Leroy R. Hafen: 47 Years as Chronicler of Western Americana

Leroy R. Hafen: 47 Years as Chronicler of Western Americana

BY HOLLIS J. SCOTT

Interpreting the American West from the Spanish interlopers' pursuit of pearls, chocolate, silk, and gold to the quest of the fur traders, explorers, emigrants, bushwhackers, militarists, and the railroad men has been a life-consuming interest of Dr. LeRoy Reuben Hafen, one of the few remaining veteran historians who began treating the Western Americana scene as early as 1919.

Nearly 50 years as either an author, coauthor, or editor; 30 years as Colorado State Historian; plus years of experience as a history professor, archivist, explorer, museum director, and lecturer have pre-eminently qualified Dr. Hafen as one of the reliable producers of western works of remembrance.

Historiographers and scholars who have done any extensive research on western United States history have undoubtedly encountered the works of Hafen. Many of the readers of the Utah Historical Quarterly will need no introduction to LeRoy R. Hafen, whose articles or reviews of his works by other scholars have appeared in past issues.

Today Dr. Hafen, now approaching his seventy-fourth year, is still delineating the human advance in the opening of the American West. One of the foremost living authorities on the early frontier pushers — the mountain men — this veteran chronicler has not retired from the researching, writing, or editing rigors.

His current project, apart from teaching classes in frontier history at Brigham Young University, is compiling and editing a series of volumes under the title The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. Published by Arthur H. Clark Company of Glendale, California, the works will feature carefully prepared biographies of more than 400 mountain men written by leading fur trade authorities of yesterday and today.

Dr. Hafen's major achievement as an historical editor and writer is a 15-volume series, The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820- 1875, a 12-year project which culminated in 1962. This production was done in collaboration with his wife, Ann W. Hafen, who has coauthored other works with Dr. Hafen. Four of the volumes reflect considerably the influence of the Mormon colonization and migration upon Utah Territory. These include Journals of Forty-Niners... ; The Utah Expedition, 1857- 1858 ... ; Old Spanish Trail... ; and Handcarts to Zion

From his collegiate days at Brigham Young University, on to his graduate work at the University of California, and through his remaining professional life, Dr. Hafen has turned out a steady stream of publications and articles numbering over 150 items. In collaboration with his wife, he has written or edited 38 volumes. Nearly a hundred of Dr. Hafen's articles have been published in scholarly periodicals, atlases, dictionaries, and encyclopedias.

But what is the scholarly essence of his works? Just how does he rate as a scholar, historian, author, and editor?

Through searching out primary source materials in some of the nation's best libraries and archives, retracing historical trails and routes, and interviewing descendants of frontier precursors, Dr. Hafen has unfolded much new information on people, places, and conditions of the American West. Subjects treated in the Hafen works embrace fur trappers and traders, explorers and guides, emigration, transportation, military campaigns, Indian affairs, mining, as well as biographies of the actors who performed on the hard frontiers.

Perhaps his greatest contribution is his searching out and publishing in volume form meaningful manuscripts, rare diaries, journals, letters, and documents, thus making these source materials more available to the scholarly world as well as to the general reader or history devotee.

In the pursuance of the early mountain men, Dr. Hafen has nearly "run the gamut." Aside from the more prominent frontier performers, the Hafen works are laden with the lesser-known characters who also played significant roles in western history. To name a few the Hafens have written about Andrew Sublette, Daniel T. Potts, Orville C. Pratt, Lieutenant E. F. Beale, Gwinn H. Heap, John W. Gunnison, Dick Wootton, Thomas J. Farnham, Rufus B. Sage, Charles Preuss, Lancaster P. Lupton, Thomas Fitzpatrick, George Ruxton, William Henry Jackson, Antonio Armijo, Joseph Williams, Captain John R. Bell, Stephen H. Long, Zebulon Pike, Ouray (Ute Indian chief), and Louis Vasquez.

These "lesser lights" engaged in a variety of skills and pursuits as journalists, diarists, photographers, military officers, fur traders, adventurers, exploration party leaders, Indian chiefs, etc. But some of them left first-hand human interest accounts which became the object of Dr. Hafen's research.

