Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 40, Number 1, 1972 by Utah Historical Society

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY EDITORIAL STAFF MELVIN T. SMITH, Editor

GLEN M. LEONARD, Managing Editor MIRIAM B. MURPHY, Assistant Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS THOMAS G. ALEXANDER, Provo S. GEORGE ELLSWORTH, Logan M R S . PEARL JAGOBSON, Richfield

DAVID E. MILLER, Salt Lake City M R S . HELEN Z. PAPANIKOLAS, Salt Lake City LAMAR PETERSEN, Salt Lake City HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City JEROME STOFFEL, Logan

The Utah Historical Quarterly is the official publication of the Utah State Historical Society and is distributed to members upon payment of die annual dues: institutions, $7.00; individuals, $5.00; students, $3.00 (with teacher's statement). Single copies, $2.00. The primary purpose of the Quarterly is to publish manuscripts, photographs, and documents contributing new insights and information to Utah's history. Manuscripts and material for publication — accompanied by return postage — should be submitted to the editor. Review books and correspondence concerning manuscripts should be addressed to the managing editor. Membership applications and change of address notices should be addressed to the membership secretary. Utah State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion expressed by contributors. The Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class mail and second-class postage is paid at Salt Lake City, Utah.

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

WINTER 1972/VOLUME 40 / NUMBER 1

Contents IN T H I S ISSUE

IN M E M O R I A M : N I C H O L A S G. M O R G A N , SR

J O H N JAMES, J R .

STONE HOUSES O F N O R T H E R N U T A H

FIFE

WADSWORTH

AUSTIN

ZION'S C A M E R A M E N : EARLY P H O T O G R A P H E R S O F U T A H AND T H E M O R M O N S . . . . NELSON

T H E NATURAL BRIDGES O F W H I T E CANYON: A DIARY O F H.L.A. CULMER, 1905 . . .

CHARLIE

STEEN

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK N O T I C E S

R E C E N T ARTICLES

101

HISTORICAL NOTES

105

THE COVER Ruins of a six-room stone house in Harper's Ward — a haunting memorial to the craftsmanship of Utah's nineteenth century stonemasons. Additional photograph and floor plan of this house will be found on page 16.

0.} The "Americanization" of Utah for Statehood . . . RICHARD D.

LARSON, GUSTIVE

ATHEARN, ROBERT

POLL

ARRINGTON

CAMPBELL

G., Union Pacific

Country

LEONARD

C , In Pursuit of the Golden Dream: Reminiscences of San Francisco and the Northern and Southern Mines, 1849-1857 . EUGENE EDWARD

GARDINER, HOWARD

H U G H E L , AVVON C H E W ,

in Brown's

Park

The Chew Bunch . . . . KERRY

ROSS

BOREN

The Boston-Newton Company Venture: From Massachusetts to California in 1849 . . . . MELVIN T.

SMITH

H A N N O N , JESSIE GOULD,

Books reviewed JONAS, FRANK H., ED., Political Dynamiting

LYMAN, J U N E , AND DENVER, NORMA,

An Historical Study

J O H N S. G O F F

Ute People: F. GWILLIAM

ROBERT

Western Wagon Wheels: A Pictorial Memorial to the Wheels That Won the West DARYL

FLORIN, LAMBERT,

CHASE

LAWRENCE G. COATES

SHEPARDSON, MARY, AND HAMMOND., BLODWEN,

The Navajo Mountain Community: Organization and Kinship Terminology

Social

W., Lincoln County, Nevada, 1864-1909: History of a Mining

H U L S E , JAMES

Region

J O H N M. TOWNLEY

In this issue Each of the three articles in this issue of the Quarterly approaches the past from different perspectives. O n e piece analyzes the practical and aesthetic qualities of stonemasonry. Another assembles elusive evidence to reconstruct the lives of photographic journalist-historians. T h e third annotates a diary rich in the lore of local history. Common to all of these fascinating studies is a focus on the visual arts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the architecture of stone houses, the work of early photographers, and a glimpse into the adventures of a well-known U t a h painter. Besides contributing to the history of Utah's visual arts, the contents of this issue reflect on folk art and folklore. Utah's rock houses vividly express the interaction between transplanted artisans and their mountainslope environment, while the second-generation cowboy settlers of San Juan's frontier live again in the tales recorded in H.L.A. Culmer's diary. A larger than usual number of illustrations seemed necessary in the magazine this time. A picture's ability to convey an architectural or historical mood is exemplified above by Charles R. Savage's Provo Canyon scene. T h e photographs and engravings illustrate episodes which are part of a much larger story. This story deserves additional attention from historians, for the visual arts have contributed meaningfully to the quality of life in U t a h .

