Loren Holdridge, Portrait Photographer and Crayon Artist

Ephemeral items connected to persons interred here at Riverview Cemetery always draw my attention, and some months ago while browsing an online auction site I came across the portrait of an unidentified infant who was photographed by Loren Holdridge (1847-1933), a leading portrait photographer and crayon artist in the city. Needless to say, it was a “must-have” item.

Portrait of unidentified infant photographed
by Loren Holdridge, c.1890
Author’s collection

“Photography in all its branches is here carried on, and the best and finest work is produced” notes his business profile in Quarter-Century’s Progress of New Jersey’s Leading Manufacturing Centres (International Publishing Co. 1887). “Portraits are likewise made in oils, water colors, pastels, India ink, crayon, etc., in the highest style of art from locket to life size, from original pictures, or from life. The instantaneous process is used … and particular attention is given to the portraiture of little children.”

Holdridge’s studios were successively located on South Green St. (1882-1889), South Broad St. (1890-1892), and East State St. (1893-1902). This particular portrait has the imprint of the South Broad St. studio which would date it c.1890.

Holdridge is interred in the Tindall plot in Section U, Lot 652-653; his inscription is on the south face of the monument and his marker bears the initials “L.H.” He came to be interred in the lot of William R. Tindall (1847-1895), a real estate developer, when, a year after the latter’s death, his widow Catherine L. Tindall (1847-1938) married Holdridge, himself a widower. The Trenton Sunday Advertiser of April 14, 1895, reported that Holdridge’s first wife Cornelia C. Holdridge (1857-1895) was interred at Kingston, N.Y., so it follows that her inscription on the north face of the monument and a marker bearing her initials “C.C.H.” represent a cenotaph.

Tindall Monument (left) and Holdridge inscription