In your Volume 15, Number 30, July 15, 2012 entry MORE ON MONTROVILLE DICKESON there is a photograph purportedly of Mr. Dickeson standing with a Native American chief.

Steven Frank recently posted this photo to the ContemporaryCounterfeitWorldCoins Yahoo.com discussion group - unidentified - as something of a quiz to see who could identify the subject.

At the time he posted the photo I had no knowledge of Montroville Dickeson and I sought to identify the photo using internet research. Through a combination of fortunate key words and the magic of Google Images I found a photo that looked to be the same subject but in this photo he was seated next to a different Native chief.

That photo is part of a collection of Nez Perce Chiefs on a Pinterest site. Using that site I was able to identify the two subjects as Chief Tamason or Timothy, Nez Perce and Perrin Whitman, interpreter.

When I forwarded my guess to Steve he indicated that there must be some mistake with my source since his photo had been identified as Montroville Dickeson.

We soon came to the conclusion however, based on locating a clearer photo at the Smithsonian Institution here: http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!13320!0

... and another photo which is attached to Perrin Whitman's findagrave.com entry here: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=124371993

... that the photo in question very possibly is of Perrin Whitman and not Montroville Dickeson.

Here is a composite Steve put together with the known portrait of Montroville Dickeson on the left. The newspaper article is something I found which mentions a photograph of Perrin Whitman and it is from 1936. I am writing for more opinions and comments from E-Sylum readers.

Julia adds:

Tintype of Nez Perce Chief Timothy and Interpreter Perren Whitman,

anonymous, 7.5 x 5" copy of a paper image, circa August, 1968. "Tamoostsin" as he was known among his Nez Perce tribesmen, was baptized in 1839 by Henry Spalding at the Lapwai Mission in what is now western Idaho. During the Cayuse War of 1847-50 Timothy kept his band at peace with the whites. He was a leader of the Treaty Nez Perce and visited Washington in 1868 Waldman 2001, Biographical Dictionary of American Indian History to 1900. Perrin Whitman, accompanied his uncle, Marcus, to the Oregon Territory in 1843, and settled in Idaho, spending most of his life as an interpreter. Accompanied by a photocopy of a newspaper article in which this image is described and dated.

Roger Burdette writes:

Jim Neiswinter writes:

Joel Orosz writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
MORE ON MONTROVILLE DICKESON (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n30a07.html)