The Loryeas: A Jewish Immigrant Family’s Curious Connections with Tattooing
Researched & Written by Carmen Forquer Nyssen
What do tattooed heiress Aimee Crocker, Japanese tattoo masters Hori Chiyo and Hori Toyo, the blue chin-tattooed Olive Oatman, and tattooer Apache Harry have in common? They were all curiously connected to the Loryea family via varying degrees of separation.
Though tattooing as a profession and art form is unique unto itself, by its very nature, it has continually, and curiously, intermingled with society at large in all its diversity. As a most convincing case, the Loryea family, in merely going about their daily lives and following their passions, encountered an interesting array of people that—both directly and indirectly—had ties to tattooing. Their generations of exploits and experiences exemplify all the uncanny ways the tattoo world interconnects with the many facets of culture, and how it all circles back into the whole, manifesting a colorful mosaic of history across time.
Loryeas: Jewish Immigrants from Courland, Russian Empire
The Loryeas were Jewish immigrants, native to Courland, a governate of the Russian Empire (in present day Latvia). In their homeland, anti-Semitism was rife, and by the late 1840s, oppressive measures had escalated. With such a dismal state of affairs, Isaac Loryea, the head of the family, brought his wife Ester and his children to America (via other countries) intent on living out the promise of freedom and opportunity. They settled in Sumter, South Carolina, where the oldest offspring prospered marrying and raising families, and conducting successful businesses. Two of Isaac’s sons, however, moved to the nation’s newly pioneered western outreaches, and engaged in a number of noteworthy undertakings that—from one generation to the next—linked them to happenings in tattoo history.
Abraham Milton Loryea: Bohemians, Baths, & Tattoos
Isaac’s youngest son, Dr. Abraham Milton Loryea (1839-1893, b. England), a graduate of the Medical College of Southern Carolina, was the first to travel west, around 1859. For a decade, or so, he operated the highly successful Oregon Hospital for the Insane with partner James C. Hawthorne (1819-1881). But, in 1872, he sold-out and launched a company promoting his patented “Unk Weed” arthritis remedy. By 1873, this endeavor found him peddling his wares in London, England, where he was very likely introduced to the concept of the Turkish Hammam bath—and, subsequently, to a menagerie of people and places, at one time or another, associated with tattooing and/or its history.
Like his Unk Weed product, Hammam baths were utilized to treat arthritis. Given Abraham’s medical interests, it’s reasonable to assume he had sought out or been directed to London’s most popular facility at 76 Jermyn Street, operated by David Urquhart (1805-1877). While he claimed he had spent years studying Turkish baths all over Europe, just as Urquhart himself had done, he opened the doors to his own extravagant facility in San Francisco, at 11-13 Dupont Street, mere months after his London trip. The West’s simulated Hammam baths—with their ‘Far East’ vibes, frescoed walls, elaborate fountains, and soothing pools—attracted people from all walks of life keen on embracing exotic pleasures. In the late 1800s, famed London tattooist, Sutherland MacDonald (1860-1942), whose father, Col. Robert MacDonald, had managed the 76 Jermyn baths c. 1880-1881, even installed a customized tattoo studio inside that location to capitalize on the inviting ambiance and uplift his business in the same light.
Abraham’s bathhouse was no less lavish or well-trafficked than its London counterpart, though it was set in the sleazy fringes of Chinatown, where hi-jinx galore prevailed. In March of 1887, in fact, after Abraham had moved his establishment around the corner to 218 Post Street, it became the backdrop of an incriminating incident involving Harry Mansfield Gillig (1858-1909), a well-to-do yachtsman and opera singer, who was friend and future husband of the free-spirited—later sumptuously tattooed—heiress, Aimee Crocker (1864-1941).
Read the intriguing details of Harry M. Gillig’s San Francisco fiasco on the Aimee Crocker website: The Sleaziest Street in Town, as researched & written by Kevin Taylor. Make sure to keep exploring Kevin’s wonderful website for all things Aimee Crocker and Bohemian: https://aimeecrocker.com/ .
Famed Harper’s Weekly ‘Wild West’ artist and illustrator, and Bohemian Club member, Paul Frenzeny (1840-1906), painted the frescoes in Abraham Loryea’s Turkish Hammam baths. When he moved to England, he was a rider in Buffalo Bill’s London Wild West Show.