In Memoriam

The death of Nicholas Groesbeck Morgan, Sr., on November 17, 1971, recalls his many contributions to the state of Utah and his close association with the Utah State Historical Society. Appointed to the Board of Trustees by J. Bracken Lee in 1953, he served with distinction until June 1962. Soon after the Society moved into the Kearns Mansion in 1957, Mr. Morgan donated his valuable collection of several thousand books, pamphlets, and photographs on Utah, Mormon, and western history — including many rare and unique items — to the library. This magnificent gift, when added to the gifts and purchases of J. Cecil Alter and others and the WPA collections, was the basis upon which the Society's excellent library of the present day was built. Mr. Morgan's generosity served as a stimulus to others, and in the course of time several other significant collections were donated to the Society. The Board of Trustees recognized the great importance of his gift by naming the library the John Morgan Memorial Library in honor of his distinguished father. With an interest in art as well as history, Mr. Morgan commissioned a talented young sculptor, Ortho Fairbanks, to sculpt in bronze heroic statues of Eliza R. Snow, Karl G. Maeser, Thomas L. Kane, Daniel C. Jackling, and others. These statues were presented to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Brigham Young University, the State of Utah, and other institutions. A statue of Abraham Lincoln was given to Illinois, and a statue of Lycurgus was given to Greece. He served as president of the Sons of Utah Pioneers and was an active participant in a number of civic and cultural endeavors. He published biographies of his father, John Morgan, and of Eliza R. Snow and several other books and pamphlets. His interest in historic preservation and restoration made him instrumental in having the old City Hall — doomed to destruction — moved stone by stone from State and First South streets to its present location on Capitol Hill and now called the Council House. A distinguished national honor came to him when the American Association for State and Local History presented him with its Award of Merit for "a lifetime of unusual devotion to the cause of local history." He was also the recipient of honorary doctor of humanities degrees from Lincoln College in 1955 and from Brigham Young University in 1959. The Utah State Historical Society will forever be indebted to Nicholas G. Morgan, Sr. John James, Jr.

Stone Houses of Northern Utah BY AUSTIN E. FIFE

and even sawed wood and brick are from the A earth and of it. Their earth origins are still visible in the finished products, .DOBE, STONE; LOGS,

and dwelling houses built thereof bespeak man at one with his environment rather than in arrogant conflict. With steel, concrete, macadam, plastics, fiberboard, and a host of other industrial concoctions, man's marriage with the earth is leached out, and his architectural creations stand out upon the landscape like tumors, despite titillations wrought by form, line, pattern, or simply mass. The creative work I wish to discuss is of the earth and at one with it: rough-hewn stone, gleaned or cut at or near the site of the building and shaped in the most rudimentary way by master craftsmen, unashamed of the earth whence they came and to which they would return, welcome because of the sobriety and humility of their stewardship. My interest in these buildings was first incited by a student, not from this region, who presented an exciting term paper in a course on folklore I taught at Utah State University in 1958. The paper was on the stone houses of Willard. Since that time, whenever opportunity has presented itself, I have examined stone houses, photographed them, and, lately, measured them to draw elevations and floor plans. The results of these recent investigations I wish to present here. Most of my observations are based on houses in Cache and Box Elder counties, although I have also made excursions into Weber and Davis counties. This lecture was prepared for presentation at the annual dinner of the Utah Heritage Foundation held at Fort Douglas on February 11, 1971, at which time Dr. Fife was honored as a Fellow of the Foundation. Since then he has given the lecture several times in Utah. He also presented it —• adding some data relating these houses to counterparts in Great Britain •— at the First International Congress on European Ethnology in Paris, France, in August 1971. Photographs and captions, unless otherwise noted, are by Dr. Fife, drawings by Richard J. Cloutier. Dr. Fife is professor of English and French at Utah State University and a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society.

Stone Houses of Northern Utah

The stone was quarried locally, and in each of the communities there is a visible kinship between the stone of the houses; of a few of the older business establishments; of churches, temples, and tabernacles; and of the adjacent fields and mountains. In the building of the temples rather large quarries were established in mountains to the east of Logan and Salt Lake, and no doubt some of the stones used in the construction of these homes were quarried at the same sites. Reflecting upon the basic features of these stone houses, one discovers two principles which seem to have prevailed, whether consciously applied by the builders or — perhaps more likely — through the spontaneous exercise of their craftsmanship, coupled to the fact that both labor and materials were scarce. In any case one notes first the principle of economy, that pleasing and practical results were achieved by a frugal use of labor and materials. I am convinced that the beauty of ancient Greek architecture — sculptural details excepted — lies in the applicaRich pink brick frieze adds a distinctive note to this Bountiful home. See page 13 for view of faqade.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

