View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis.

Undated. From Augusta Klemm[?] to Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Felton, La Salle.

The picture

A wide river with a high wooded hill rising on the left shore; a small catboat with a white sail carries two people in white across the middle; a woman in a long orange-red dress and a girl in a white dress stand on a plank dock at right; the bow of a rowboat with a pail on its seat enters the bottom of the picture; a small boat far off on the water.

• Printed caption: View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis.
• Printing: colored halftone · color
• Condition: a faint yellow vertical streak in the sky at right; light edge wear

The back

• Layout: divided back (message at left, address at right)
• Printed: POST CARD · This side for address · Pub. by F. M. Palmiter, Janesville, Wis.
• Stamp: 2c, red, Washington (profile in an oval)
• Postmark: [illegible]OIT / M[illegible] / 4 [illegible] M / 19[illegible] / WIS. (machine cancel with straight-bar killer)
• Condition: toning; a pinkish-red stain at left center; a crease along the bottom right

Exact copy

Line for line as written. [?] follows an uncertain word; [illegible] marks one that cannot be read; ~~ ~~ is crossed out, ^ ^ written above the line, […] runs off the card.

Message (back of the card, left half, written sideways, reading downward (turn the card 90 degrees counterclockwise to read)):

Many regards
to you all.
Am visiting my sister
Augusta
Klemm[?]

Address:

Mr. & Mrs
Chas. Felton
R. F. D. 22
La Salle
Ill

Reading version

The message joined into sentences, the spelling lightly modernized only where it helps; uncertain words keep their marks.

Many regards to you all. Am visiting my sister. Augusta Klemm[?]

Who

• Chas. Felton (Mr. and Mrs.) — recipients, R. F. D. 22, La Salle, Ill.
• Augusta Klemm[?] — sender, visiting her sister
• my sister — the sender's sister, whom she is visiting (not named)

When

How	Date	Basis
card-features	after 1907-03-01	divided back: allowed in the US from 1 Mar. 1907

The readings

Part	Status	Readers
caption	all agree	claude, gemini, gpt
postmark	crux (the town still in question)	claude, gpt
address	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
message	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
signature	in message	claude, gemini

Uncertain readings:

• message, signature surname: Klemm (or Klemme, Klemmer, Kleman) — the surname trails off the card's edge after the double hump
• postmark, town: [BEL]OIT — only 'OIT' (and perhaps an L) shows; the rest is on the stamp; 'WIS.' is clear
• postmark, month: M[illegible] (or MAR, MAY) — only the first letter M prints clear of the stamp

Reader's note: Postmark year unreadable: no year can be taken from this card. The 2-cent stamp is the card's only postage.

Other copies of this view

Scans of the same printed picture that are not cards of this collection (matched by picture fingerprint):

• 1910 View Big Hill & Rock River Near Beloit Wisconsin WI Postcard.png — source, front
• postcard-view-big-hill-and-rock-river-near-beloit (postcard-view-big-hill-and-rock-river-near-beloit.png) — vault image, front

Scans: View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis. - 01.png and View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis. - 02.png (sha256 edea6117717f…, a1a38401eb29…). Media: front — the scanner's white edge trimmed: kept pixels [0, 0, 1080, 680]; back — the scanner's white edge trimmed: kept pixels [0, 0, 1079, 679]