Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher

by Timothy Egan

  For the mountaineering material, and pictures and insights into Curtis’s days as a climbing guide, I am indebted to Jeff Thomas at the Mazamas in Portland. The club does a superb job of housing all things relating to the rich mountaineering history of the Pacific Northwest, and Jeff was kind enough to allow me to use a seldom-seen Indian picture taken by Curtis on Mount Hood.

  I tried to visit every Indian reservation and tribal homeland covered in the Curtis magnum opus. Some of these lands I saw earlier, while not in pursuit of the Shadow Catcher. All of the people at these places were welcoming, and warmed to the topic. In particular, the staff at Canyon de Chelly National Monument, in the Navajo Nation, was terrific. I urge any reader wishing to find perhaps the most enchanting—and overlooked—place on the continent to pay a visit. Hopi elders, memorably at the stone outpost of Walpi, and tribal officials in Acoma, the Sky City, also gave up much of their time in response to my queries. I climbed up the path to Acoma three times—each more mesmerizing. At the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which I visited many times in the heart of the Crow Nation, it helped that my initial reappraisal of the battle was courtesy of a man who was then superintendent of the monument, Gerard Baker, a full-blood Mandan-Hidatsa.

  In Los Angeles, where Curtis spent his final years, two outposts of western and Native American history proved most useful. Thanks to the Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian for giving me access to hundreds of Curtis letters, even though the museum itself was closed for construction. Thanks also to the Seaver Center for Western History Research at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, keeper of edited first editions of Curtis volumes.

  On the other coast, in the other Washington, thanks once again to Jeffrey M. Flannery, head of the Reference and Reader Service Section of the Library of Congress. It was there that I found the complete write-up that Curtis did of the Little Bighorn (and never published). Also, it was there that I trolled the correspondence of President Theodore Roosevelt, and his aide Gifford Pinchot, with Curtis.

  In New York, kudos to the entire staff at the Pierpont Morgan Library, sitting on a nest of Curtis memorabilia. My publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has been wonderful on this project. Special thanks to Andrea Schulz, editor in chief at HMH, for showing such a deft hand (unusual in that trade!) and for all the suggestions that improved the manuscript. I failed her on a few things, but it would have required interviews beyond the grave. Larry Cooper, once again, caught many things in the copyediting that my untrained eyes had missed. Also at Houghton, my gratitude to Christina Morgan, for immense help in finding and sorting all the pictures, and to Lori Glazer, Carla Gray and Megan Wilson for the kind of work that brings readers to writers. And praise, as always, to Carol Mann, my longtime agent—a terrific literary matchmaker.

  Finally, thanks to Michael Kinsley and Patty Stonesifer for allowing me into their winter refuge in the Sonoran Desert, where I edited parts of the manuscript in blissful disregard of all digital interferences. Patty is an author’s best friend, at any phase of a book.

  Sources

  1. FIRST PICTURE

  Description of Angeline’s cabin and her surroundings, from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 31, 1896, and from wire service story printed in Wheeling Register, December 9, 1894, and from sketch in Annals of Old Angeline, by Betha Piper Venen, Denny-Coryell Company, 1903.

  “Ragged remnant of royalty,” from Sealth: The City by the Inland Sea, by Elizabeth H. Calvert, Washington State Historical Society, 1897.

  City population, from “A Chronicle of the History of Seattle, 1850–1897,” by Thomas Prosch, typescript, 1900, on file at Seattle Public Library (hereafter cited as SPL).

  President Harrison visit, from Seattle Times, January 21, 1873, and from HistoryLink.org essay 5067.

  Angeline’s age, from a recollection of A. A. Denny in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 31, 1896.

  Joe Foster Jr., hanging, from Seattle Times, June 28, 1870.

  Reverend Blaine’s comments, from Skid Road, by Murray Morgan, Viking, 1951.

  Treaty terms, from Prosch, “A Chronology of the History of Seattle.”

  Denny conversation, from Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle, by Sophie Frye Bass, Metropolitan Press, 1937.

  Verse, from Venen, Annals of Old Angeline.

