When we think of early Jacksonville photographers, we automatically think of Peter Britt. However, Britt was not the only local photographer. In 1876-7 and again in 1883, Frank G. Abell, who, according to Jacksonville’s “Oregon Sentinel,” was “acknowledged to be the finest photographic artist in Portland,” was resident in Jacksonville. In 1877, in partnership with J.O. Welsh, he “put up a building on the corner of California Street, opposite Wells, Fargo & Co.’s express office.”
Abell was in many respects an itinerant photographer, living and working at various times in San Francisco, Stockton, Grass Valley, Red Bluff, Yreka, Ashland, Roseburg, Eugene, Corvallis, Portland, Tacoma, and of course Jacksonville. He specialized in “outdoor work”—”residences, businesses, horses, cattle, etc.”—and children’s photos, using “an instantaneous dry plate process” for the latter.
In 1883, Abell leased Peter Britt’s photograph gallery. The “Democratic Times” declared that Abell had “a reputation second to no artist on the coast” and that citizens could have their photographs taken in “the highest style of the art.”
Abell’s work was respected by his peers. Over the years he won numerous first place awards for entries to the Oregon Mechanic’s Fair, was vice president of the Oregon delegation to the National Convention of Photographers in 1880, and was elected president of the Photographers Association of the Pacific Northwest in 1909. Abell died in 1910 in Tacoma, Washington, and is buried in Portland.