Journals describing the first two major explorations of the West, Lewis and Clark journals for the Northwest and Zebulon Pike's journal for the Southwest, have long been published. But the major journal for the Midwest, as chronicled by Captain John Bell while serving with the Major Stephen Long Expedition of 1820, was not uncovered until recent years. This valuable journal received its first publication in 1957 as part of the Hafens' The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series.

The general history texts are silent on many of the day-to-day human interest events which are also important because they give insight into the thought, feeling, and action of our early predecessors under frontier conditions. For example, what kind of frontier medicine was practiced? How did the mountain men treat themselves when sickness came? One of the mountain scribes, Rufus B. Sage, from Connecticut, describes the following frontier-made medicine as common among mountain men in one of his letters reproduced in the Hafen series.

Gall Bitters

. . . with one pint of water mix one-fourth gill of bufalo gall [a bitter greenish fluid secreted by the animal's liver]. . . .

To a stomach unaccustomed to its use it may at first create a slightly noisome sensation, like the inceptive effects of an emetic; and, to one strongly bilious, it might cause vomiting; — but, the second or third trial, the stomach attains a taste for it and receives it with no inconsiderable relish.

As a sanative, it tends to make sound an irritated and ulcerated stomach, reclaiming it to a healthful and lively tone and thus striking an effective blow at that most prolific source of so large a majority of the diseases common to civilized life.

The Indian tribal name of "Ute" had at least a half-dozen different spellings before it became finalized. These spellings appeared in various frontier diaries, letters, journals, and private papers, edited and published under the Hafen signature. They were Eute, Eutah, Eutaw, Yutah, Yuta, and Youta.

Historical achievements are sometimes unknown until primary source materials are published and become available to scholar and reader. In Hafen's reproduction of Gwinn Harris Heap's Central Route to the Pacific, Lieutenant E. F. Beale, dispatch rider for the U.S. Navy Department, is credited with making seven transcontinental crossings in three years (one by water) during the 1840's. One year he made three crossings to exceed the record of Kit Carson.

The diary of William Henry Jackson, frontier photographer, as reproduced in one of the Hafen works is also illustrative of the vast western lore of original accounts that are made more accessible to the scholar and general reader. Historians wanting to know what the economy was like in southern Utah in the late 1860's, for instance, can get a good image from Jackson, who received a $20.00 bill for helping to drive a herd of wild horses from California to Nebraska. He relates the following while stopping at the Mormon settlement of Washington, near St. George, in 1867: "Got some milk from a native and had mush and milk for dinner. Couldn't find five dollars change in the whole town, and I don't believe any one man had it. Money is almost unknown."

It is self-evident that historical editing of original source materials has an important place in contributing to the understanding and knowledge of the opening of the American West. Laborious research fortified with scholarly disciplines is as necessary to the historical editor as it is to the writer of a narrative text. Dr. Hafen is well acquainted with the scholarly disciplines involved in historical research. The products of his research and editing demonstrate excellent documentation, a prime necessity to quality editing. His prefaces and introductions are informative and scholarly, and the bibliographies and indexes appear to be adequate.

To catch better the breadth, spirit, and flavor of the westward movement, Dr. Hafen has fortified his "armchair" research by retracing many historical trails and routes. Frequently accompanied by his wife, he has traveled the Old Oregon, the Santa Fe, and the Old Spanish trails and the Pony Express and Overland Stage routes. Together, the Hafens have pursued the paths of the wandering trappers, government explorers and railroad surveyors, and of particular interest the trails of the Mormons to Utah and California.

Their adventures have paid off with some notable achievements. Among them were the finding of a diary of the first Spanish trader from California to Mexico, /Antonio Armijo, located in a Mexico City government office; interviewing a son of Kit Carson and Hiram Vasquez, a 90- year-old stepson of Louis Vasquez, a partner of Jim Bridger; and locating the original home in Connecticut of Rufus B. Sage, early mountain scribe.