  Catherine Blaine recollection, from HistoryLink.org essay, posted July 30, 2001.

  Duwamish, known as Inside the Bay People, from A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest, by Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.

  Chief Seattle speech, from HistoryLink.org, undated, and from Northwest Gateway, by Archie Binns, Doubleday, 1945.

  Description of Puget Sound, from Atlantic Monthly, February 1883.

  Eva Curtis on brother’s curiosity, from Curtis’s Western Indians, by Ralph W. Edwards, Bonanza Books, 1962.

  Curtis as the premier photographer, from Argus, July 18, 1896.

  “perseverance,” from Argus, December 14, 1896.

  Description of Curtis as blue-eyed, etc., from lengthy profile in Seattle Times, November 15, 1903.

  Curtis bedridden, “limp, thin and bleached,” from an unpublished memoir by William Phillips, circa 1911, quoted, in part, in Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated, by Mick Gidley, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  Curtis’s early years, from correspondence between retired Seattle librarian Harriet Leitch and Edward S. Curtis, 1948–1952, bound, copied, handwritten letters on file in SPL, Seattle Room.

  Regrades and building boom, from Remembering Seattle, by Walt Crowley, Trade Papers Press, Turner Publishing, 2010.

  Largest dredging contract, from Prosch, “A Chronology of the History of Seattle.”

  Buildings like New York, from wire service story in Wheeling Register, 1894.

  Early success of Curtis, from Argus, July 18, 1896.

  Curtis in the progress edition, from Seattle Mail and Herald, December 19, 1903.

  Curtis and Angeline, first picture, from Leitch-Curtis correspondence, SPL.

  Superior beings and savages, early history, from Reminiscences of Seattle, Washington Territory, by Thomas Phelps, Ye Galleon Press, 1970.

  Curtis’s first memory of Indians, from “As It Was,” unpublished memoir on file at University of Washington (hereafter, UW) Library, Special Collections.

  Record of the hanging, largest mass execution in U.S. history, from New York Times story on calls for pardon, December 14, 2010.

  Curtis convalescence, from Leitch-Curtis correspondence, SPL.

  Curtis on paying Angeline and the Tulalip, from Leitch-Curtis correspondence, SPL.

  Angeline’s slaves, Seattle Times, November 7, 1957.

  The big idea: Curtis writes that “the task” had its inception in 1898, The North American Indian, Vol. I. Hereafter, references cited as NAI.

  Angeline obituaries, from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 31, 1896, and Aberdeen Daily News, June 1, 1896.

  2. ENCOUNTER ON A VOLCANO

  Account of 1897 climb, from Portland Oregonian, August 26, 1897.

  Curtis’s account of Rainier in 1897 and 1898, and mention of Ella McBride, from his correspondence with Leitch, SPL. Also from Curtis’s own account in his unpublished memoir, “As It Was,” UW Library, Special Collections.

  Mazama account of the 1897 Rainier climb, from the journal Mazama: A Record of Mountaineering in the Pacific Northwest, Vol. 2, October 1900.

  Curtis mountain pictures advertised, from his brochure “Scenic Washington,” on file at Mazama Library in Portland.

  Picture of two Indians in forest of Mount St. Helens, 1898, from Mazama Library files. This is one of Curtis’s first Indian pictures, and rarely seen.

  Curtis as heroic, his rescue and leadership on Rainier, from Seattle Times, August 14, 1897, and Detroit Free Press, September 12, 1897.

  Other Rainier descriptions, from Curtis’s typescript notes, “Mount Rainier, the Grea
t Peak of the Pacific Forest Reserve,” undated, on file at UW Library, Special Collections.

  Questions to Curtis from Mazamas on day of summit climb of 1897, and other details of climb, from Curtis’s unpublished memoir, “As It Was.”

  The first death on Rainier, from Harper’s Weekly, August 28, 1897, and from Mount Rainier: A Record of Exploration, by Edmond S. Meany, Macmillan, 1916.

  The record for most climbers, and account of the 1897 climb, from Dee Molenaar, The Challenge of Rainier, Mountaineers, 1971.