Luckily, despite the crazy accusations made against Gillig, the ruckus caused his social standing no harm, and he and Aimee were hurrah-ed along by friends and colleagues on their upcoming adventures, tattoo-related and otherwise. Abraham, who in protecting his business that denied Gillig had been at his Hammam baths during the 1887 events, was one such associate.
As were Aimee’s father Edwin Bryant Crocker, her uncle Charles Crocker, and her cousins, both Abraham Loryea and Harry Gillig were members of San Francisco’s elite Bohemian Club (which had an outpost at 130 Post Street, a block from the Hammam baths). The Bohemians were a ‘men’s only’ group consisting of artists, writers, photographers, and entrepreneurs, who mutually influenced and supported not only their respective talents, but outside interests as well—even the allure of tattoos.
When Harry and Aimee later embarked on a global adventure as husband and wife, in February of 1892, a party of clubmen—perhaps including Abraham—gathered at the dock to bid them adieu. From then on, the entourage kept close tabs on the couple’s travels, and some joined in on the globe-trotting trend, tracing the same path that enlightened their flaneuring friends to the majesty of Japanese tattooing.
On more than one occasion, from 1892 to 1895, the Gillig’s world tour landed them in Yokohama, where they had the honor of meeting famed tattooer Hori Chiyo, and ogling his gorgeous art. One time while they were in the country, in March of 1895, fellow Bohemian, journalist and poet, Sands William Forman (1849-1901), followed suit and set sail for the city. He, too, met the skilled designer on his visit, and brought back his own marveling tales of witnessing the Japanese master in his element.
Hori Chiyo, styled “an artist of the first water” in Aimee Crocker’s biography, And I’d Do It Again, had achieved high acclaim, by the 1890s, for his tattooing on European Royals and other members of high society. His international repute had instigated a worldwide wave of appreciation for the Japanese tattooing style—and tattooing in general. Among others, the U.K.’s Sutherland MacDonald, Tom Riley, and George Burchett fashioned their work after his hand-done, fine-lined designs, called Tebori in Japan.
Like his eccentric friends, Abraham might have relished in hearing about the Gilligs’ initial bon voyage itinerary and their encounter with Hori Chiyo, but due to his passing on April 28, 1893, he wasn’t apprised of Aimee’s upcoming tattoo escapades. Though it’s not clear whether Aimee had submitted to Hori Chiyo’s needlework during her trips abroad, the “ancient and glorious spirit” of Japan had certainly piqued her fancy for the art. In 1899, while she was living in New York City, she one day tasked her servant with finding “the best of the Japanese artists.” Uncannily, Hori Chiyo’s world-touring student Yoshisuke Hori Toyo—a visiting partner of illustrious Bowery tattooer Samuel F. O’Reilly, at 5 Chatham Square—was the “skillful designer” who showed up at her apartment. Aimee was still married to Henry Gillig at the time, but her fickle heart had fallen for song writer Jackson Gouraud (1874-1910) (later her 3rd husband), and she proclaimed her affections for him by having Hori Toyo ink their initials, “AG” and “JG,” on each of her arms; Jackson did the same the next day. Unlike the traditional Tebori (hand-done tattooing) of his mentor, Hori Toyo used an electric tattoo machine—of which his colleague O’Reilly obtained the first patent in 1891.
Aimee also collected a bit of O’Reilly’s work in indulging her tattoo whims—and not without her penchant for spectacle in mind. She was one of the era’s few women who proudly paraded her designs about town for all to gawk at. One 1901 New York newspaper journalist raved about the beetle and devil etched on her arms. And, in 1904, a “Gotham Gossip” column yattered on about her “collection of pigments in pictures:” a butterfly on her shoulder, a heart and arrow, a large snake around her waistline, and a bird on her bodice. For years to come, newspapers worldwide, especially those in San Francisco, reported on Aimee’s enchantment with tattoos and all her other enterprises emanating from the Budda-Zen essence she had embraced in Japan—where, she proclaimed, her “true life began.”
