A Century of Bond: Shelby’s Photographer Captures the Heartwarming Connection Between People and Pets

Posted 29 December 2024 at 8:47 pm

By Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian

“Illuminating Orleans” – Volume 4, Number 40

SHELBY – The festive season is upon us! We have been confronted with serious imagery all year, featuring grim faces of men and solemn women, along with an abundance of buildings and street views. It’s time for something more uplifting!

Our contributions today are sourced from the Scott B. Dunlap collection which we have utilized earlier for postmortem and Powerline project visuals.

Scott B. Dunlap, born in 1898, was a fourth-generation descendant of the family for which Dunlap Road in Shelby is named. With his new Kodak camera in hand, Scott, a Medina High School graduate of 1905, took spontaneous and carefree pictures of relatives, acquaintances and animals.

Unintentionally perhaps, he assembled a valuable record of life in rural America at the dawn of the 1900s, in the era just preceding the rise of automobiles that replaced horse-drawn carriages. In 2008, Scott B. Dunlap, Jr. bequeathed this assortment of over two hundred glass plate negatives from his father to the Medina Historical Society.

“Sloat’s Dog,” with his nose raised high, surely brings a smile to one’s face. It seems that Sloat had another dog, also well-nourished and proud.

According to the 1900 Census data, Francis Sloat, a farmer, and his spouse, Mary (Dutton), resided in Shelby. Sloat later relocated to Corfu, passed away in 1921, and rests in Millville Cemetery.

What a delightful visual find! The horse is elderly and serene, while the girls are elegantly attired for the event, sporting matching dresses and hats. The younger girl on the left is gripping a portion of the horse’s mane.

“Dunk” refers to Frank Dunkelberger, who was a farmer in Shelby. In the 1900 Census, he was recorded as being 30 years of age, with his daughters Ruth and Rhea being 6 and 4 at that time.

Upon closer examination, these youngsters with the white cat and sheep might actually be the grandchildren of Seth Ransom, rather than Remson’s children as labeled: Theron, Anita, and J. Lawrence Caleb, who lived on Southwoods Road in Shelby.

Our final image (the choice was challenging) features this young lad, equipped with a hunting rifle and accompanied by two dogs. We were intrigued by the disquieting expression of the dog seated beside him.

Besides injecting a touch of humor, these photographs harbor a wealth of intricate details which we can now magnify and examine further. Naturally, we enjoy the task of uncovering more information about the individuals depicted. Utilizing the simplest identifiers “Sloat’s Dog” or “Remson’s Children,” we successfully found information on the Orleans County Genweb site and in the New Century Atlas of Niagara and Orleans Counties, 1913.

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