The many volumes Dr. Hafen has edited by himself and in collaboration with his wife and others testify that he has excelled in this field of historical presentation of first-hand accounts. But as an author and coauthor, the silver-haired dean of western history writers has likewise claimed his niche. Here again Dr. Hafen demonstrates first-rate scholarly research fortified with clear and interesting narration that only comes from considerable winnowing and revising.

Undoubtedly, his Mormon lineage helped to propel his interest in his first major written historical effort, "Handcart Migration to Utah," his master's thesis in 1919 at the University of Utah. This was followed with "The Overland Mail," a doctoral dissertation at the University of California in 1926.

While serving as executive director and historian of the State Historical Society of Colorado for a near 30-year period, it was only natural that Dr. Hafen specialized in Colorado histories. He coauthored, with his wife, The Colorado Story, A History of Your State and Mine, which is used as a textbook in the Colorado high schools.

Among other more prominent books penned by Hafen are Broken Hand: The Life Story of Thomas Fitzpatrick, Chief of the Mountain Men (with William J. Ghent); Colorado: The Story of a Western Commonwealth; Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 1834-1890 (with Francis Marion Young); and Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Mississippi (with Carl C. Rister). The latter is a college text which has had wide use since its publication. Others were Colorado: A Story of the State audits People (with Ann W. Hafen) and Colorado and Its People: A Narrative and Topical History of the Centennial State.

Singularly his tremendous productivity must include his long tenure as editor of the Colorado Magazine, the official organ of the Colorado Historical Society and as director of the Colorado State Museum. In editing and writing for this publication for close to three decades, Dr. Hafen nearly equaled the record of his other literary works. He contributed some 50 articles to this magazine.

During the 1930's he initiated one of the first WPA history projects in the nation, that of gathering and writing state and local history. Then came another achievement which received the 1947 Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History for the writing and directing of a colored documentary movie, Story of Colorado. The film has been widely shown in the schools of the state and elsewhere in the nation.

An evaluation of Dr. Hafen's contribution to Western Americana must also come from his colleagues in the field of history and from the critics who have reviewed his works in scholarly journals and other publications. The following are a few candid appraisals.

"Future historians are in his debt particularly for bringing into print so very many primary source materials for a study of life in the early West," S. George Ellsworth, Utah State University.

"This [Far West and Rockies Historical Series] promises the public a rich feast of western lore, much of it unknown or buried in little-known sources. The editors are experts in the field. The standard set by editors and publisher in volume I [Old Spanish Trail] is high.... The authors are at their best in dealing with the expeditions that crossed Southern Utah and Colorado. This part of the country, it is clear, is home to them, and they speak of it with authority," George P. Hammond, former director of Bancroft Library, University of California.

"Dr. Hafen and Mr. Ghent have skillfully reconstructed a splendid background of the fur days [Broken Hand: The Life Story of ThomasFitzpatrick], building patiently a mosaic of significant incidents, rather than the commonplace generalization too frequently encountered Dr. Hafen is a trained historian with judicial temperament, while Mr. Ghent is favorably known as a prolific and accurate writer of western biography," Edgar C. McMechen, Colorado historical author and magazine editor.

"I think Dr. Hafen is Utah's most prolific historian," Everett L. Cooley, director of the Utah State Historical Society.

"He is foremost a scholar — a good researcher — and without peer in treating the Mountain Men Period," Dolores Renze, Colorado State Archivist.

"And Dr. and Mrs. Hafen once again demonstrate in the Introduction [Reports from Colorado: The Wildman Letters] and by judicious selection of annotated notes why they are considered the leading authorities on the pioneer history of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region," W. Eugene Hollon, University of Oklahoma.

One of the few dissonant criticisms of Dr. Hafen's works to be found is the following which might also be termed an indictment of historical editing.

"While edited sources of material have the advantages of availability, they have their disadvantages too. Professor Hafen has done an excellent job of marshalling the material, both literary and visual, organizing it, and presenting it without many Bancroftian footnotes [Fremont's Fourth Expedition, A Documentary Account of the Disaster of 1848-1849]. Scholarly endeavor, however, should enclose within its boundaries some elements of the detective story, locating evidence and interpreting it. Unfortunately, this type of work [editing original sources] has a tendency to minimize the interpretative aspect. To paraphrase Jefferson, each generation of historians should be allowed to make its own mistakes," Richard C. Schwarzman, El Camino College.

