Cundill, Will

CUNDILL

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 3/15/2008 at 08:02:52

The Jackson Sentinel
Centennial Edition - 1938

Fifty-eight years in business is the record of Will Cundill, veteran photographer who opened his gallery on September 1, 1880. When a small boy young Will had been very interested in the work of a Mr. Gardner, who had a photograph gallery on the third floor of the building in which Will’s father had his grocery store. He often performed such chores as carrying wood up those flights of stairs just for the privilege of watching the photographer at work, and later, from 1870 to 1872, was employed as a regular assistant.

In 1873, however, Mr. Cundill’s father decided to send his son back to high school for one more year to finish the course then being given. Upon graduation from high school he taught in Jackson and Clinton counties for several terms, but in 1880 went back to his first ambition. “I began making the best photographs in Jackson county,” he says, “and I’m still at it.”

Maquoketa’s “poet laureate,” he is often called upon to read his verses at gatherings and reunions. At eighty-two years he has an excellent memory and is considered an authority on early days in Maquoketa.

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