tion of this principle of economy, a Spartan simplicity by which maximum practical and esthetic results are achieved in the simplest and most sober possible way. The second principle is one of symmetry. The dwellings in question are the product of the rationalistic movement of the closing years of the nineteenth century, a time during which artists strived to produce pleasing effects upon the mind through logical and geometrical order. Note the words "mind," "logical," and "geometrical." In all of these houses there is an evident respect for the principle of symmetry: in the placement of doors and windows on the fagades and gables, in the proportional relationships of length to width and height, and in the sober addition of ornamental features. If rigorous geometrical or visual symmetry was sacrificed then it was done for evident practical reasons or because esthetic and geometric principles of symmetry did not wholly coincide. Typically, for example, on the gable ends of these houses a single window in both lower and upper floors may be offset to the right or to the left of the ridge. Where this occurs it was done because it was expedient to build the flue from foundation to ridge in a vertical plane. I have sometimes spoken of this manifestation of the construction of dwelling houses in northern Utah as an art of the folk. This may be a half-truth. There is little doubt that the stonemasons of northern Utah at that time were among the most literate and best educated of the craftsmen in the area. It is likely, nevertheless, that they built these houses without benefit of architectural advice and without written plans or specifications. The designs of the houses were carried very largely in the minds of these master craftsmen, and the floor plans and facades that resulted therefrom derived from the willful use of certain design alternatives learned by heart. As an aside, let me say that essentially all of us behave as "folk," as illiterates that is, in many realms despite our sophistication in other areas. These houses were built for the folk by builders whose know-how, though well developed, was built into their minds by seeing, talking, and doing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not by reading or studying blueprints. The basic floor plan was a rectangle approximately half as wide as it was long, 17' x 34' being perhaps the most typical, although I have measured them from as small as 12' x 24' to as large as 24' x 42'. The most typical and simplest house of the category I shall call Type 1. It is a one-story rectangle, with door centered in the fagade and one window on each side. A partition is built across the house, usually a bit off-center to the left of the door. Door and windows in the rear of the

Stone Houses of Northern

Utah

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} TYPE 1 : 1ST0RY, 2-ROOM

TYPE 2 : DWARFED 2-STORY, 4-ROOM

home are located opposite those of the facade, though in very modest homes windows at the rear are lacking. The gable ends sometimes have no windows at all, though more frequently there is a window offset to the left on one gable and to the right on the other instead of the rear windows mentioned above. In these smallest homes there is frequently a single flue in the center of the gable, extending downward to the foundation in the partition. Type 2 is a rectangle, not unlike the one described above, except that the dimensions are increased to about 11' x 34' and the vertical height is increased to provide for a dwarfed second story. Doors and windows may coincide with those of Type 1, or they may now include a central front and rear door, with two windows on either side instead of one. The partition is offset similarly, but a stairway fixed to it faces the front door and gives access to attic sleeping quarters, usually partitioned vertically above the two rooms of the lower floor. The windows of the upper floor are square or rectangular, most typically 24" x 24", or 24" x 36". Type 3 is still a rectangular home, but this time of bona fide twostory height, with rooms on the upper floor which are truly usable, though at the outer edges the forty-five degree angle of the gable may intercede at about shoulder height. Windows of the upper floor frequently reach

O n e room, Farmington. Walls are 22" thick and penetrated by doors front and rear, two windows in the faqade, and one at each end. Flues are symmetrically located at each end of the gable, though there is but one fireplace. There is a full basement with whole pine timbers, about 10" to 14" in diameter, supporting the floor above. This house is built of stones probably gleaned at the site and shaped but a very little by the mason. The dominant gray and tan shades of the masonry are warmed by occasional stones that have the sheen of copper. The entrance is enriched with a simple Greek Revival portico. It is still occupied and in as good condition as when built.

Utah Historical Quarterly

the same size as the corresponding windows on the floor below. There may be lovely gabled windows protruding from the roof, and sometimes even sufficient height in the vertical walls to provide second floor windows below the eave. In this type, it is interesting to note that the principle of symmetry sometimes operated to such an extent that above the door in the facade â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in

Stone Houses of Northern

Utah

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TYPE 5: T- FORMATION; 3,5or6- ROOM

Type 2, Harper's Ward. Stones were gleaned on or near the site with random selection of colors from light grays through rusts, browns, and blacks. Note the modest symmetrical faqade with square windows lighting the central hallway and sleeping quarters in the dwarfed second story. Once there were chimneys at either end of the building. Trim around the doors and windows is of plain sawed lumber, probably mounted on lintels that were axe-hewn.