Listed in Who's Who in America since 1935, Dr. Hafen also has achieved an admirable record as a college professor, having instructed history classes at five institutions — Denver University; University of Colorado; Loretto Heights College (for women) at Denver; University of Glasgow, Scotland (visiting professor) ; and Brigham Young University.

Many service and citizenship awards have been presented by state, national, and international organizations to Dr. Hafen. Among them have been the Litt.D. degree from the University of Colorado; Distinguished Service Awards from the City of Denver, Dixie College, Brigham Young University, and Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters; David O. McKay Humanities Award; and Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters, Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland; Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society; and Awards of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History.

The most recent honor accorded Dr. Hafen came in March of this year when he was selected to deliver the Third Annual Faculty Lecture at Brigham Young University, one of the highest honors that can come to a B.Y.U. faculty member. The title of his lecture was "Joys of Discovery — History and Historical Research."

Born in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 1893 Dr. Hafen was reared on a farm where he received the standard lessons in hard work. He helped to finance his education by picking grapes and cantaloupes near the bank of the Muddy River. With no high school facilities at Bunkerville, he attended school at Cedar City and later at St. George, Utah, and at the latter high school, a romance began with his bride-to-be, Ann Woodbury, that carried over to Brigham Young University. After completing degrees at Brigham Young University and at the University of Utah, the graduate returned to his native town to accept his first teaching position. But he soon left Bunkerville to pursue his doctorate at the University of California where he trained under Dr. Herbert E. Bolton, internationally known historian and founder of the "Bolton School" of historians.

The marriage of the soft-spoken historian and educator to Ann Woodbury was a boon to his significant career, as the two frequently merged their writing and editing skills which reached their apex with The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series.

The Haf ens have reared two children, one daughter and one son, the former having died when she was 19 years of age.

Discriminating book lovers, the Hafens collected over a 40-year period thousands of volumes of regional history for their personal library. When returning to Utah to live, the Hafens, desirous of placing their specialized book collection where it could be put to greater use, contributed their collection to the J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Library at Brigham Young University. The collection represents the largest contribution of Western Americana literature to the Library. The gift also included several thousand pamphlets, reprints, and other works on Americana and regional literature. A 109-page bibliography to the collection was published by the Library in 1962.

A recital of the accomplishments and scholarly contributions of an author, editor, historian, and teacher of Dr. Hafen's genre is expected in any biographical sketch, but the intimate details of his struggles, methods, disappointments, successes, and personal philosophy would require a biographical volume.

BOOKS AUTHORED AND EDITEDBY LEROY R. HAFEN

AUTHOR

The Overland Mail 1849-1869; Promoter of Settlement, Precursor of Railroads. Cleveland : Arthur H. Clark Co., 1926

William James Ghent (coauthor). Broken Hand: The Life Story of Thomas Fitzpatrick, Chief of the Mountain Men. Denver: Old West Publishing Co., 1931

Francis Marion Young (coauthor). Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 1834- 1890. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1938

Carl Coke Rister (coauthor). Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Region Beyond the Mississippi. New York: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1941. Seconded., 1950

Ann W. Hafen (coauthor). Colorado, A Story of the State and Its People. Denver: Old West Publishing Co., 1943. Second ed., 1948

Men and Women of Colorado, Past and Present. Phoenix: Pioneer Publishing Co., 1944

Historical Summary of the Ute Indians and the San Juan Mining Region. [Presented to the Indian Claims Commission, 1956]

The Indians of Colorado. Denver: State Historical Society of Colorado, 1952. Revised ed., 1957

Historical Background and Development of the Arapaho-Cheyenne Land Area. [Presented to the Indian Claims Commission, 1959]

Ann W. Hafen (coauthor). The Colorado Story, A History of Your State and Mine. Denver: Old West Publishing Co., 1953

Ann W. Hafen (coauthor). Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles; with extracts from contemporary records and including diaries of Antonio Armijo and Orville Pratt. {The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. I) Glendale: Arthur H, Clark Co., 1954

