The Promise of the Grand Canyon

by John F. Ross

  writing into the contract: Ghiglieri, 49.

  liked to tell wild tales: Powell, Exploration, 152.

  “thoroughly tired of our sojourn”: Walter Powell to editor of Chicago Evening Journal, July 3, 1869, “Camp in Red Canon, Green River,” reprinted in (Bloomington, IL) Daily Pantagraph, July 20, 1869.

  call him “Old Shady”: Michael Ghiglieri argues in First Through the Canyon that Old Shady was a nickname that Powell gave his brother after his trip, but does acknowledge that Sumner referred to that name years later.

  “thrust into the sky”: Powell, Exploration, 125.

  popular song of the time: Ghiglieri, 62.

  “escape from the coast”: New York Herald, June 27, 1865.

  give their plucky little rowboat: Ghiglieri, 61-62; Lago, The Powell Expedition, 90-99.

  “two other oars are lost”: Powell, Exploration, 124.

  “the speed of the wind”: Rocky Mountain News, July 17, 1869; on the speed of the river, see Edward Dolnick, Down the Great Unknown (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 109.

  “seem to be a success”: Powell to Prof. Edwards (Bloomington, IL) Daily Pantagraph, July 19, 1869.

  “could ride any sea”: Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Romance of the Colorado River (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1902), 237.

  sophisticated and difficult to build: Brad Dimock personal communication with author, April 8, 2016.

  Frémont had experimented: Richard Lovett, “White Knuckles in Wyoming,” New Scientist 184, no. 2475 (November 27, 2004): 48–49.

  “gee nor haw nor whoa”: Ghiglieri, 66.

  “stanch and strong”: Dolnick, 28.

  The bulkheads’ placement: Ghiglieri, 53. He argues that by moving heavy loads away from the boat’s center of mass it would cause “the oarsmen to combat a maximum load leverage,” which would work against they every time they tried to steer the boat.

  proved fickle and dangerous: Brad Dimock personal communication with author, April 7, 2016. He discovered the unstable “sloshing” while running authentic Whitehalls on a 1999 National Geographic Society trip.

  used a steering rudder: Debate over the years has raged about whether the 1869 crew had stern-mounted oars, which certainly would have helped with their maneuverability. Michael Ghiglieri argues in First Through the Canyon that they didn’t have them. But Brad Dimock theorizes that they would have quickly figured out the advantage of adding an oar in the stern and retrofitted the boats. Photographs from Powell’s 1871–1872 Colorado River expedition reveal the use of stern-mounted oars.

  “mad as a bear”: Ghiglieri, 89.

  “‘Ashley’ is a warning”: Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1869.

  “sparking a black eyed girl”: Ghiglieri, 101–102.

  “leaping and bounding”: Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1869.

  James Green field barometers: New York City barometer maker James Green provided the Smithsonian for years with his fine pieces. Personal correspondence with Marc Rothenberg, emeritus editor of the Joseph Henry Papers.

  “What shall we find?”: Powell, Expedition, 148.

  “diving into musty trash”: Ghiglieri, 135.

  now known as Winnie’s Rapid: Roy Webb, If We had a Boat: Green River Explorers, Adventurers, and Runners (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 14.

  channel choked with dangerous rocks: Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1869.

  cigar-shaped islet: Webb, If We Had a Boat, 14.

  “perfect hell of waters”: Ghiglieri, 115.

  Goodman sat still: O. G. Howland, Rocky Mountain News, July 17, 1869.

  pulled the boat safely: Sumner described the details of the rescue in Stanton, 177.

  “glad to shake hands”: Ghiglieri, 114.

  lost his writing paper: Powell to Edwards, (Bloomington) Daily Pantagraph, July 19, 1869.

  lost his new: Evans, Life Story of Francis Valentine Goodman, 32.

  “not understanding the signal”: Rocky Mountain News, July 17, 1869.

  “so much pleased”: Ghiglieri, 118.

  “The red sand-stone rises”: Ibid., 116.

  CHAPTER 6: THE CANYON

  bore a sizable hole: O. G. Howland, Rocky Mountain News, August 18, 1869; Ghiglieri, 125.

  “If I had a dog”: Ghiglieri, 120.

  “One gold pan”: O. G. Howland, Rocky Mountain News, August 18, 1869.