TYPE 6: L-SHAPE, 2-STORY

lieu of a window â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a second-floor door is also installed, though it gives access to nothing whatsoever or to a tiny balcony at best. I suppose it could have been opened and used to shake rugs and bedding, though it had no other apparent practical use. Houses of Type 4 are achieved by the juxtaposition of two rectangles side by side,

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Utah Historical Quarterly

T y p e 2, four rooms, Wellsville. A proud though modest home whose faqade is made of rectangular soft pink stones with occasional blotches of yellow, rust, purple, and green. Corners are rusticated with bolder and more finely cut stones extruded about two inches beyond the plane of the walls. End walls and the rear are less colorful, made perhaps from the rubble which was left over when stones for the faqade had been selected and shaped. Flues are of the same stone as the other masonry and shaped to crown the folksy exuberance of the rusticated corners. There are two comfortable rooms on the main floor and attic bedrooms above with just enough height for head-room directly under the gable. It is currently unoccupied and in poor condition except for the masonry. Photograph by H. R. Reynolds.

the rectangle in the rear being slightly narrower and covered by a roof of more moderate slope than that over the main rectangle. This arrangement produces a six-room house, four in the front wing which is two stories high and two in the rear which is always one story. The two front rooms of the lower floor were typically bedroom and parlor, and those in the rear were kitchen and dining area. The two rooms upstairs served as bedrooms. Houses of Type 5 consist of a rectangular main wing two stories in height, with the kitchen in a rear extension of only one story. The end

Stone Houses of Northern Utah

result is a five-room house with a T-shaped floor plan. The arrangement of doors and windows of the facade is the same as in the houses previously discussed. An interior door directly opposite the main entrance gives access to the kitchen in the rear. This rear portion typically has a window and a door on each side, and sometimes a window at the rear. Frequently there are porches on either side of the kitchen, built either at the time of original construction or added later. Occasionally the rear portion is two stories high also, thus producing a six-room house; one lovely though humble T-shaped house in Smithfield is but one story throughout. Thus houses of Type 5 may have three, five, or six rooms, depending on the number of floors in the main wing and rear annex. Type 2, Bountiful. A harmonious juncture of symmetrical form, arroyowashed stones, and the exuberance of brick give uncommon elegance to this otherwise humble home. Note in the faqade the broad expanse of unadorned masonry which is capped triumphantly with a frieze of rich pink brick. Ncte also how this frieze has a return on the gable and how it rises beneath ihe roof until it reaches to the ridge itself. The floor plan is rigorously geometrical: door with window on either side; landing and stairway to the second floor directly in front of the front door; landing and stairway io a full basement in front of the rear door; and finally a hearth in either end of the house, both on the main floor and in the basement. Necessary economies were permitted, however, in the rear where there is a central door but no windows, no ornamental brick, and where serviceable but less attractive stones are used. See page 7 for view of gable.

Utah Historical Quarterly

It may be these T-formation houses which have provoked the notion of a "polygamous" house type because they always have three or more exterior doors, one or two in the main facade and one each on either side of the base of the T, and sometimes one in the main facade of the second floor â&#x20AC;&#x201D;- perhaps so hysterical or supernumerary wives could jump out! Actually the number of exterior doors in these houses serves a utilitarian purpose, obviating the necessity of interior hallways and also providing private access to barnyard and hygienic facilities somewhere in the rear. In houses of Type 6 an L-shaped floor plan is used, with two-story height throughout. It was "a natural" for corner lots, and provided ready access to root cellar and barnyard area from the inside of the L. It is notable that each of the house types described is achieved through the use of simple rectangular modules, juxtaposed, superimposed, or else overlapping each other by exactly one-half. Hence a builder who Type 3, Farmington. Here we have a beautiful specimen of Utah stone masonry which carries in its sober symmetrical faqade the weight of colonial and midwestern tradition. Note the square windows in the upper floor and the contrast they make with the rectangular windows and white shutters of the ground floor. The tailored evergreen shrubs accentuate the symmetrical elegance of this house which is bound to the earth it occupies by a verdant growth of ivy covering the entire south wall.