Curiouser Connectors…
As for Hori Toyo, as the turning wheel of fate would have it, shortly after tattooing the lovely Mrs. Aimee Gillig, by late 1900, he had commenced his galivanting ways and was wielding his coveted, foreign artistry in her devoted San Francisco—at 206 Kearney and 418 Post streets, right in the midst of Chinatown and proximal to the Bohemian Club. By then, a new wave of Bohemians mingled in the mix, and in accordance with the Universal law of connectedness, their livelihoods also brought them into contact with tattooing. Genius photographer Arnold Genthe (1869-1942), who had taken several famous photos of the Crocker family, was a most relevant figure in that regard.
For an account of how Arnold Genthe and fellow Bohemian friends linked with San Francisco’s tattoo scene at the turn of the century, see Buzzworthy Tattoo History article: Prof. Jacob Londella: Tattooer of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown.
And Curiouser Connectors…
Abraham Loryea’s Turkish Hammam baths were no longer in operation by the time of Hori Toyo’s San Francisco stay, but had been a favorite luxury of the Bohemian crowd until just beforehand. Oddly enough, the demise of the bathhouse, less than a year earlier, had involved a Bohemian Club man—none other than Aimee Crocker’s first husband, Richard Porter Ashe (1860-1929), father of her daughter Gladys.
Until 1890, Abraham’s son, James Hawthorne Loryea (1862-1920), was a clerk at the baths, but because of animosities against his step-mother Ester, he disowned his father and left to exhibit his “wonderful feats of hypnotism” across the country as “Prof. Santanelli.” Abraham’s other children, a son William and a daughter Amy, had also fallen out with him. Fearing his offspring would dismantle his treasured Hammam baths upon his death, he scribbled out a will in January of 1893 (on Bohemian Club note paper) disinheriting them. To further safeguard his property, he and Ester legally adopted an adult man named Gustave H. Lehman, who changed his name to George Lehman Loryea and managed the baths for 7 more years. Operations turned sour after George partook in questionable business dealings with the ultra-wealthy Porter Ashe. In several newspaper notices, the two men were mentioned together regarding shared debts (and other activities) associated with the baths. At the end of 1899, they were sued for an unpaid $95 liquor bill that toppled the business.
Joseph Loryea: Collective Connections with the Crockers & Gilligs
Over decades, it seems, the Loryeas, Crockers, and Gilligs were intertwined with one another, and by association, their differing degrees of links to tattooing.
All the while Abraham Loryea was hobnobbing with his Bohemian friends and bath patrons, his brother Joseph Loryea (1832-1887, b. Russia) was catering to the folks of Wild West frontier towns—some closely connected with the San Francisco clique. Joseph and his family were no doubt acquainted with Harry M. Gillig’s father, John Gillig, and his brood. In their 1850s and 1860s residences of Sacramento, California, and then Virginia City, Nevada (of Comstock lode fame), both men were well-known for their merchant and mining activities. In the latter, John was the proprietor of the large hardware store Gillig, Mott, & Co. and claimant of the Diez Sonores lode of gold; and Joseph was secretary of the White Dove Mining Company as well as the owner of a crockery store and the Almack Saloon. Just as prominent as either in business was Joseph’s wife, Sarah (Phillips) Loryea (1840-1912), one of the western frontier’s first female entrepreneurs to offer fine clothing. In her millinery shops, she merchandised an array of posh dresses and accessories sought after by townswomen.
Joseph Loryea, an importer of rare figures and crockery, promoted his wares in the fashion of the era’s curiosity museums operated by showman such as Phineas T. Barnum. One popular item Joseph sold at his ‘New Museum of Curiosities’ was a parian ware reproduction of Hiram Powers’ ‘Greek Slave’ sculpture. Of interest, here, is that Barnum had exhibited Powers’ original sculpture in the early 1850s. Additionally, in later years, the reproduction statues were appropriated by tattooers, who painted them with an array of colorful tattoo designs so they could use them as window displays. See Buzzworthy Tattoo History research article: Battleship Kate: New York City’s Tattooed Groupie.
Read more about Sarah Loryea’s businesses here: Jews in Nevada and Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail.
Furthering the several-fold ties: In Sacramento, in 1859, Sarah Loryea was active in the same auxiliary group as Aimee Crocker’s mother, Margaret. And Joseph Loryea’s crockery shop, at J Street between 5th and 6th Streets, was only a few blocks away from Edwin B. Crocker’s law office, at J and 3rd.
