The truth is, other than a description in a newspaper from the year 1880, I have no idea what Catamount Charley looks like. Also, I have nothing in my wardrobe to approximate the buckskin shirt and trousers with buckskin fringing that, according to the description, he wore. So, for my approximation, I got a fake beard and wig from Amazon and put on a flannel shirt that I’m guessing was somewhat similar in color.

For the photo itself, I used my 8”x10” large format Burke & James view camera. While the camera is actually World War II vintage, it is largely based on photographic technology available in the 1880s. For the medium, I used photographic paper instead of film. I scanned the resulting paper negative and reversed black and white to get a positive image. Here is the result.