This is a (slightly scuffed up) portrait of John Hammell (Great Grandpa Hammell), taken (I’m guessing) about 1900. He turned 40 that year.

I have to say, that collar looks really uncomfortable. I suppose collars like this were the reason that “collar girls” existed in laundries (see yesterday’s post).

As many of you already know, John was a bricklayer and stone mason. He was involved in the construction of many of the brick and stone buildings in downtown Albany and elsewhere in the vicinity (such as the Memorial Union building on the campus of what is now Oregon State University). Along with these big projects of multi-story buildings, he also built a brick garage for himself, which still stands.

I was thinking what great timing he had, arriving in Albany just when there was something of a construction boom in the downtown area that required a brick and stone mason. I don’t know the history or the factors involved in this, I just see the result—all these buildings downtown that he built over a 20- or 30-year period.