Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Portrait: Dills family

  • wcu_picturing-760.jpg
  • Abraham Lincoln Ensley (1865-1948) was one of the earliest commercial photographers in western North Carolina. He made images, mostly portraits, on 5” x 7” glass plates that he developed on his farm in Jackson County. Like most native residents, Ensley was also a farmer and, perhaps, made pictures during the agricultural off season. Married to Laura Louisa Sherrill of Dillsboro, the couple raised their family in the Cope Creek section of the county. Through marriage, Ensley was related to George Sherrill, who learned, and perhaps assisted, in Ensley’s photography studio. Sherrill went on to open his own studio in nearby Waynesville in 1902. This undated photograph shows John Albert Dills (1864-1912) and Laura Lucinda Wilson (1867-1945) with children left to right front row John Leon (1896-1951) and Annie Laurie (1899-1982). Back row Ralph Arcellus (1890-1961), Roy Raburn (1892-1949), and Verta Viola Dills (1894-1983).