1855 Main Street, Piper Block, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Rees, Blodget & Co. were recorded in two advertisements in the Worcester Daily Spy (Worcester, Massachusetts). The first advertisement appeared on October 18, 1855. Take Notice!—Opposition to Steam Daguerreotypes, taken by a new American discovery, for only 25 cents, warranted to be of the best quality, and satisfaction given. Something less than 500 taken daily. No connection with the steam whistle, next door. Rees, Blodget, & Co, artists. Piper Block, Main st.
The second advertisement appeared on October 19, 1855. Rees, Blodget, & Co. do not take Daguerreotypes by steam, as their noisy competitors boast to do, but at the same time give all who visit them good portraits, and at a quick rate, for 25 cents. Rees, Blodget & Co. have opened their rooms at Piper’s Block, bent upon blowing up all steam boilers in the vicinity, if they burst themselves in doing so.
Rees and Blodget are both unknown and not recorded in other photographic directories as being active in Worcester, Massachusetts. One could speculate that Rees is Charles R. Rees based on an 1859 advertisement in the Daily Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia) that claimed that he had 17 years experience in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans and Cincinnati. Rees left New York sometime around September 8, 1854.
Four days later on September 12, 1854 an advertisement appeared in The New York Herald.
Rees & Co., 25 Cent Daguerreotype Company, 385 Broadway.—This company, established under the above name, will be conducted hereafter under the [head] of McClave & Merritt, the original partners from [the commencement.] The business will be conducted the same as usual, the whole company remaining with the exception of C. Rees, whose interest in this gallery has been purchased by the two remaining partners. McClave & Merritt.
Where he went is unknown. No record of his being in Boston is known. The next advertisements found were from the Worcester, Massachusetts newspaper of October 19 & 20, 1855. No other advertisements were found in Massachusetts newspaper prior to the above entries. Over the next twelve day Rees advertised six times by himself. The last advertisement in the Worcester Newspapers was on November 1, 1855. At some point after leaving Worcester he probably worked with or for Tyler & Co. in New Orleans, Charleston and in 1858 in Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. So far the only mention of Rees being in South Carolina is from Harvey Teal’s Partners with the Sun South Carolina Photographers 1840-1940. Teal states that Rees’s name appears in George S. Cooks papers in the Library of Congress as having an account with him but no address is attributed to the name. Likewise there is no mention of in Photography in New Orleans The Early Years, 1840-1865.
Rees is an interesting person his association with Silas A. Holmes in New York and Tyler & Co. in Richmond and possibly other southern states deserves further research and a longer article.
Pioneer American Photographers, 1839 - 1860 