Beschreibung:

A remarkable collection of material related to the life of Professor William Tatem Collings, also referred to by his Wild West nickname, Buckskin Charley, consisting of 25+ photographs, a pair of wooly chaps, a pair of Sioux beaded hide moccasins, 15+ newspaper clippings covering Collings' accomplishments, 25+ postcards written by Collings, and 5+ miscellaneous paper items. Collings (b. 1860) was a native of Haddonfield, NJ, who started the 1,400 acre Collings Horse Ranch near Beaver City, Furnas County, NE in the 1880s. By 1890, he began shipping horses to New Jersey for annual auctions. In the fall of 1892, Collings' public career as a master of horse flesh commenced, in the words of the Beaver City Times, when he became determined to publicly tame a powerful imported stallion known far and wide as Julius the man killer. The horse purportedly killed four men. Collings purchased the stallion and entered a 24-foot ring with him in the Colliseum Building in Omaha, NE on October 17, 1892, risking his reputation and life in an attempt to prove his personal theory on how to tame a horse. After submitting the unapproachable brute to all the indignities that pleased his humor as master of the situation, Collings gained national recognition for this encounter with the man killer (Beaver City Times: 1894). Following his newly-found fame and upon selling his next shipment of horses to the New Jersey markets in 1893, Collings started his own Wild West Show in New Jersey, appearing as Buckskin Charley. Collings later served as Sheriff of Furnas County, Nebraska. He was also credited with bringing back the American Bison and holding the first-ever public auction of buffalo in the modern times. This auction took place in Nebraska in December, 1930, and included a herd of 20 buffalo, most purchased for beef purposes, but some purchased by park representatives. According to a newspaper clipping, the auction attracted approx. 5,000 people. The archive was obtained directly from descendants of W.T. Collings. The collection features 25+ photographs related to Collings' life, mostly mounted, in various sizes, including the following: two cabinet card portraits of Prof. W.T. Collings wearing thigh high boots and holding a whip, supposedly taken when he tamed Julius the Man Killer; three cabinet card photographs of Collings with his American Indian partner, two feature them posing in front of the mounted head and front feet of Julius. Various tools hang on the wall in the background, including a ball-head club, double-sided stone club, powder horn, Sioux knife sheath, and pipe tomahawk, not to mention the numerous shotguns that lean against the wall; two additional portraits of Collings' American Indian partner, possibly a Northern Plains Indian; a cabinet card portrait of Collings' Indian partner with another Indian from the Pine Ridge Agency, both identified, but it is difficult to decipher their names (possibly Wakau Iyatake and Wicarpiska); three cabinet card portraits of Collings, one in which he poses with his two brothers, each holding a shotgun, with two dogs at their feet, another with Collings wearing his wooly chaps, posed with a shotgun next to a saddle, and the final identifying Prof. Collings as "Buckskin Charley", posing with several guns, a saddle, and his faithful dog; two ca 1910 silver gelatin enlargements of Collings with his partner and as Buckskin Charley, 7 x 9.5 in. mounted on board; an albumen photograph of Collings' Ranch southwest of Beaver City, 4.5 x 7 in.; plus 12 additional images of Collings, his wife, and family, including a large silver gelatin portrait of Collings, 9.5 x 15.75 in, under mat, as well as some additional images of his ranch. A hightlight of the archive is the pair of angora chaps that were worn by Collings at work and as Buckskin Charley. These chaps can be seen in many of the cabinet card portraits of Collings featured in the collection. They include leather leggings that are lined in canvas, leath