Years later, John Gillig, and wife Rebecca, moved to San Francisco and accompanied Aimee and Harry Gillig, and Crocker guests, including Margaret Crocker, on their 1890s voyage(s) to Yokohama—possibly also meeting tattoo guru Hori Chiyo.
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In the years in-between the latter events, Sarah Loryea had separated from Joseph, and he and their children took up residence among the San Francisco-ites, near Abraham’s Turkish Hammam baths, which set the stage for the Loryeas’ direct involvement with a tattoo timepiece.
Milton Loryea: Souvenir Photos, Olive Oatman, & Tattoos
During their San Francisco interim, starting in 1879, Joseph and Sarah’s sons, Milton and Archie Loryea, studied photography at Alexander Edouart (1818-1892) and David Cobb’s 504 Kearny Street studio. When Edouart & Cobb dissolved their partnership, in 1881, Milton alone left for San Jose—the Loryeas’ home c. 1867-1879, where Sarah still ran a millinery shop—and opened the Souvenir Photographic Studio with John Wilson McCaulay (1860-1922). The team of Loryea and McCaulay quickly made a name specializing in novelty cabinet card photos depicting local scenes and people of note. One selection, in particular, today stands as a unique tattoo history visual.
Sometime before McCaulay left the partnership in 1886, the two photographers made a reproduction cabinet card of a young, c. 1858, Olive Oatman—the girl who was traded to the Mohaves, and tattooed by them, after her parents were massacred by Yavapais in 1851. For Loryea and McCaulay’s purposes, the rare image showcasing Olive’s striking chin tattoos was meant as a souvenir, sold as a keepsake of the region, since it had earlier played a role in her life. In the overall picture, it held much greater significance, by virtue of how they came to borrow and copy the original photo; how the unraveling of events was enmeshed with the happenings of Olive Oatman’s life; and how it all contributed to the creation of a valuable historical piece.
Loryea and McCaulay’s Souvenir Photographic Studio was located at 315 Santa Clara, c. 1881 to 1882, and at 26 South First Avenue, c. 1882-1886.
The circumstances leading up to Olive’s collective history with the two photographers began decades earlier, in 1856, when she was rescued and reunited with her brother Lorenzo, who had escaped the 1851 massacre. Straightaway, their story was sensationalized in the media, and soon after, Methodist pastor, Royal Byron Stratton (1827-1875), seeing opportunity in their tragic experience, interviewed them and compiled a detailed publication entitled, Captivity of the Oatman Girls: Being an Interesting Narrative of Life Among the Apache and Mohave Indians. The book’s dramatization, which painted the family, especially Olive, as the victims of immoral savagery to promote Stratton’s religious agenda, worked well for sales. Within a month of its printing, by April of 1857, Olive and Lorenzo had incurred enough royalties to enroll at Santa Clara’s University of the Pacific, near San Jose. Olive only attended the school briefly, but before leaving in March of 1858, she sat for a local photographer, resulting in the image that Loryea and McCaulay used to make their cabinet card. All evidence indicates that James Adkin Clayton (1831-1896) was the one who captured her likeness back then, and the one who shared his work with the two young photographers 25 years later.
By the time Loryea and McCaulay established themselves in San Jose, James A. Clayton, the city’s premier photographer in the 1850s, had switched over to the real estate business (with an office at No. 284 Santa Clara Street, near Sarah Loryea’s No. 293 millinery shop). But he hadn’t lost interest in photography and apparently felt compelled to assist his talented successors. A photo album he kept, now archived in the History San Jose Research Library collection, contains both his original 1858 vignetted photo of Olive Oatman and Loryea and McCaulay’s 1880s duplicated version set on their cabinet card mount. The 1858 photo isn’t identified as his work, but the handwriting on it, the format, and markings, exactly match other photographs in the album, also dated 1858 and labeled “by Clayton.” Whether Clayton’s generosity in lending the rare and evocative image to the two young photographers was out of admiration for their abilities, or in the spirit of longtime family comraderies, it made a stunning addition to their locally-themed novelty shots.
