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When Leland Stanford engaged Eadweard Muybridge to photograph the trotter Occident’s gait in hopes of proving that all four of a horse’s hooves are, indeed, off the ground at one point, he hired not only a photographic genius but an eccentric. An Englishman who changed the spelling of his name at least twice, Muybridge cultivated long, white hair and matching beard, and in a fit of jealous rage, had shot and killed his young wife’s lover.
    Maj. Harry Larkyns captivated Flora Muybridge. She confided the details of their affair to a close friend, who promptly disclosed them to Muybridge. Muybridge concluded that the child Flora had recently borne him was not his own but Larkyns’. The jealous husband pursued Larkyns to Calistoga, and on Oct. 18, 1874, went to the hotel where Larkyns was playing cards. Saying, “I have brought a message from my wife, take it,” he shot the major above the heart. Arrested immediately, Muybridge went on trial in February 1875.
    Though never proven, speculation at the time held that Muybridge’s superb legal defense was financed by Stanford.
    The jury deliberated 13 hours before acquitting on the grounds of justifiable homicide, his wife having been “on terms of criminal intimacy” with the victim. Afterward, Muybridge left on a photographic expedition to Central America before returning to Sacramento and the Occident project in 1877. (Flora later divorced him on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.”)
    Born Edward James Muggeridge, Muybridge inspired a number of inventors, notably Thomas Edison, to pursue ideas that ultimately led to the invention of cinematography.   RICHARD STEVENSON AND
BARBARA ANDERSON
To learn more about Occident and Muybridge’s technological breakthroughs, turn to page 2.

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