Geronimo poses with members of his tribe and General George Crook’s staff during peace negotiations on March 27, 1886.
Camillus “Buck” Sydney Fly
(May 2, 1849 – October 12, 1901) was an Old West photographer who captured the only known images of Geronimo before he surrendered, along with other pictures of life in mining boom town ofTombstone, Arizona and the surrounding region. He was also a witness in 1881 to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which took place outside his photography studio. He served as Cochise County Sheriff from 1895 to 1897. Most of his negatives were destroyed by two fires that burned his studio to the ground. His widow Mary donated his remaining images to the Smithsonian Museum before she died in 1912. His photographs are legendary and highly prized.
Life in Tombstone
Fly married Mary “Mollie” E. (née McKie) Goodrich on September 29, 1879 in San Francisco. She had previously been married to Samuel D. Goodrich but divorced him after two years of marriage.[1] Both Mary and Buck were interested in photography and they moved before the end of the year to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where they opened a photography studio in a tent in December, 1879.[2] In July, 1880, they completed construction on a 12-room boarding houseat 312 Fremont Street in Tombstone that housed a photography studio and gallery in the back, called the “Fly Gallery”.[2]
On October 26, 1881, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurred in an alley adjacent to his boarding house. During the shootout, Cochise County Sheriff John Behan took cover inside the boarding house,[citation needed] watching the gunplay, only to be joined by Ike Clanton who ran away from the gunfight, telling Wyatt Earp that he was unarmed. Fly, armed with aHenry rifle, disarmed Billy Clanton as he lay dying against the house next door.
Fly and Molly raised a girl named Kitty, though it’s not known whether she was adopted or from another relationship. Molly ran the boarding house and studio while her husband traveled around the region taking photographs. Mollie also took pictures, and she was one of the few female photographers of the era, taking pictures of anyone who could pay the studio price of 35 cents.[2]
Pictures of Geronimo
In March, 1886, Fly accompanied Department of Arizona General George Crook into the Sierra Madre Mountains and to the Canyon de Los Embudos. Crook held a peace conference with the Apache leader Geronimo and his people. His images are the only existing photographs of Geronimo’s surrender.[2] His photos of Geronimo and the other free Apaches, taken on March 25 and 26th, are only the known photographs taken of an American Indian while still at war with the United States.[2]
John Bourke described how Fly took the historic photographs:[3]:64
Tombstone photographer Fly kept busy with his camera, posing his Apache models with a nerve that would have reflected undying glory on a Chicago drummer. He coolly asked Geronimo and the warriors with him to change positions, and turn their heads or faces, to improve the negative. None of them seemed to mind him in the least except Chihuahua, who kept dodging behind a tree, but at last caught by the dropping of the slide.”
The Mayor of Tucson, C. M. Strauss, was present. He later wrote that:[3]:68
Fly is an excellent artist and he was not a respector of persons or circumstances, and even in the midst of the most serious interviews with the Indians, he would step up to an officer and say, just put your hat a little more on this side, General. No Geronimo, your right foot must rest on that stone, etc., so wrapped was he in the artistic effect of his views.