Marketing motives aside, Loryea, McCaulay, and Clayton’s shared efforts upheld Olive’s history by preserving it in visual form for future generations. In modern times, the stately image has been used to illustrate various historical perspectives in tattooing—often in specifying Olive as one of the early tattooed white women, such as socialite Aimee Crocker or the various ‘tattooed lady’ sideshow attractions. The focal point of the image is, of course, Olive’s remarkable blue-cactus ink tattoo, consisting of five vertical lines on her chin and two horizontally adjacent lines on each side, which the Mohave had bestowed upon her with honor. For the Mohave, the tattoo design was part of a sacred ritual meant as a way to identify members of their culture in the afterlife. Ironically, in Olive’s day, her markings and life events usually elicited derogatory interpretation. Recent treatments, fortunately, offer a more balanced and compassionate viewpoint of the cultural complexities concerning Olive’s experiences, adding another dimension of meaning to her tattooed chin.
For those interested in a thoughtful, in-depth exploration of Olive’s story, be sure to read The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin.
Cascading Connectors…
As for Clayton’s original 1858 photo, one can only guess at the reason for Olive’s sitting. Like so many of the era’s celebrities, it’s possible she intended to sell cabinet cards of the pose for extra income. By January of that year, she was low on funds and placed newspaper ads requesting charitable donations in trade for a copy of Stratton’s publication, so she could finish her schooling. Things didn’t pan-out, unfortunately, and by March, she ended up on a cross-country lecture circuit with Royal B. Stratton, who exploited her story further for personal gain.
To the extent of entertainment, Olive’s exhibiting phenomenon emulated that of long-time showman Phineas T. Barnum’s traveling oddities. Stratton’s representation of her experiences with the Mohaves, in turn, likely influenced the stage personas of Barnum protégé George B. Bunnells’ never-before-seen ‘tattooed lady’ attractions, who were created expressly for exhibition in the early 1880s. On the sideshow stage, these performing ‘pictures of punctured purity’ displayed their heavily decorated bodies for audiences, while a talker spieled a fanciful tale to invoke awe—typically an exaggerated variation on Olive’s ‘Wild West’ story of a helpless young woman held captive by Native Americans and forcibly tattooed. As was par for show people, pitch pamphlets were sold of their made-up narratives, as were souvenir cabinet card photos depicting their tattooed epidermises.
For more on the ‘tattooed lady’ phenomenon and an intriguing discussion of the ‘captivity narrative’ see Amelia Osterud’s Tattooed Lady: A History.
For more context on 19th century ‘trade-specific’ tattooed attractions see the following Buzzworthy Tattoo History research articles by Carmen Nyssen: Barnum & Bunnell’s Tattooed humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade & A Tattooed Affair: Earliest Tattooed Attractions
The Loryeas’ Culminating Connection to Tattooing
As all sagas of synchronicity end, the culmination of the Loryea’s curious connections with tattooing comes with a surprising twist. Joseph Loryea died in 1886, but his family’s tattoo links leapt into a new era and a third generation. By the 1890s, the family had moved to Spokane, Washington, where Milton and his brother Archie (until he passed in 1900) operated the Loryea Bros. Souvenir Photographic Studio, at 824 Riverside Avenue. Coincidentally, their business sat on the same street occupied by the era’s tattooers—among them being Charles “Red” Gibbons (1879-1964), an intermittent practitioner in the city starting around 1910. In Spokane, in 1912, Gibbons married Anna Mae Huseland (1893-1985), who he afterward decorated from neck to ankle with his masterful tattoo designs. For decades, “Artoria” the tattooed girl, as she often dubbed herself, exhibited with carnivals and circuses around the country—at one point, right alongside a Loryea descendant almost as prolifically covered in tattoos.
Harry Loryea: Sailor, Sideshow, & New York Bowery Tattooer
Although Joseph Loryea’s son Harry Loryea (1862-1913) was enumerated as a photographer alongside his brothers and sister Corrine on the 1900 Federal Census for Spokane, his usual occupation at the time was hog-farming. Along with his siblings, in the 1880s, Harry had settled in San Jose, California, where he and his wife, Nellie, operated the Alum Rock Hotel. When the rest of his family whisked away to Washington State, he gave up city life and bought a farm in Antioch, California. It was here that his children were born and raised—most pertinently his oldest son John Harry Loryea Jr. (1892-1940), who entangled himself in the tattoo world much more tangibly than his Loryea kin.
From an early age, Harry Jr. had rebelled against farming life. At 14-years-old, in 1907, the six-foot, 185-pound lad gave his mother a good scare, when he ran away to find his fortune in the world with just $25 dollars and a gold ring in his pocket. It was only a matter of time, however, before he was retrieved and back at home pining away for adventure.
