Individual Details

7 Apr 1849. Baltimore Passenger Lists. The Osprey from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Baltimore. U.S. Passage was 8#'s. W. H. Rulofson paid his passage, nothing for luggage.

1860 Census. Twp 1, Tuolumne Co, CA, Hh 312
Wm H. Rulofson, 32, Artist, b. Ma (Maine, I think)
Amelia N., 24, b. Newfoundland (first wife)
Wm. H. 11, b. Newfoundland
Alfred C., 6, b. CA
Fanny, 4, b. CA
Emma, 2, b. CA
Anna Moreland, 20, Servant, b. Ireland
Benj. Flores, 19, Servant, b. Mexico

California Pioneer and Immigarant Cards:
August 1865
William Herman Rulofson, from New Brunswick. Married to Amelia Currie and Mary Morgan. Date of birth, marriage date, father's name "on record". Came by sea "around the Horn" in 1849. Lives in Sonora, San Francisco. Occupation: photographer and author.

1867 Pacific Coast Directory
Bradley & Rulofson, photographic gallery, 429 Montgomery, San Franciso

1870 Census. San Francisco Ward 12, San Francisco, CA, Hh 318
Wm. H. Rulofson, 44, Photograph Gallery; Real Estate worth $30,000; Personal Prop $40,000. b. Brit. Prov., Parents foreign born.
Mary J., 25, b. VA
Fanny, 16, attends school, b. California as all the children were
Alfred C., 15, "
Emma, 13, "
Isabel, 10, "
Matilda, 6, at home, (last child born to Amelia)
Charles, 3, at home
Ida, 1, at home
Samuel Morgan, 23, Clerk in Store, b. VA
Danl. Murphy, 35, Domestic, b Ireland
Sarah Cooney, 30, Domestic, b. Ireland

Daily Nevada State Journal, published in Reno, 1 Jan 1878
The National Gold medal was awared to Bradley and Rulofson for the best Photographs in the United States, and the Vienna medal for the best in the world.
429 Montgomery St., San Francisco

1879 Oakland, California City Directory
Rulofson, William H., photographer (S.F.) residence: 1163 Brush, Oakland

24 Feb 1916
William Herman Rulofson says born 1826, State of Maine. Married Amelia Violet Currie, Mar 1851, St. Johns, Newfoundland. Arrived in the Spring of 1852 on a sailing vessel, via Cape Horn. Before coming to California he lived in Maine and St. Johns, Newfoundland. Lived in California in Sonora and later, San Francisco. Occupation, First - Placer gold mining; Later - photographer.
Died in San Francisco, 1878. Signed A. C. Rulofson (Alfred Currie, son, penciled in),

http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/content/studio-bradley-and-rulofson
Henry William Bradley (1813-1891) and William Herman Rulofson (1826-1878)
North Carolinian H.W. Bradley came to California in the Gold Rush and opened a photography studio in 1850. Rulofson, a native of Canada, also came to California in 1849, prospecting in Sonora. He began photographing miners in 1850 from a mobile daguerreotype wagon in Sonora and opened an office/studio in that district that he oversaw for a decade. In 1861 he joined in a partnership with Bradley.
The two men could not have been more temperamentally different. Rulofson had a violent temper, a lewd streak, and a Bohemian disregard of civil convention. Bradley was a painstaking technician, with a fatalistic tendency, and a ferocious work ethic. Bradley’s fortitude best showed when his first gallery on Montgomery Street burnt down on May 4, 1851. Within weeks, he opened a gallery on Clay Street offering colored daguerreotypes. During the 1850s, he found he earned more supplying photographic materials to his rivals and the itinerating cameramen recording western scenery and the gold camps. He moved restlessly over the city, at times presiding over a gallery and a stock depot. Stability came when he connected with Rulofson and purchased the Vance Gallery on Montgomery Street. While Rulofson managed the portrait gallery, Bradley oversaw the photographic materials business and a growing publishing enterprise (in imitation of rival Thomas Houseworth).
The Bradley & Rulofson studio—"The Photographic Art Gallery"—at Sacramento and Montgomery Streets became a palace of luxury, known for its two hydraulic elevators, immense mirrors, thick pile rugs, grand piano, and its life-size half-length portraits of divas and darlings lining the gallery walls. As manager of the portrait sessions throughout the 1860s and early '70s, Rulofson was the creative force behind the enormous images.
Rulofson’s skill as a photographer received recognition in professional exhibitions, and the prestige of the studio advanced considerably when they issued Edward Muybridge’s scenic views of Yosemite. In 1874, when the National Photographers's Association convention saw two competing factions wrestling for the organization's presidency, the fame and independence of Rulofson made him an ideal compromise candidate.
Rulofson photographed all of the itinerating royals, generals, statesmen, scientists, and men of letters who sojourned in San Francisco. He also photographed the theatrical companies who stopped in California. When the gallery issued a Celebrity Catalogue in 1878, the inventory ran to fifty-one pages. Furthermore, the visual accoutrements available for sitters at the Bradley & Rulofson studio were interesting in ways far beyond those of other high end portrait studios. Bradley was able to import state of the art Lafayette W. Seavey props and backpaintings. Oriental objects from the China trade likewise abounded.
Rulofson was killed from a fall off the gallery roof in 1878. An imbalance of revenue to expenditure forced the gallery to relocate, and eventually forced it to close.

Birth	27 Sep 1826	Hampton, Kings, New Brunswick, Canada
Marriage	11 Jul 1867	Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, California - Mary Jane Morgan
Death	2 Nov 1878	San Francisco, California

Spouse	Mary Jane Morgan (1844 - 1914)
Child	Mary Jeanette "Jean" Rulofson (1869 - 1909)

Father	William Herman Rulofson (1792 - 1827)
Mother	Priscilla Amelia Howard (1798 - 1842)