  Statistics on climbs, from Climbing Mount Rainier: The Essential Guide, by Fred Beckey and Alex Van Steen, Alpen Books, 1999, and Mount Rainier: A Climbing Guide, by Mike Gauthier, Mountaineer Books, 2005.

  Summit, and aspects of the climb from Camp Muir to top, from the author’s climbs of Rainier, retracing Curtis’s route to the top.

  Curtis meeting distinguished men on Rainier, his rescue, from his own account, as told in letter to Leitch, identifying the famous men he rescued on Rainier by directing her to a picture, from the Harriman expedition of Grinnell and Merriam, cited above.

  Grinnell background, from Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West, by Michael Punke, Smithsonian Books, 2007.

  Merriam background, from The Last of the Naturalists: The Career of C. Hart Merriam, by Keir B. Sterling, Arno Press, 1974.

  Curtis’s methods, and description of his personality at that age, from William Phillips recollection in his unpublished memoir, in Gidley, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated, and Curtis explanation in Western Trail magazine, January 1900.

  Alaska, letter, and story, from Century Magazine, October 14, 1897. Story behind the approach Curtis took to getting the assignment, from “Edward S. Curtis Goes to the Mountain,” by Mick Gidley, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, October 1984.

  Fallout between the Curtis brothers over Alaska, from HistoryLink.org essay 8780.

  Harriman expedition details, from “North to Alaska,” Smithsonian, June 2003.

  Description of Curtis as contagious, from Phillips unpublished memoir, in Gidley, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated.

  Grinnell invitation to Curtis, from Curtis, “As It Was.”

  3. THE BIG IDEA

  Trip to Browning, Montana, from Burlington Northern online history of the railroad, and from the author’s trip to Browning, and to the Blackfeet reservation.

  Descriptions of buildings in Browning, from Among the Blackfeet Indians of Montana, by A. C. Haddon, as recorded in Edward Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field, by Mick Gidley, University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

  Grinnell on Curtis’s method, from “Portraits of Indian Types,” by George Bird Grinnell, Scribner’s, March 1905.

  Holy Family Mission, from Browning, Montana, website: www.browning montana.com/mission.html.

  American Indian policy, assimilation, role of agents and missionaries, from Now That the Buffalo’s Gone, by Alvin Josephy, University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.

  Details of Sun Dance, including recordings, from NAI, Vol. VI, and from Curtis’s letters to Leitch, SPL.

  How to talk to Indians, from Grinnell, “Portraits of Indian Types,” and from Curtis’s unpublished memoir, “As It Was,” UW Library, Special Collections.

  Sweat bath, hearing music and birds, from Curtis letter to Mrs. Gardner, circa 1937, on file at UW Library, Special Collections.

  Curtis with Grinnell, from UW Library, Special Collections. Random writings of Curtis, from draft of “As It Was.”

  Blackfeet as likeable people, and their rituals explained, from NAI, Vol. VI.

  White Calf and wig must be “ethnologically accurate,” from Curtis, “As It Was.”

  San Francisco interview, from San Francisco Sunday Call, October 14, 1900.

  Curtis on the Hopi and Snake Dance, from Curtis, “As It Was.”

  Grinnell on Curtis the artist, from Century, October 14, 1897.

  Descriptions of Hopi country, land and people, NAI, Vol. XII.

  Other descriptions of Hopi country, from the author’s visits to the Hopi Nation in Arizona.

  Curtis’s advice on subjective pictures, from Western Trail, January 1900.

  Such a big dream, as quoted by family members, in Curtis’ Western Indians, by Ralph W. Andrews, Bonanza Books, 1962. Same words also used by Florence Curtis Graybill in her memoir of her father, Edward S. Curtis: Photographer of the North American Indian, by Victor Boesen and Florence Curtis Graybill, Dodd, Mead, 1977. Earlier quote in this chapter on Curtis being single-minded, from his sister Eva Curtis, also came from this memoir.