Once he was of age in the 1910s, and free to explore the world, he continued the quest for his true calling. He first tried his hand as a Navy man and then as a merchant seaman, before finding steady work in San Francisco with the Southern Pacific Railroad (an 1880s Charles Crocker investment). In the end, as much as his stable job as a railroad baggage handler, boilermaker, and painter paid the bills, it was his passion for the mystique and wonderment of tattooing that won out.
How Harry was first introduced to tattooing is a matter lost to history. Quite possibly, his initial encounter, entailed stumbling into one of the many 1910s to 1920s San Francisco tattoo shops established around the city. If not the case, as with so many skin-etchers of yore, he would have at least developed a taste for tattoos during his hitch as a sailor, c. 1915-1919, and probably wore a number of souvenir-designs acquired along the way. Among those who might have made their mark upon Harry were Capt. Elmer E. Getchell, who held sway as a top practitioner when he was stationed at Naval Station Norfolk; or Filipino tattooer Domingo Galang, who was Honolulu’s mainstay tattooer when he sailed to the island on a merchant ship in 1919. Whoever had tattooed him, according to a U.S. Seaman’s Certificate his chest and arms already had been well-decorated by 1918—and his hankering for the art never waned.
In following his tattoo fascination, he kept collecting an assortment of designs all over his body for years afterward, while also learning the ins-and-outs of the trade (from some unknown tattooer) as a sideline. In 1925, his aspirations of making the art his main livelihood finally came to fruition, when he took to the road, with his wife Elsie and two daughters, as the traveling tattooer, “Prof. Loryea.”
1910s to 1920s San Francisco tattooers who might have etched their handiwork on Harry Loryea and/or given him instructions were: Madam Austin, Sailor Art Smith, Gus Gilmore, James L. Hayes, “Brooklyn Blackie” aka James Earl Murray, Clyde L. Hill, James Johnson, James M. Larson, Ben Corday, Mary Meyer, Ernest H. Moore, Louis Morgan, Gus Franso, Walter Lyons, Jack Julian, Tex Parker, L.L. McKeever, Joseph M. Steelman, William Unwin, Tom Berg, Brooklyn Joe Lieber, or Jim Wilson.
During his first year of wanderings, Prof. Loryea bounced from his home in San Francisco to New York City to Yuma, Arizona—obliging customers with his catalog of “American, European, and Oriental designs.” The next year, in 1926, he set-up shop in San Pedro, California, in Los Angeles County, where his career took an exciting new direction. While in the area, he was exposed to a grand procession of tattoo talent who undoubtedly taught him a technique or two, namely:
Ben Corday and Jack Julian, previously San Francisco tattooers; Harry V. Lawson, Bert Grimm, Charlie Barrs, Owen Jensen, Frank Julian, Frank Martin, Edward Liberty, Sandy Dillon, Bert Price, and the revered Charles “Red” Gibbons, who had once conducted business near the Loryea Bros. Spokane photography studio.
For more about Los Angeles’ gestalt scene of tattooing, see Carmen Forquer Nyssen’s research composition, Tattoo Magic on Main Street.
As if the expert tattoo scene wasn’t boon enough, another big break was on the horizon. By December of that year, the Foley & Burke Sideshow had picked him up as their tattoo artist, together with star tattooed marvel Artoria Gibbons, brilliantly boosting his career through the grandiosity of show business.
For an aggrandizing effect suggestive of the old ‘Wild West’ inspired tattoo narratives, he conjured the inventive tattoo moniker, “Apache Harry.” Eventually, he also grew his hair long as a showy accompaniment, and concocted a spiel—echoing the legacy of Hori Chiyo—about having learned his craft, in 1902, in Manila, from a hand-poking Japanese master. Between his animating shtick, tall stature, and the plentiful tattoos covering his body, including an “intricate flag arrangement on his broad chest,” and “a copy of Da Vinci’s Last Supper on his shoulder,” he stood forth as an impressive tattoo character—wherever his travels took him.
