PORT ANGELES — If you have any interest in the history of Clallam County, you’ve probably seen their photographs.
But you may never have read their names.
Ray and Roy McClinton — fraternal twins born to James G. and Helen Brandon McClinton — were amateur photographers who started as teens in the 1890s working with tripod-mounted cameras and glass-plate negatives.
They captured some of the earliest known images of Marymere and Sol Duc falls, Fairholme and lakes Crescent and Sutherland, and left a legacy that has been reprinted in several histories of Clallam County, researcher Larry Lang told about 60 people at the historical society’s History Tales lecture last Sunday.
The images seen in the history books are largely from the Clallam County Historical Society, which received 400 glass-plate negatives and two family albums in a bequest from Roy after his death in 1959. Ray had died in San Mateo, Calif., in 1953.
But however well-known their work may be, the McClinton brothers are not.
Their names were seldom attached to the images, Lang said.
Challenging research
“This has been one of the most challenging research projects I have ever done,” Lang said.
His research into the McClinton Brothers Collection led to census, birth and death records.
He used comparisons with other photographs found in the county record to piece together approximate dates.
“It’s 400 pieces of a puzzle,” Lang said.
Two sets of twins were born to the McClintons.
Ray and Roy were the younger pair; the elder twins were Myron and Amberson.
The family picked up from Nevada and eventually arrived in Quilcene in 1889, the same year Washington was declared a state.
They later moved to Port Angeles.
James McClinton served as Superior Court judge in Clallam County in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The younger twins produced both on-location photographs and had a studio with several backgrounds, Lang said.
Amazing clarity
Their photos document their involvement in the Gate City Band and at least two other bands; class photos from Central School in Port Angeles, which was located where the U.S. post office now stands on the south side of First Street between Vine and Peabody streets; and excursions into the woods and to area rivers and lakes with large groups of friends or family.
The twins also sold photos, operating as McClinton Brothers Photography, Lang said.
Lang said the clarity in the photographs is amazing, and when digitized, small details are clearly visible via a computer.
Some of those details helped identify information about photographs, such as a small sign behind a group photo that revealed the location as Fairholme.
Its detail was so great, Lang was even able to zero in on small holes and tears on their father’s sweater in photos of a fishing expedition on Lake Crescent.
One of the photos — a picture of a tower-shaped display of their photographs at the first Clallam County Fair in 1895 — showed the brothers’ business name and several of the photographs that were included in the collection of glass negatives.
San Francisco shots
Lang said most of the photos show Clallam County locations, but many are of San Francisco, where the twins attended college.
The collections fade out about the time Ray moved to the island of Tasmania — part of the Commonwealth of Australia — to work as a dentist, Lang said.
“By 1903, their photography business was no more,” he said.
Several descendents of the McClinton family were in attendance at the presentation.
Jane McClinton Morgan and Bob McClinton are the great-grandchildren of Roy McClinton.
Ross Morgan, Cary Morgan, Scott Morgan and Erik Morgan are descended from the older twins.
Only retired Navy Rear Adm. Bob McClinton of Sequim lives in Clallam County with his wife, Gunvor.
The remaining descendents live in the Seattle and Tacoma areas.
Lang said the family was remarkably mobile for the era, having relocated from Nevada to California and Washington.
Contact with the family helped clarify the settings and items in many of the photos, including a table that Cary Morgan told Lang is still owned by the family.
Samuel Clemens’ stop
The family also has letters from the era, including correspondence with the author Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, a friend of James McClinton.
Included is an account of Clemens’ visit to Port Angeles during a major wildfire that burned much of the forested foothills between Port Angeles and Hurricane Ridge.
Clemens reportedly told James McClinton that the smoke was so thick, “his hair was white when he was on the east coast, but in Port Angeles it was taking on the color of smoke.”
“He had not even a glimpse of our grand mountains,” James McClinton wrote.
Several of the brothers’ photos include burnt-out stumps, particularly a class photo taken in 1896 that shows the burnt hillsides south of the city, stretching far into the mountains.
For more information about the McClinton Brothers Collection, phone the Clallam County Historical Society’s office at 360-452-2662 or email artifact@olypen.com.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
