Gurley Lions Club serving the Gurley community since 1948

From Our Past XVI
More Faces from Gurley's Past on Daguerreotypes

Recently, a small box of unknown photo images was discovered in a large cardboard box placed in storage from the Berniece Lawler estate, Gurley, Alabama. The box contained several very old photos, so old in fact, they were printed on what appears to be, copper plates. These photos were referred to as daguerreotypes. This was a process of shooting and fusing an image on thin silver and copper plates. The photos are quite interesting and are photos of some of the Gurley, Criner, and Walker families during the late 1800s. Luckily, someone had written most of their names on the back of the paper frames holding the images. It is known that daguerreotype images appeared as early as the 1840s. Most of these photos below were taken in the 1870s and it is possible a few were taken as early as the late 1860s.

One of the photos is labeled "John Gurley". This writer's first impression was this rare photo might be face of the founder of Gurley and builder of Gurley's Tank? All of these folks pictured were friends and relatives of the Capt. Elijah F. Walker family and no doubt lived in Gurley or nearby. Elijah F Walker married Matilda Gurley, daughter of William Rutledge Gurley who was the son of John Gurley (1788-1868). John Gurley died in 1868 at eighty years old.

These daguerreotypes are of much younger looking men therefore, it seems more probable these photos are early images of the sons of William Rutledge Gurley. His sons were John, James, Thomas, and Joseph. Had the first image below been of an older man in his seventies, it could have been the town's founder. The image of the John Gurley shown below is Matilda Gurley's brother John Williams Gurley. The Criner family members below were all descendents of Joseph and Isaac Criner, among the first settlers of Madison County.

John Williams Gurley

James Richard Gurley

These daguerreotypes were all very dark and difficult to see, but thanks to the magic of the computer with the enhancement capabilities of Photoshop, the images have been lightened to show each individual clearly. Also, with the help of the History and Genealogy of the Gurley Family, these images are safely identified as indicated. All of these first four images are the four sons of William Rutledge Gurley. All would be Capt. Frank. B. Gurley's nephews. The Gurley family was very large and spread out across the map. Our town's founder John Gurley had seven children, one died as a child and two never married and one of his sons, William Rutledge, had six children. It is noted that a large contingency of Gurleys also settled in Waco, Texas.

Thomas Frank Gurley	Joseph Criner Gurley
Sarah Criner Gurley	Tom Criner
Grannville Criner and wife	Mattie Criner

Mattie and Frank Walker and Maggie and William Walker
This daguerreotype was taken in Gurley about 1898

Ruby and Clara Walker about 1897

All of these daguerreotypes were amazingly well preserved even though they were turning quite dark. Lightening these images up through computer enhancement gives us a picture of the way our early citizens of Gurley looked in the late nineteenth century.