Martin Mason Hazeltine (1827-1903) was an itinerant ambrotypist and photographer born in Vermont, who travelled to California in search of gold in 1850. He crossed the country numerous times over the course of his life, and learned the art of dagguereotypy alongside his brother George Irving Hazeltine. In 1853, the brothers opened a daguerreotype studio in San Francisco, which they operated together until George left the business in 1855.

Hazeltine married in 1855, and had 6 children, two of whom did not live to become adults. He travelled around the California coast, including Mendocino and Shasta counties as well as the Yosemite Valley, working as a part time photographer and fruit grower. He sold his negatives to stereograph publishers J.P. Soule, Thomas Houseworth and Co., and the Kilburn Brothers, in addition to publishing under his own imprint: “M.M. Hazeltine, Photographer, Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

From 1870 to 1872, Hazeltine spent his winters in Yosemite, where he opened a photograph gallery in a cabin along the Mariposa Trail. He was competitive with John James, or J.J., Reilly, Yosemite’s first resident photographer, until the two joined forces in June, 1876. In May of 1878, Hazeltine opened a gallery in Reno, Nevada.

Over the course of his life, Hazeltine travelled to and photographed various Western states, including Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Washington, as well as a number of locations around Northern California. He also owned galleries in Boise, Idaho and Mendocino (in addition to those mentioned above), where he sold his stereographic views of Yosemite. By the time of his death in Baker City, Oregon in 1903, it was said that he had “accumulated the largest and most valuable collection of scenic views on the Pacific Coast.”

Information taken from:

Palmquist, Peter E. and Thomas R. Kailbourn. Pioneer photographers of the west: a biographical dictionary, 1840-1865. Stanford University Press, 2001.