  “were lulled to sleep”: Ghiglieri, 129.

  “instinct for cosmic interrogation”: J. W. Powell, “Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians,” First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1879-’80 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1881), 19.

  “more rare than a poet”: J. W. Powell, “Biographical Notice of Archibald Robertson Marvine,” Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, 1874–1878 2 (1880): Appendix X, v.

  “Danger is our life”: O. G. Howland, Rocky Mountain News, July 17, 1869.

  “the worst we shall ever meet”: Ghiglieri, 130.

  “chapter of disasters and toils”: Powell, Exploration, 163–65.

  the vast shallow sea: Wayne Ranney’s blog, www.WayneRanney.com, entry for August, 19, 2010.

  “clouds have formed the mountains”: Powell, Exploration, 393.

  “It was a welcome sight”: Ghiglieri, 124.

  “We had the greatest ride”: Ibid., 152–53.

  “Ambition had a strong hold”: “From the Omaha Republican, July 3,” reprinted in New York Herald, July 10, 1869.

  featuring eleven stories about it: William deBuys, ed., Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2001); New York Times, July 26, 1869.

  “almost incredible and beyond belief”: New York Times, July 26, 1869.

  unite with the Green: Dolnick, 125.

  “The canyon is very tortuous”: Powell, Exploration, 191.

  languorous drop rate: Felix E. Mutschler, River Runners’ Guide to the Canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers with Emphasis on Geologic Features, Vol. 4 (Denver: Powell Society LTD, 1969), 46.

  “A terrible gale”: Ghiglieri, 153; Desolation Canyon retains a reputation for being a haven for mosquitoes during the summer.

  “$800 worth of watches”: Ibid., 162.

  “as in a snow-drift”: Powell, Exploration, 198.

  “cool deliberate determination”: Ghiglieri, 167.

  “Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!”: Ibid., 171.

  “of the nearest pie”: Ibid., 177.

  “cooked her husband’s heart”: California Star, February 13, 1847, as printed in “The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco,” www.sfmuseum.net/hist6/donner.html.

  Such graphic images: Don Lago, “What’s Eating the Howland Brothers,” BQR 29, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 19–23.

  believed to be an alligator: Ghiglieri, 178.

  “a chute of water”: Powell, Exploration, 218.

  “like a scared rabbit”: Stanton, 188.

  like pieces of popcorn: Author interview, Colorado River guide Bruce Quayle.

  “loss of an oar”: Powell, Exploration, 218.

  “a thousand streams”: Ibid., 223.

  “on which I could rely”: “The Elgin Watches—Testimonial from Major Powell,” Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1870, 4. Interestingly, there’s a rapid in Cataract Canyon called Powell’s Pocket Watch.

  pay $30 on the spot: Richard Quartaroli notes that a gold Elgin watch in 1867 cost $117. Michael F. Anderson, ed. A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians (Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2005), 133.

  “everything was as smooth”: Stanton, 202.

  “what might be ahead”: Powell, Exploration, 224.

  “a curious ensemble”: Ibid., 232–33.

  “How they contrived to live”: Ghigli
eri, 185.

  “This bodes toil and danger.”: Powell, Exploration, 234.

  “library of the Gods”: J. W. Powell, Exploration of the Colorado River of the West (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), 193–94. (This is Powell’s official report, as opposed to the Exploration book he published in 1895, cited as “Powell, Exploration” throughout these notes.)

  “must be west”: Ghiglieri, 204.

  “the cheer is somber”: Powell, Exploration, 247.

  “uneasy and discontented and anxious”: Ghiglieri, 204.

  “No rocks ever made”: Ibid., 205.

  “We must run the rapid”: Powell, Exploration, 251.

  “Pull out! We’ll follow you”: Stanton, 196.

  “sand run so low”: Stanton, 197.

  “[T]he rubber ponchos”: Powell, Exploration, 263.

  “a race for a dinner”: Ibid., 272.

  “Good cheer returns”: Ibid., 267.

  “up against it”: Stanton, 202.

  call off the expedition: Hartford Daily Courant, October 4, 1869.

  “Of course I objected”: Ibid.

  “discontent in camp tonight”: Ghiglieri, 222.

  “knock such notions”: Stanton, 203.

  “To leave the exploration unfinished”: Powell, Exploration, 279–80.