Ann W. Hafen (coauthor). Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western Migration, 1856-1860. . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. XIV) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1960

EDITOR

Colorado Magazine. 29 vols. Denver: State Historical Society of Colorado, 1925- 1954

James H. Baker (coeditor). History of Colorado. 5 vols. Denver: Linderman Co., Inc., 1927

Henry Villard. The Past and Present of the Pike's Peak Gold Regions. (Reprinted from edition of 1860) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1932

Colorado: The Story of a Western Commonwealth. Denver: Peerless Co., 1933

John T. Woodbury. Vermilion Cliffs: Reminiscences of Utah's Dixie, coeditor Ann W. Hafen. Denver: Woodbury Family, 1933

Mary Ann Hafen. Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860, coeditor Ann W. Hafen. Denver: Hafen Family, 1938

Luke Tierney and William B. Parsons. Pike's Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks of 1859. (The Southwest Historical Series, Vol. IX) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1941

Colorado Gold Rush: Contemporary Letters and Reports, 1858-1859. (The Southwest Historical Series, Vol. X) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1941

Overland Routes to the Gold Field, 1859, From Contemporary Diaries. (The Southwest Historical Series, Vol. XI) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1942

Colorado and Its People: A Narrative and Topical History of the Centennial State. 4 vols. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1948

[Nathan Howe or R. D.] Parker and [D. H.] Huyett. The Illustrated Miners' Hand- Book and Guide to Pike's Peak, with a New and Reliable Map, Showing All the Routes, and the Gold Regions of Western Kansas and Nebraska. Denver: Nolie Mumey, 1950

Clyde and Mae Reed Porter (comp.). Ruxton of the Rockies. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1950

George Frederick Ruxton. Life in the Far West. 1951 Norman: University of Oklahoma,

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Journals of Forty-Niners: Salt Lake to Los Angeles, . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. II) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1954

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). To the Rockies and Oregon, 1839—1842; with Diaries and Accounts by Sidney Smith, Amos Cook, Joseph Holman, E. Willard Smith, Francis Fletcher, Joseph Williams, Obadiah Oakley, Robert Shortess, [and] T. J. Farnham. (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. Ill) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1955

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Rufus B. Sage: His Letters and Papers, 1836-1847; with an Annotated Reprint of his "Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, and in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas, and the Grand Prairies." (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vols. IV, V) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1956

Harlin M. Fuller (coeditor). The Journal of Captain John R. Bell, Official Journalist for the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1820. (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. VI) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957

Gwinn Harris Heap. Central Route to the Pacific. With related material on railroad explorations and Indian affairs by Edward F. Beale, Thomas H. Benton, Kit Carson, and Col. E. A. Hitchcock, and in other documents, 1853—54, coeditor Ann W. Hafen. (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. VII) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858: A Documentary Account. . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820—1875, Vol. VIII) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1958

Letters of Lewis Granger: Reports of the Journey from Salt Lake to Los Angeles in 1849, and of Conditions in Southern California in the Early Fifties. (Early California Travels Series, Vol. XLVII) Los Angeles: Glen Dawson Co., 1959

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Relations with the Indians of the Plains, 1857-1861; a Documentary Account. . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. IX) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1959

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). The Diaries of William Henry Jackson, Frontier Photographer. . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. X) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1959

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Fremont's Fourth Expedition: A Documentary Account of the Disaster of 1848-1849.. . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. XI) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1960

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Powder River Campaigns and Sawyers Expedition of 1865; a Documentary Account. . . . (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. XII) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1961

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). Reports from Colorado: The Wildman Letters, 1859-1865, with Other Related Letters and Newspaper Reports, 1859. (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820-1875, Vol. XIII) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1961

Ann W. Hafen (coeditor). The Far West and Rockies General Analytical Index to the Fifteen Volume Series; and Supplement to the Journals of Forty-Niners, Salt Lake to Los Angeles. (The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series 1820— 1875, Vol. XV) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1961

The Hafen Families of Utah. Provo: Hafen Family Association, 1962

The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. Biographical sketches. . . . (3 vols, published to date) Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1965-1966

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