The eldest of eight children, Carleton Watkins was born November 11, 1829 in Oneonta, New York. An avid hunter and fisherman as a young man, he traveled to California in 1851 settling briefly in Sacramento and then relocating to San Francisco by 1852. He was to begin his photography career by chance in 1854 by filling in at the daguerreotype studio of Robert Vance for a photographer who...