  “run the rappid or perish”: Ghiglieri, 224.

  Powell joined Andy Hall: Although Powell claims he negotiated Separation Rapids in Maid in his 1875 report, he is most probably misremembering. Hall wrote his brother just off the river on September 10 that the Major joined him on Kitty’s Sister, which is more likely.

  “A wave rolls over us”: Powell, Exploration, 284.

  “It stands A-No. 1”: Ghiglieri, 226.

  “chained by wounds”: Powell, Exploration, 284.

  Asey and his two sons: New York Times, September 26, 1869, reprinting article from Deseret (Utah) News, September 15, 1869.

  Robbers gunned down: Ghiglieri, 274.

  “train’s bad enough”: Denver Republican, April 18, 1901.

  “supposed temporary insanity”: Jack Sumner, Surgeon’s Certificate, November 2, 1904, Army pension file, WC-644-311, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  “anxious about the others”: Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1869, reprinted letter from J. E. Johnson to Byers.

  “killed by an enraged Shebitt”: Deseret (Utah) News, September 29, 1869.

  not something that Powell believed: Stanton, 253.

  comment in his report: Powell, Exploration, 281.

  “When busily employed”: Ibid., 123.

  “endured the fatigues”: Deseret (Utah) News, September 15, 1869.

  “so important a contribution”: Chicago Tribune, September 21, 1869.

  “the sad fate of some”: Ibid., February 20, 1869.

  “erect as a pine”: Naperville Clarion, 1869, in Worster, A River Running West, 587, n.9.

  Geologic history would no longer: Grove Karl Gilbert, “Powell as a Geologist,” Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences 5 (1903): 116.

  CHAPTER 7: ENCORE

  barbaric, holy massacre: Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 212, 263.

  “Holy Spirit forcibly impressed me”: Jacob Hamblin, Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience, as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1909), 30.

  Numic-speaking Indians had moved: Catherine S. Fowler and Don D. Fowler, “Notes on the History of the Southern Paiutes and Western Shoshonis,” Utah Historical Quarterly 39 (1971): 98.

  traded their own children: Fowler and Fowler, “Notes,” 104.

  devastated the seed-bearing vegetation: Edward Leo Lyman, “Caught in Between: Jacob Hamblin and the Southern Paiutes During the Black Hawk-Navajo Wars of the Late 1860’s,” Utah Historical Quarterly 75, no. 1 (2007): 25.

  One of the more numerous: Lyman, 26, 43.

  The Major “philosophized a little”: Brigham Young sermon, September 25, 1870, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13 (Liverpool: F.D. Richards, etc.), Discourse 27, 248–49.

  “branches of knowledge”: Worster, A River Running West, 216.

  bringing Lee to justice: Sworn statement of Erastus Snow, February 21, 1882, in Elder Charles W. Penrose, “The Mountain Meadows Massacre. An Address by Elder Charles W. Penrose, October 26, 1884” (Salt Lake City: The Desert News, 1906), 63–64.

  excommunicated Lee for “extreem wickedness”: Glen M. Leonard, “The Juanita Brooks Lecture Series presents The 26th Annual Lecture: Revisiting the Massacre at Mountain Meadows,” March 18, 2009 (St. George: Dixie State College of Utah, 2009), 26.

  “net-work of communal interest”: Major J. W. Powell, “The Ancient Province of Tusayan,” Scribner’s Monthly 11 (December 1875): 194–95.

  “bare-legged, merry-faced pigmy”: John Wesley Powell, “Western Exploration,” Chicago Tribune, October 28, 1870.

  “My knowledge is general”: Powell, Chicago Tribune, October 28, 1870.

  sweet, soft, and musical language: “The Cities of the Aztecs: Lecture by Major J. W. Powell, U.S.A., Before the Young Men’s Christian Association,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 17, 1871, 2.

  “by the fire”: Powell, Exploration, 311.

  faint inscription carved: Frank M. Barrios, “An Appointment with Death: The Howland-Dunn Tragedy Revisited,” in A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-Person Accounts, Proceedings of the Inaugural Grand Canyon History Symposium, January 2002, ed. Michael F. Anderson (Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2005), 146–47.

  “although these murderers”: Powell, Exploration, 323.

  some five hundred Ute words: “Academy of Sciences. Lecture by Major Powell, the Eminent Explorer,” Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1869, 4.