Stone Houses of Northern

Utah

Type 3, Willard. For the most part the stone masonry of the early houses of northern Utah speaks to one's sense of order and practicality. However, when sharply pointed gables were built, when upper story windows were allowed to intersect the line of the eave, and when gables, eaves, and gabled windows were ornamented with tense Gothic Revival trim then one almost feels the presence of disembodied spirits. And

had mastered the details of a simple tworoom rectangular home could, with a bit of ,

that eerie second floor door opening outward to infinity! Was it made as a landing

ingenuity, extend the pattern to a fullfor witches riding blown six-room house of Types 4, 5, or 6. broomsticks? Neither architect nor drawings would be required. Let me comment now on a few structural details. Walls are from 16" to 22" thick, with windows usually set near the outer edge. This provides an inside window ledge 12" to 16" wide, about 30" above the floor, on which one could set potted plants, pictures, or other bric-a-brac. In the nicer homes this aperture in the stone for windows was flared: 12" to 16" wider, that is, inside the room than at the outside wall. This provides an even more commodious window ledge, with flared vertical wooden Type 4 six rooms panels on either side, from 16" to 20" wide Newton. For years this and ornamented in the more pretentious pioneer home has served 1

houses with polychrome.

as a shelter for farm

tools, feed, and such. Yet the mud-brown softness of its masonry lent warmth and security to the first generation of Anglo-Americans reared in Cache Valley. The proudly forged A's of the faqade are the monogram of the settler for whom it was built: a blacksmith who, not quite trustful of the rigidity of stone, installed metal tie-rods through the upper floor from wall to wall to keep them secure.

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T y p e 4, ruins, H a r p e r ' s W a r d . i?wfw have always had a romantic appeal. Here we have the ruins of a modest but dignified stone house on the western slopes of the Wellsville Mountains. Its lovely proportions, the rich mountains into which it blends so splendidly, the statuesque pride of the brick chimneys still standing on the 22" thick walls, all bespeak a moment when man was wedded to the earth beneath him because his margin of security and comfort was small. We have drawn a floor plan of this compact T-shaped home where rigorous symmetry is manifest: the placement of a very large window beneath the ridge, for example, which made it necessary to channel the flue around that window, so that masonry was inevitably weakened (see photo). But then in the 1860s —the era of logical positivism — order, logic, and beauty were of one piece. On the north exposure, unseen from the public highway, another innovation was tolerated: a roofed-over entrance to a root cellar located under the kitchen (see floor plan).

Stairways typically rise along the interior partition from a landing before the front door. I n the more commodious houses both a narrow stair to the upper floor and a hallway to the kitchen extend from the front door. Occasionally the stair rises from the rear towards the front, though it occupies the same space within the structure. I n all cases it is remarkable how little interior space is given to non-living space, i.e., to stairs and hallways. It is also notable that closets, cabinets, a n d other built-ins were absent, though frequently added in subsequent alterations. Interior bath and toilet facilities were not provided initially in any of these houses, Flues, almost without exception, are located in the ridge of the gable and at the gable-ends of the structure. T h e r e are, of course, both practical and esthetic reasons for this, A flue must rise to a sufficient height above the wooden structure of the roof to insure against fire. It must also extend downward all the way to the foundation. Neither windows nor doors are apt to intercede in the vertical plane below it. Windows in the

Stone Houses of Northern Utah

gable ends of these houses are nearly always offset to the right or to the left of the gable. Exterior ornamentation is sober, if not indeed Spartan: axe-hewn or sawed lintels and sills and a bit of unadorned wood trim. Sometimes sills and lintels are made from large rectangular stones selected or carved for the particular place in which they are used. By the late 1870s the vogue for Greek or Gothic Revival reached Utah, and the builders were able to purchase mill-run wooden trim: lintels, sills, friezes, cornices, finials, columns, and entire portico assembly packages. These give a touch of restrained elegance that our affluent generation, spoiled by an excess of suburban baroque, ought discreetly to excuse. More research is needed to illuminate the origin of the masonry skills and structural design of these houses, though some fairly obvious corollary facts are available. The art of building in stone had received impetus in Utah through the construction of temples, tabernacles, churches, civic and business buildings, and a few elegant personal dwellings. The Eight rooms, Wellsville. This is a rectangular home having the same basic design as the humbler houses of Type 3 except that the dimensions are enlarged to provide for four rooms on the ground floor and four rooms on the floor above arranged in the same manner as those below. Elegance is added by the rusticated light pink stones of the corners, by the rich Greek Revival frieze beneath the cornice, and by the Greek Revival portico. I was amazed to note that the second story rooms are nearly 22" longer and wider than the rooms on the floor below. How could this be without an overhang outside? Easy and ingenious. The 22" walls were reduced to 11" beneath the second floor, thus providing a sill to support the joists. This house has been placed on the State Register of Historic Buildings. Photograph by H. R. Reynolds.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Type 4, Harper's Ward. The setting of this classically perfect stone dwelling on the western foothills of the Wellsville Range tokens the harmonious union of Spartan men with a Spartan environment. The grays, blues, blacks, and occasional rusty browns of the masonry pick up the predominant colors in the natural outcroppings to the east. Stone work of the faqade and gables rises tall and stately to full two-story stature with adequate space for windows below the eaves. There is a bare suggestion of Greek Revival elegance in the wood trim of the gable and the boxed eaves with return. Ill-advised remodeling has done some damage to the rear of this dwelling, but faqade and gable ends are intact. This house is listed on the State Register of Historic Buildings.

