph M. Carey. This album also contains images of Bermuda in 1890. Other albums of albumen and silver prints contain images of British Columbia, some with panoramic landscapes, logging, hunting, surveying, early railroad construction, mining towns, river boats, early homesteads and town views, campsites and log cabin interiors, public events, Native North Americans and Pollen and his children.
Also included in the collection are many silverprint portraits of Clement Hungerford Pollen. Also included is a surveying tool of Pollen’s: “D.W. Brunton’s Patent Sept. 18 1884, Wm Ainsworth Maker Denver, Colo.” pocket transit, a journal kept by Pollen and two field notebooks with hand-drawn maps, supply lists, calculations, surveying notes on the construction of the Kootenay Central Railroad, and a scrapbook of news clippings on Pollen’s purchase of land for the railway. An assortment of printed maps of area of Western Canada is offered with group. A box with news clippings, business and personal correspondence and copies of official documents concerning the Kootenay Central Railroad and Pacific Canadian Railroad Company, a letter copy book from 1902, and family letters from 1900-1924 also accompany collection. Pollen’s sketchbook with watercolors, typed manuscript copies of “The Kootenay Indian,” an album of notes and humorous sketches sent to Pollen in 1880, and a scrapbook of society news from England and British Columbia, a number written by Pollen, are included. A selection of Pollen-owned books and pamphlets concerning the archeology and geography of British Columbia, railroad passes, are included. Of special note is an autographed letter from Theodore Roosevelt of May 20, 1915 answering Major C. Hungerford Pollen’s, 54th Bat. Cranbrook, B.C. request for advice on raising a regiment. Roosevelt recommends “a little volume about my Rough Riders. in Cuba,“ and laments that “it is sad to think that the old time Rocky Mountain man has vanished.” Sizes vary
Approximately 170 silver prints, not in albums, accompany the collection. These depict Pollen at various pursuits, panoramic landscapes, Native North Americans, railroad building, rustic campsites in summer and winter, and images intended to illustrate Pollen’s manuscript, “The Kootenay Indian.” Four small albums of silverprints contain images of the Pollen Family at home at Cranbrook, British Columbia and in England.
provenance
By descent in the Pollen Family to the present consignor. $30,000-50,000 Visit freemansauction.com for additional photographs. end of collection