  Every federally sponsored mission: Don D. Fowler and Catherine S. Fowler, “John Wesley Powell, Anthropologist,” Utah Historical Quarterly 37, no. 2 (Spring 1969): 156.

  “a merry sight”: Powell, “Tusayan,” 204.

  “radiating in the noonday”: Frank D. Reeve, “War and Peace: Two Arizona Diaries,” New Mexico Historical Review 24, no. 2 (April 1949): 124.

  a wild spectacle: Powell, Exploration, 353.

  an important neutral buffer: Todd M. Compton, A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2013), 319.

  “peace and friendship is planted”: “Journal History of the Church: 1870–1879, 1870 November–December,” Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, Reel 26, Vol. 83, November 21, 1870.

  no longer cross into Utah: “Journal History of the Church: 1870-1879.”

  wondered “that a morally degenerate”: Major J. W. Powell, “An Overland Trip to the Grand Cañon,” Scribner’s Monthly 10, no. 6 (October 1875): 677.

  “one Cochena suite”: Worster, A River Running West, 218.

  “we hear nothing”: Byers to Powell, December 1869, William N. Byers Papers, University of Colorado at Boulder, University Libraries, Archives Department, Box 1, Book 3, Letterbooks.

  send Sumner a railroad pass: Ibid., July 1, 1870.

  “a new unwritten chapter”: Rocky Mountain News, August 9, 1870.

  “a practicable railway route”: Ibid., November 19, 1870.

  supplied important survey information: Raymond Sumner communications with author.

  “A very fine present”: Byers to Powell, December 16, 1870.

  bought a captain’s chair: Hillers diary, May 21, 1871, in Don D. Fowler, ed. “Photographed All the Best Scenery”: Jack Hillers’s Diary of the Powell Expeditions, 1871–1875 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1972), 24.

  Powell’s “magnificent will”: Frederic
k Samuel Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition Down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872 (New York, Putnam, 1908), 73–74.

  Powell sang constantly: Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, 30.

  “Imagine a group of rough”: E. O. Beaman, “The Cañon of the Colorado,” Appletons’ Journal 11, no. 265 (April 18, 1874): 483.

  drew the double-lined course: W. L. Rusho, “Francis Bishop’s 1871 River Maps,” Utah Historical Quarterly 37, no. 2 (Spring 1969): 209.

  tent of yellow cloth: E. O. Beaman, “Among the Aztecs,” Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin 3, no. 11 (November 1872): 746.

  “infernal howitzer on my back”: Walter Clement (Clem) Powell, “Journal of Walter Clement Powell,” Utah Historical Quarterly 16–17 (1948–1949): 321.

  “great pest to the photographer”: E. O. Beaman, “The Colorado Exploring Expedition,” Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin 3, no. 2 (February 1872): 464.

  bring 250 images: Elizabeth C. Childs, “Time’s Profile: John Wesley Powell, Art, and Geology at the Grand Canyon,” American Art 10, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 12.

  a pair of heavy shoes: Martin J. Anderson, “Artist in the Wilderness: Frederick Dellenbaugh’s Grand Canyon Adventure,” The Journal of Arizona History 2, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 54.

  “place for a lunatic-asylum”: Francis Marion Bishop, “Captain Francis Marion Bishop’s Journal,” Utah Historical Quarterly 15 (1947): 216.

  their invisible triangles: Robert W. Olsen, Jr., “The Powell Survey Kanab Base Line,” Utah Historical Quarterly 37, no. 2 (Spring 1969): 261–68; Richard A. Bartlett, Great Surveys of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 303–05.

  “vile, miserable sinners”: Bishop, “Journal,” 214.

  eventually became a bishop: Worster, A River Running West, 238.

  three thousand photographic glass plates: Wiliam Culp Darrah, “Beaman, Fennemore, Hillers, Dellenbaugh, Johnson and Hattan,” Utah Historical Quarterly 16-17 (1948–1949): 496.

  “We joked him”: Dellenbaugh, Canyon Voyage, 237.

  CHAPTER 8: FIGHTING THE NATIONAL SURVEYS

  thirteen quarto volumes: John A. Moore, “Zoology of the Pacific Railroad Surveys,” American Zoology 26, no. 2 (1986): 331.