Fort Douglas residential circle is especially notable and left its mark, I think, upon some of these modest stone dwellings, especially those of Willard. Typical, by the way, in the evolution of folk arts is the imitation of sophisticated models by the folk. Less often, though upon occasion, aristocratic patterns are based upon folk models, and the flow of influence is reversed. There is, of course, a tradition for stone house construction going back to the eastern seaboard, and thence to western Europe, especially Great Britain. It is a well-documented fact that most stonemasons working in Utah prior to the 1890s were born in western Europe, whence they brought their basic skills, however much they may have

Stone Houses of Northern

Utah

19 T y p e 4, three rooms, Smithfield. The only pioneer stone house in Smithfield has served for years as a stable for prize Hereford breeding stock. It has an absolutely symmetrical "[-shape floor plan: faqade with central door and window on either side; a door leading to the kitchen in the foot of the T directly opposite the front door; gable-end windows off-set from the ridge; one door and one window on either side of the kitchen; flues at each of the three gable ends. Stones of the same hues as those used in this house — salmon, slate-black, gray, and copper brown -—• can be picked up on ditch banks twenty paces from the site. This peasant's dreamhouse has a priceless view of the tallest peaks of the northern Wasatch range and of Cache Valley south, west, and north. Photograph by H. R. Reynolds.

depended on American tradition for floor plans. 1 In any case, style and design of these houses — everything about them, in fact, except the stone itself — we owe to our European forebears, one current coming from Europe through the eastern seaboard of America (our colonial heritage) and the other coming directly as lore of western European folk converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and migrating to Utah in the mid-1800s. The stone houses discussed here constitute, in my estimation, a unique, authentic, and candid expression of the moods of the era of logical positivism in the American West. The minimal housing needs of pioneers who earned their living by their own labors are satisfied therein with efficiency and a Spartan kind of elegance appropriate to the then prevailing economy of scarcity. Their every line bespeaks the will to survive with dignity and the rationale of a well-ordered household in a well-ordered society. There are about one hundred of these houses, built before 1890, still standing in Utah north of Salt Lake City. This does not include civic, church, or business structures, nor a score of elegant residences designed by architects and built for affluent families. As many as seventy may still 1

Census rolls of the 1870s for Cache, Box Elder, Weber, and Davis counties have been examined in a cursory way, but sufficiently to reveal that of about one hundred adult males who listed themselves as stone masons, more than nine out of ten were born outside the United States, largely in the British Isles, though with a few from Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, and Savoy.

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Harper's Ward. / find this one of the most beautiful houses in Utah and the loveliest specimen of stone house architecture in northern Utah. Although the house seems to be of rather large proportions, it actually consists of a house of Type 4 —• two rectangular units side by side, the front of which is a full two stories. However, attached behind this six-room unit was a spring house, also of stone, and a three-story building originally used as a carriage and harness shop for farm storage and for other agricultural needs. As an ensemble, the three units climb gently up a boulder-strewn slope of the Wellsville range. When the masons noted the location for this house they found tremendous boulders protruding above the ground. What more firm a foundation could one ask? Hence they started building directly on these tremendous boulders, giving the effect of a house which rises skyward with its roots among the native stones attached truly and naturally to the earth itself —• a beautiful case of man a bit lower than the angels but still firmily established between heaven and earth. The stonework harmonizes completely with the cliffs in the background, and the masons were exuberant in their random choice of colors from black to the lightest grays, with occasional brilliant stones in rust, brown, dark slate, and purple. Note also that the size of stones, very large and firm at the base, gradually diminishes as they approach eaves and sky. It is on the State Register.

Stone Houses of Northern

Utah

be occupied; the others are rapidly going to ruin and are bulldozed away whenever the site is needed for other purposes. There may once have been as many as four hundred such homes, about thirty-five of which were in Willard alone. What a beautiful sight it must have been! It has not been my intent to give historical data on the construction of each house, biographies of the builders, or other details. I had hoped, rather, by descriptive and comparative techniques alone to help the reader see these houses with sensitivity and insight.