  Curtis “spending all his time” on Indian project, his letter to Hodge, September 15, 1903, in Frederick Webb Hodge Collection, Braun Research Library, Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles. Hereafter referred to as Hodge papers, Southwest Museum.

  Indian population, from census of 1900, and speculation on vanishing, from American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, by Russell Thornton, University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.

  4. INDIAN NAPOLEON

  Description of football game, from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 21, 1903.

  Roosevelt visit, largest crowd in history of state, from Seattle Times, May 25, 1903.

  Population of Seattle, cars and streetcars, from Seattle Mail and Herald, December 19, 1903, progress issue.

  Joseph’s activity in last four years of his life, from Chief Joseph, by Chester Anders Fee, Wilson-Erickson Press, 1936.

  More on Joseph, from Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce, by Kent Nerburn, HarperCollins, 2005, and Chief Joseph, Yellow Wolf and the Creation of Nez Perce History in the Pacific Northwest, by Robert Ross McCoy, Routledge, 2004.

  Edmond Meany background, and his quotes and letters between Curtis and Meany (extensive correspondence), from The Papers of Edmond Meany, UW Library, Special Collections, hereafter cited as Meany papers.

  “Old Chief Likes City,” from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 22, 1903.

  Significance of the game, Seattle Times, November 21, 1903, and more details of the game from One Hundred Years of Husky Football, edited by Karen Chave and Steve Rudman, Professional Sports Publications, 1990.

  Curtis writing on Joseph, from NAI, Vol. VIII.

  Joseph’s speech in Seattle, from Nerburn, Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce.

  Joseph’s death, and Curtis letter to Meany on the death, from Meany papers, letter, October 13, 1904.

  Buffalo Bill quote on Joseph, from Nerburn, Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce.

  Havasupai, from the author’s visit to the village of Supai, near the Grand Canyon, and from Curtis’s writings on the tribe, NAI, Vol. II.

  “Strangest dwelling place,” from NAI, Vol. II.

  Description of Walpi and Hopi reservation, from the author’s visit to Walpi.

  Apache, from Curtis, “As It Was,” and from the author’s visit to the White Mountain Apache reservation, Arizona.

  Apache dialogue, bribe attempt, from Curtis writings on file at the Seaver Center, Los Angeles County Museum of History, box 1.

  Seattle Times profile of Curtis, from November 15, 1903.

  Prettiest children contest, from Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1904.

  Alden Blethen background, from HistoryLink.org, essay 1681.

  Account of Chief Joseph reburial, from Curtis, “Vanishing Indian Types,” Scribner’s, June 1906. Quotes about the digging, from Curtis’s letters to Leitch, SPL.

  Description of marble memorial at Joseph burial site, from the author’s visit to Chief Joseph’s grave on the Colville Indian reservation, Nespelem, Washington.

  Account of potlatch, from “Vanishing Indian Types,” and from NAI, Vol. VIII.

  Cardozo, from Sacred Legacy, edited by Christopher Cardozo, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

  5. WITH THE PRESIDENT

  Curtis at Roose
velt home, from Curtis’s unpublished memoir, “As It Was,” UW Library, Special Collections.

  Sagamore Hill descriptions, from Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, www.nps.gov.

  Curtis on Roosevelt, on Roquefort dressing, on feeling at home in Oyster Bay, from “As It Was.”

  T.R. quote on Alice, from Hail to the Chiefs: My Life and Times with Six Presidents, by Ruth Shick Montgomery, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1970.

  How Curtis won contest, from “Curtis Goes to Oyster Bay—Seattle Man Will Make Photographs of President Roosevelt’s Boys,” Seattle Daily Mail, undated clipping on file at UW Library, Special Collections.

  Smithsonian rebuke, Doubleday meeting, from “A Seattle Man’s Triumph,” Seattle Times, May 22, 1904.

  T.R.’s view on Indians in general, from The Winning of the West, originally published in 1894, reprint, University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

  T.R. comment on “dead Indians,” from Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia, Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941.

  Curtis’s orotone finishing process, from promotional brochure, Curtis studio, on file at UW Library, Special Collections.