American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography

7 photographs, approx. 6 x 8 in., or smaller, mounted on cardstock or linen. Some photographs with period manuscript notations. Subjects include:

Studio portrait of George Lawson Scott with fellow officers of Troop D, 6th Cavalry, 1890 (significant wear to print and mount, including areas of loss). -- Outdoor view of Scott posed on a front porch with fellow officers (2). -- View of several officers, including Scott (second from right), posed with buffalo heads on a porch. This photo was taken following the capture of Edgar Howell in 1894. -- Outdoor camp scene, showing Scott seated in front of a tent with fellow officers and their wives at Yellowstone, September 1896. -- Composite image of more than 30 officers (damaged, with loss to top right and bottom right corners). -- Cabinet card of a young Kiowa woman.

Provenance: Descended directly in the family of George Lawson Scott.

A native of Lafayette, OR, George Lawson Scott (1849-1926), graduated from West Point in 1875, and was assigned soon after to the 6th US Cavalry, with which he served during the greater part of his military service in Arizona and Wyoming. He took part in the Apache campaign in the Southwest and a Sioux campaign in Wyoming and Dakota, at the time of the Ghost Dance excitement, which resulted in the death of Sitting Bull. Colonel Scott also raised the siege in the war at Fort McKinney, WY.

In March 1894, Scott and a patrol of soldiers captured Edgar Howell, a poacher from Cooke City, MT, for killing Bison in the Pelican Valley section of Yellowstone Park. At the time, there were no laws that would allow prosecution of Howell, so he was temporarily detained and removed from the park. However, shortly after his capture, F. Jay Haynes, the park photographer, along with western author Emerson Hough and guide Billy Hofer encountered Scott and Howell as he was being escorted back to Fort Yellowstone. The encounter was captured on film by Haynes, and the story was telegraphed to Hough's publisher: Forest and Stream. These events inspired the magazine's editor, George Bird Grinnell, to lobby congress for a law to allow prosecution of crimes in Yellowstone, which resulted in the Lacey Act of 1894. In response to Yellowstone's park administrators' inability to punish poachers, Congressman John F. Lacey sponsored legislation that gave the Department of Interior authority to arrest and prosecute those violating the law within the park. The Lacey Act subsequently became the cornerstone of future law enforcement policies in the park. (Information obtained from familysearch.org on October 19, 2016.)

In 1898, Scott commanded the headquarters' guard of General Brooks at Puerto Rico, and after the war, he had charge of the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota. For a while, he also oversaw the Apache prisoners of war at Fort Sill, OK in 1911. Following 30 years of service, Scott retired at his own request. He suffered a stroke, which resulted in his death at the Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. (Information obtained from wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com.)