Noble & Fell’s

NOBLE & FELL’S On December 12, 1873 an advertisement in the Petaluma Weekly Argus proclaimed that the Sunbeam Gallery was “still in the field” and that A. W. Fell & Company would provide the “best style of the art, at Anderson’s set prices”; however, just seven days later, an advertisement proclaimed that Nobel & Fell were the successors to H. Anderson’s Sunbeam Gallery.

SKELTON STANFORD NOBLE (b. c. 1833 Missouri; active in Petaluma 1874-1876) Noble traveled throughout California staying in numerous communities for various amounts of time. He worked in Petaluma with A. W. Fell in the Noble & Fell partnership in 1874 and sometime after operated the studio by himself as the imprint of his cartes de visit replace “Noble & Fell’s” with simply “S. S. Noble, Sunbeam Gallery, Main Street, Petaluma, Cal. Next door to Wickersham’s & Co’s Bank.” Palmquist, pgs. 420-421; Mautz, pg. 99 and 128.

ALBERT WEBSTER FELL (1852-1931) was born in Ontario, Canada. The 1870 and 1880 census record him living in Petaluma with his father and mother, Erastus and Lucy Fell, and his younger brother, Charles A. Fell. He partnered with Skelton Stanford Noble in 1874 (?) establishing Noble & Fell’s Sunbeam Gallery. Main Street, Petaluma, 1874. Palmquist, pgs. 420-421; Mautz, pg. 99. Later he owned a photography studio in Watsonville, California

Bibliography: Carl Mautz, Biographies of Western Photographers, A Reference Guide to Photographers Working in the 19th Century American West, Expanded and Revised Edition, 2018, p.154. Petaluma Weekly Argus, December 5, 1873, p.2; December 12, 1873, p. 2; Dec. 19, 1873, p. 2; March 13, 1874, p.3; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/249623342/albert-webster-fell

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