Within the next few years, the 500 designs Apache Harry Loryea toted around in his trunk saw mileage all over the country, in both carnivals and tattoo shops. In 1928 he performed with Pyle’s “Cross Country” carnival in Pennsylvania and New York as the “tattooed terror.” The fall of 1929 found him plying his trade in the seaport city of Brownsville, Texas, and also spinning his imaginative yarns for a local newspaper feature. In 1930, he trekked through the state with the Rice & Dorman Carnival and the Donald McGregor Shows, then for several years, cruised through California with the Craft Shows.
As he had hoped, Harry Loryea had turned his love for tattooing into a bona fide occupation. Yet, while his many show gigs implied some prosperity over the years, by mid-decade he probably struggled to care for his large family, which had since grown to four children. The stock market had crashed in 1929, and the ensuing economic depression left the nation in utter destitution. Tattooers were hit especially hard, and in time, sideshows and carnivals fell victim. Perhaps because it was his most viable option under these circumstances, Harry next ended up on the New York Bowery—one of the country’s most impoverished regions, but also where tattooing had long been a welcome service. The Bowery, since the 1850s, had been a hotspot for tattooing, entertaining the likes of Martin Hildebrandt, artist behind the first ‘trade-specific’ tattooed attractions; Samuel F. O’Reilly, patentor of the first electric tattoo machine; and many world-traveling practitioners, such as Japan’s Hori Toyo, who had put his stylized renderings on the Loryea-linked Aimee Crocker Gillig.
Claiming his place in the Bowery’s rich tattoo lineage, Harry opened a tattoo studio at No. 22 Bowery, in 1935, middling between numerous competitors. One was the once-prodigious Charlie Wagner, who each morning begged for coffee money outside his 11 Chatham Square tattoo shop. Others coming-and-going from the Bowery’s downtrodden tattoo scene over the remainder of the decade were:
Millie Hull, Tommy Lee, Ed Smith, Bob Wicks, Andy Sturtz, Lou Mormon, Ralph Bayone, Ace Harlyn, Willie Moskowitz, Al Neville, and Phil Duane.
For more about the New York Bowery’s intermixing of tattoo characters, see Buzzworthy Tattoo History research article by Carmen Nyssen: Willy Moskowitz Bowery-Barber Tattoo Artist
Under the gloom cast down by the Third Avenue elevated train, all these practitioners rivaled each other for whatever business could be mustered from the browbeaten folks milling about, and as such, they looked for ways to expand their income. Some, including Harry, incorporated the peculiar practice of ‘black eye removal’ into their services, which earned them bonus coverage in the media and much needed promotion. The Depression, in general, had elicited media interest in all Bowery happenings, and Apache Harry’s larger than life presence ranked him high among tattooers.
In April of 1937, Harry enjoyed a huge spread in national newspapers describing his ‘black eye specialist’ work tending to the wounds of Bowery roughhousers suffering from a night of revelry gone wrong.
The same year, in another syndicated interview, Harry praised the implementation of Social Security, which had ushered in hundreds of tattoo customers anxious to have their numbers indelibly inked on their person for reference. This “swanky, sober mid-day and morning trade,” he let it be known to journalist James Aswell, and the country, made for a brisk business boom.
See Dull Tool Dim Bulb for a great Apache Harry article with photos: Apache Harry Will Tattoo Your Social Security Number on Your Skin on the Bowery
Of all Harry’s media features, his most complimentary was a colorful spread in the December of 1936 issue of Life Magazine—covering, not his black eye sideline, but his true-blue profession as a tattoo artist. The full two pages depicted his work bench, his brightly painted tattoo flash, and two of his loyal customers, Michael Brandmaier and Six Ring Dutch, wearing a splendidry of his religious, patriotic, and nautical designs.
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Thanks to the barrage of media exposure Harry was solidified in history as one of the Bowery’s iconic tattooers, but the portrayals presented didn’t quite capture his full legacy. None of them documented his birth name, Harry Loryea, so his true identity, and therefore the details of his life and career, have been obscured in history until now. As has been revealed with the unearthing of his story, he stood as one of a few Jewish tattooers who needled New York Bowery denizens with his art during the early part of the twentieth century, along with “Lew the Jew” Alberts (real name Albert Kurzman), Willie Moskowitz and family, Max Peltz, and Freddy Grossman.