Type 5, six rooms, Willard. A simple elegance is noted in this modest home of impeccable proportions and colors limited to black, white, and gray. It is also notable for its compact internal design that wastes absolutely nothing (see floor plan). There are no interior hallways â&#x20AC;&#x201D; just a three-foot square landing reached from each of the three rooms of the lower floor without passing through any other room and giving access to the stairway and three upper floor rooms.

m^=mmm^mmwt=m': i WILLARD: 6-ROOMS

T y p e 6, six rooms, M e n d o n . In this suntanned, long-abandoned pioneer home in Mendon there is more genius than meets the eye (see floor plan). Note that the lower faqade offers an asymmetrical window - window - door window arrangement. Thus the hallway was displaced, giving one small and one large room on either floor of the main wing. Modifications in the rear wing were articulated with this shift, providing (from left to right on the floor plan) for a family room, kitchen, and porch. The floor plan resulting from these innovations provides optimum privacy and accessibility. Placed on the State Register of Historic Buildings. Photograph by H. R. Reynolds

Utah Historical Quarterly

MErMDOM :

6-ROQMS MAIN FLOOR

Stone Houses of Northern Utah

Type 5, Logan. The stones of this home, especially the bold purple cornerstones, pick up dominant hues of the Wasatch Range east of Logan. Gable windows intersecting the eaves and having hipped roofs give the roof a stable "set" that repeats the dominant horizontal lines of the rusticated corners. The base of the T (kitchen) of this house is of adobe.

I have chosen fifteen houses to be memorialized in this article, illustrating the six basic house-types, plus a few significant variations. It is my hope that through this publication the Utah State Historical Society, the Utah Heritage Foundation, and other like-minded groups may incite preservation programs which will give a long life to visible manifestations of memorable pioneer creativity such as this. If I fail then this article, at least, may serve as the memorial.2

2 It seems unwise to identify the houses by owner and address. Since most of them are personal dwellings, I feel that respect for the families' privacy is required. I do thank all of them for their graciousness in tolerating my own intrusions, without which this study could not have been made.

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• • • . • ,

. " . . • • • • • • • • •

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A Mormon wagon train makes its way down Echo Canyon sometime prior to 1869. Photograph by C. W. Carter, Carter Collection, LDS Church Information Service.

Zion's Cameramen: Early Photographers of Utah and the Mormons BY NELSON WADSWORTH

;

•

;

•.;••••••;•.."•

•

Zion's Cameramen

wonder why we cannot look today upon some M of the latent images of early Mormon and Utah history prior to 1860. ANY PEOPLE OFTEN

Since photography was invented in 1839, one reasons, why didn't the Saints photograph the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum before they were killed by a mob at Carthage, Illinois, in 1844? Cameramen have been recording history ever since Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre fixed a latent image on a silver-coated copper plate in 1839, so why didn't someone fix a few images of the building of Nauvoo, the Beautiful, that progressive and once thriving Mormon city on the western frontier founded the very same year Daguerre announced his process to the world? The Frenchman's daguerreotype not only marked the invention of photography but the beginning of photojournalism as well, because man for the first time had learned how to freeze a moment of time on a light-sensitive surface. Why, then, didn't John C. Fremont photodocument his early explorations of the Rockies? And why didn't the Mormons photograph their westward migration and subsequent subduing of the desert elements before construction of the railroad ended their isolation in 1869? The truth of the matter is they did! The early comers on the Mormon and western scenes did have their photojournalists. Pictures were taken of Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, and the Mormon temple built there. Fremont did make daguerreotypes on his expeditions in 1843 and 1853. Unfortunately, the technology of photography in the early Nauvoo period and in the beginning of the westward movement was not far enough advanced to preserve many of the original exposures for our time. Later cameramen did document the Mormon struggle to build up the desert Zion. Much of what they took is also lost, but thanks to the foresight of a few frontier photographers, who photocopied the work of their predecessors and took pictures of their own, and others who donated the work to museums, libraries, foundations, societies, and archives, there are still quite a few notable survivors. Few realize it, but the history of Utah and the Mormons — beginning at Nauvoo — was documented in photographic detail by a multitude of skilled cameramen. The loss of much of their work to history can be attributed to the inherent weaknesses of photography — the eventual distintegration of even the most "permaMr. Wadsworth is national feature writer for the University of Utah Public Relations Department.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

