What do a man holding a turtle in each hand, an elephant getting out of a car, and two girls dressed in feed sacks have in common? They all are subjects of the Historical Society of Talbot County’s Mystery Photos, which have been published in the Star Democrat newspaper each Monday for the past six months.

In 1999, the Historical Society of Talbot County began preserving and cataloguing the H. Robins Hollyday Photograph Collection, recognized throughout Maryland as the most important photographic documentation of life on the Eastern Shore. Hollyday was a professional photographer in Talbot County for over 60 years. His collection of over 100,000 negatives and prints, donated to the Historical Society by the family after his death in 1981, provides a rare glimpse of the pictorial history of the entire Eastern Shore. His varied interests are reflected in the collection: railroads, architecture, boating, agriculture, local events, and historic properties. He was also a pioneer in aerial photography and developed a system of aerial "mosaic" mapping that was used for the first time in Maryland by state highway engineers in the site location of what is now Route 50.

A team of volunteers and staff has made tremendous progress in protecting this invaluable resource. Much of the collection has been re-housed in archival materials, and more than 6,000 images have been catalogued into a computer database. But the dilemma of how to identify many fascinating photographs lacking adequate caption information has been solved with the fruitful collaboration of the Historial Society, the Star Democrat newspaper, and many members of the public.

Since October 2000, more than 28 Mystery Photos have appeared in the paper. Some weeks the Society has received more than 100 telephone calls helping to identify a single photograph. Monday morning Mystery Photo telephone clubs have formed in the community, with friends checking to see if they know what the photo is of or who is pictured in it. Calls have come from as far away as Florida and Michigan because people have mailed a clipping to a friend or relative. Many callers are anxious to share their reminiscences of events that happened as much as 60 years ago. These varied calls help weave a complete narrative for each Mystery Photo. The "answer" to each photograph is run in the paper the following week.

And now to answer the question at the beginning. The man with a turtle in each hand was part of a local industry in the 1930s and ’40s that captured terrapins and provided them to East Coast restaurants to satisfy the demand for turtle soup. By way of Florida, the Historical Society learned the names of the two girls wearing feed sacks and found that one was the photographer’s daughter, posing with a friend before a dance recital. And the elephant exiting the automobile is still a mystery. But wait, the phone is ringing….

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