A Sailor Photographer
This vicinity contains no character more
interesting or peculiarly original in manneer and
methods of business than Well Gee Singhi, the
famous photographer, whose novelties have made his
name a household word. As a man he is no more
peculiar in his ways than he was as a boy. Born in
Rockland, Me., in 1837, at eightt years of age his
juvenile self-reliance led him to run awasy,
and he went to sea in 1845, embarking as an errand
boy on the Kate Sweatland, officered by Capt.
Caton.
For twelve years his life was
spent at sea. He was cast away in the Bay of
Bengal, and was in the jungles with the Hindoos
for five months, where he did not see the face of
a white man or one with whom he could converse for
that period. He returned home after four of five
years to his parents, who had given him up as
lost, after advertising in Bangor and Boston
papers for him. He stayed at home but a few
weeks, and was again among the missing, but his
disappearance did not cause so much concern, for
the runaway was supposed to have taken to the sea
again, which he had. He underwent the rough and
tumble usage of a cabin boy, but his rollicking
spirit soared into happiness as freely in storm as
in sunshine and a genial disposition was trained
to all kinds of weather, conditions and climes.
He has been around the world by sea and
land.
Mr. Singhi commenced the
photo business in 1860, and his devotion to it has
given him a reputation far and wide. He
wrestled with the privations of the West andd
having come grief in an interior Illinois town has
a friend who was going to Warren check his trunk
for him by rail, while he triumphantly trod the
ties for fifteen miles, and set up in business in
that town with little better success than before.
On one of these necessary tramps he heard a farmer
complain that he must have his well cleaned
out. The ready sailor wanted to know how
much he would give. The farmer said one dollar.
The hardy Singhi accepted at sight, down into the
well he went, cleaned it out, got the promised
dollar and went on his way rejoicing.
He afterwards went to
Bainbridge, where he stayed two years and
was at Waverly two and a half years, coming to
Binghamton in 1872. He has now been there eleven
years, and settled down in a nautical way many
thousand dollars in solid securities and
Government bonds.
When he first came
here he advertised "Is Singhi a patent right or
suspension bridge?" and has kept his original
advertising until it has with his faithful
application to his art, made him well off. His
greatest bonanza has been his club work, out of
which he pocketed a cool $4,000 within the last
six months. He is especially fond of children and
is socially as pleasant a man as one meets, and
notwithstanding his roaming disposition and sailor
life, he has been strictly temperate all his
years. He is now fitting up an elegant
reception room for his patrons over the Merchants'
Bank, and as the jovial old salt passes by on the
bystanders hum "Singhi, the Merry Maiden and the
Tar." -Binghamton Tribune
Mr. Singhi worked in Binghamton from
1872 to 1885, when he returned to Rockland, Maine.
He was succeeded by Emerson Osborn.
