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LEDGER SIGNED BY VISITING NATIVE AMERICANS

[AMERICAN INDIAN – BLACKFEET PICTOGRAPHS]. Large guestbook from the Lee Camp Confederate Soldier's Home in Richmond, Virgina. 11" x 16". Approximately 300 pages. Large graphic printed advertising from many local businesses surround the area of the page for visitors to sign. The book lists visitors from May 17, 1912 to October 15, 1914. There are thousands of visitor signatures including some well-known figures:J. C. Penny, Salt Lake City, September 16, 1875 - February 12, 1971 Minnie Sky Eagle, Chief Red Eagle, Pineridge Agency, South Dakota. Jan. 15, 1913 (All in one hand, this was written by one of the Chiefs or possibly for them by another individual)Sam Rayburn July 4, 1913. Rayburn was the longtime Speaker of the House of Representatives. The highlight of the book is a complete page signed by ten Blackfeet Indians including four Chiefs. The contingent of Blackfeet leaders from Glacier National Park, likely in Washington on tribal business visited the Confederate veterans home in Richmond on May 19, 1914. All have signed the book with their pictograph as follows:CHIEF EAGLE CALF Also known as John Ground. (CHIEF) MEDICINE OWL (JOSEPH MEDICINE OWL was born in 1888)TWO GUNS WHITE CALF (CHIEF)Two Guns White Calf (1872-1934), a Blackfoot chief, is best remembered as a model for the "Buffalo Nickel." The face which appears on the nickel was actually a composite image made from the likenessesof three Native Americans, including Two Guns. Designed by James EarleFraser, the coin was first issued in 1913. Two Guns always maintained that he was indeed the sole model for the image on the coin and gained celebrity for this association. He was, for many years, the public face of Northern Pacific Railroad, whose advertisements billed him asthe model for the coin, and a major attraction for the tourists who visited Glacier National Park. LAZY BOY (CHIEF)FISH WOLF ROBE (CHIEF)MRS. MEDICINE OWLMRS. TWO GUNS WHITE CALFFRANK WHITE QUIVER MRS. BIRD RATTLEBIRD RATTLE (ELMER BIRD RATTLE ) was born in 1882 in of Blackfeet Nation, U.S.A.. An additional pictograph of a head is included but remains unidentified. On April 18, 1883 a group of concerned Confederate Veterans met in Richmond, Virginia, to form the Camp Lee Soldiers' Home (also called Confederate Soldiers' Home, Confederate Veterans Soldiers' Home, R. E. Lee Camp Soldiers' Home, Lee Camp Soldiers' Home, or Old Soldiers' Home) as a benevolent society to aid their needy former comrades. The Robert E. Lee Camp, No. 1, Confederate Veterans was incorporated March 13, 1884. In the year that followed, the camp raised funds and acquired land in Western Richmond for a home. The Home opened on January 1, 1885, and it was located in the corner of Grove Ave. and the Boulevard in Richmond, Virginia. Plagued by financial difficulties, they sought money from the state. In 1886, the General Assembly authorized a small annual appropriation which was increased in 1892 in return for the deed to the property. The home was under the Dept. of Public Welfare until it closed in 1941, upon the death of the last resident. It would be another 20 years, Feb. 25, 1885, before the first permanent home — Lee Camp Soldiers Home — was opened in Richmond, Va. Because Union vets made contributions, it was dubbed a "monument to a reunited country."The book remains intact though the binding is a bit loose. Overall it is in Fine condition. Offerings associating leaders of important Native Americans such as this are indeed uncommon. This is perhaps the finest offering of Blackfeet Chief pictographs to come to market in recent years.