Beyond his ethnic background even, like his pioneering ancestors, he was an enthusiastic entrepreneur, instilled with the grit and perseverance to follow his passion through all the ups-and-downs. He wasn’t a top practitioner of his generation, but he made his mark just the same, despite harsh obstacles. Incredibly, his crowning distinction in tattoo history, his Bowery heyday, had peaked at one of tattooing’s most dismal times and he gained the recognition for it within a short five years. On October 5, 1940, Apache Harry Loryea passed away from a heart attack, in his second New York City tattoo shop at 2 Bowery, closing the final chapter on his tattooing days and the Loryea family’s most curious tattoo connection.
Apache Harry’s New York Bowery tattoo studio was located at 22 Bowery c. 1935-1938. By 1938, the only Bowery lady tattooer, Millie Hull, and her partner Tommy Lee (also her boyfriend or husband) occupied that space & Harry had moved to 2 Bowery, in a small cubby shop next to the Harbor Inn Grill. When Harry died Millie took over that location, then addressed as 2 1/2 Bowery. In historical writings, Millie Hull is often heralded as a rarity in tattooing traditions, along with Aimee Crocker, Olive Oatman, & Artoria.
Concluding Curiosities
As uncannily unfolding as the Loryeas’ life experiences came about, it’s doubtful they were aware of how they fit into the bigger picture at any given time. Yet, somehow, the subtle influences circled back around. Whether by happenstance or some cosmic force at work, they were all linked by looping echoes across time—lingering impressions of the past ongoingly manifesting in new form, while connecting a diversity of people. The discovery that Harry Loryea and Apache Harry were one and the same person was the key that brought the mix of elements to life, culminating in a tattoo history trove of seemingly disparate people, places, and events that otherwise might never have been connected. It’s as if their story was waiting to be told …which brings me to the most surprising twist of it all.
When I started writing this article, I actually didn’t realize the extent of the Loryeas’ various tattoo connections and so forth, or that Harry Loryea, a little-documented traveling tattooer, and Apache Harry, were the same person. I just got a strong intuitive nudge to tell the Loryeas’ story in some way, so I followed that feeling, without having much information. As I dug into the writing and researching, the magic burst forth! Ideas started flowing in and tattoo gems slowly but surely turned up. The best part, the clincher, came at the end. A thought, out of nowhere, popped into my head: “Harry Loryea is Apache Harry!” Somehow I knew it was correct, and in the end, I was able to prove it.
From my journey into the Loryeas’ history, a wonderful story emerged, and a resonating lesson. By following my intuition and letting the story unfold naturally, as it wanted to come to me, it turned out better than I first imagined. I let go of limiting beliefs and judging my ideas and allowed my creativity full reign. The reward was in the process, and because I savored it and didn’t rush it, in due time, everything fell into place. The writing of the story is a bit wonky and meandering. But that’s the point. Each disparate part has its own essence that makes up a unique whole. Not only is it a reflection of life, it is life. We’re meant to let our uniqueness flow through us, not settle for fitting in, because that’s the beauty of how we all connect in the grand mosaic of life. We all have something to offer the greater whole. We all have a story that wants to unfold and be told.
To wrap it all up: in regards to certain sensitive aspects of the story, such as Apache Harry’s culturally stereotypical stage persona, the thing to keep in mind is it wasn’t his own construct. It was ingrained in a greater cultural dynamic, and as is the case with such historical examples, it stands as a ‘teacher’ of how we can better proceed in life. The overall premise of the Loryeas’ story, as told here, is how we’re all connected, not separate. With more understanding and openness towards this ‘knowing,’ we can strive to overcome rigid conditioning that isn’t for the greater good, and become more harmonious by trusting our heart and intuition, following our passions honestly, and making space for positive perpetuating energies that celebrate diversity in all areas of life.
Loryea Family:
I recently heard from the granddaughter of tattooer Apache Harry Loryea. She wasn’t well-acquainted with his history, so she was thrilled to come across my research on the Buzzworthy Tattoo History website, et cetera. One of the reasons I love doing this!! Tattoo history connects to everything, someway, somehow!
As I researched, I added missing Loryea relatives to Find-A-Grave & had other contributors add information & family links to connect all the Loryea memorials. Some requests are still pending, but will hopefully be addressed soon for those conducting genealogical research. I made a Find-A-Grave virtual cemetery for easy access: Loryea Family
As an aside, Abraham M. Loryea is buried in the same Jewish Cemetery as Wyatt Earp & his wife Josephine: Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, in Colma, California.
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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