nent" latent image â&#x20AC;&#x201D; coupled with the ignorance and lack of historical foresight of those into whose hands the pictures fell after the death of the pioneer cameramen. During the course of his research on the forthcoming book, Through Camera Eyes, a Photographic History of Utah and the Mormons, the author combed the dusty corners of historical archives for old, faded photographs from the past. Many of yesterday's images are missing. Others, even though they are theoretically being "preserved" by collection agencies, are gradually crumbling and flaking away, are being loaned and lost, or handled, dog-eared, and smeared with the fingertips of a thousand hands. Some people, often ignorant of the latent images' historical value, destroy them unwittingly. In one case, hundreds of original glass plate negatives exposed on the frontier were deliberately soaked in tubs of water to remove the emulsion so the old glass could be used as panes in window frames. In another instance, boxes containing glass plate negatives of priceless historical value were found in the attic of an old Salt Lake City home, and the owner, not realizing their worth, sent them to the dump where they were burned or buried along with tons of trash. In still another case, a highly reputable agency discarded nearly a thousand glass plate negatives to create some much-needed storage space. Even though the negatives were microfilmed, the crisp quality possible only from the original images has been lost forever. And a few years ago some teenage boys, hired to clean the upper floor of a downtown business in Salt Lake City, found great sport in throwing glass negatives out of a second-story window to watch them break in the bed of a truck below. The broken glass was taken unceremoniously to the dump. As sad as it may seem, these cases are not isolated exceptions but typical of what is continually happening to the remaining vestiges of pioneer photography. Despite its fragility, the photograph remains an extremely reliable source of historical proof, a truthful representation of what the photographer originally "saw" with his camera eye. The pioneer photojournalist was in reality an eyewitness to history. Even though the names of some of the early photographic geniuses have since been lost or buried in obscurity, they were nevertheless true pioneers of their art. They were in the forefront of photography's historical developments, and despite the hardships of living on the western frontier, they were able to apply the crude technology then available to them to produce high quality latent images. One cannot find in modern films and printing techniques anything to match the clarity, definition,

Zion's Cameramen

and simplicity of an 1850 daguerreotype or an 1859 collodion wet-plate negative, particularly if one judges the original and not some copy print many generations removed. Although there were undoubtedly dozens of cameramen clicking shutters and making exposures among the Mormons between 1841 and 1910, the story can be told in the lives of a few key men, whose pictures from a photojournalistic sense progressively unfold the visual images of Mormondom and Utah. T H E BEGINNINGS IN NAUVOO

There is evidence that at least one daguerreotypist was practicing the art in Nauvoo, perhaps as early as 1843, some three or four years after Daguerre announced his invention in France. His name: Lucian R. Foster, age unknown, of New York City. Foster's first ad appeared in the Nauvoo Neighbor on August 14, 1844, but he was in business some months before that date. His gallery on Main Street offered both plain or colored "likenesses," and prospective customers were advised that "specimens may be seen at the Mansion House," the famous inn operated by Joseph Smith. Foster advertised his work at three dollars per picture, including a "handsome morocco frame." Another ad appeared in the Hancock Eagle of April 3, 1846, a newspaper published in Nauvoo shortly before and after the Mormons were driven out. Foster announced he was "again prepared to take likenesses by the Daguerreotype process, in the same superior style which was so much admired last summer." Boasting of the superiority of the process over all other forms of art, the ad invited public examination of specimens on display "on Parley Street, one block east of Main Street, adjoining the 'Cheap Cash Store' of Mr. J. Field." The question immediately arises whether Foster photographed Joseph Smith before his death in June 1844. The prophet knew Foster, because on April 29, 1844, Smith recorded in his history of the church: At home; received a visit from L. R. Foster of New York, who gave me a good pencil case, sent to me by Brother Theodore Curtis, who is now in New York; and the first words I wrote with it were "God bless the man!" 1 1 Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . ., ed. B. H . Roberts (7 vols., Salt Lake City, 1902-32), 5 : 2 1 0 , 6 : 3 4 7 . (Commonly known as the Documentary History of the Church.)

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Right, daguerreotype of Joseph Smith from which C. W. Carter made "retouched photographs" of the Mormon leader. LDS Church Information Service. Left, painting believed to be by Majors belongs to the Reorganized LDS Church. A copy of the painting was given to the National Portrait Gallery in November 1971.

One cannot imagine that Joseph Smith, with his active, curious mind would not be intrigued by the new "magic" of daguerreotypy and as a result be among the first in Nauvoo to pose for his likeness. O n the other hand, photography on the frontier was just beginning, and perhaps Smith, like many others, was skeptical about the new form of art and wanted to wait and see how it could be applied. In its infancy, daguerreotypy was closely associated with portrait painting, the daguerreotypist often providing the "model" for the artist's brush or the engraver's etching tools.2 The prophet, who was thirty-eight in 1843, did record that he "sat for a drawing of my profile to be placed on a lithograph of the m a p of the city of Nauvoo." 3 H e also casually mentioned sitting for his portrait in oils but did not once record posing for a daguerreotype. Although he made no such entry in his history, there is strong circumstantial evidence that he was photographed and that the photographer was Lucian Foster. 2 Robert Taft, Photography and the American York, 1964), 37. 3 Smith, History of the Church, 5:44.

Scene: A Social History,

1839-1889

(New

Zion's

Cameramen

The omission of such an entry is understandable, since these were trying days for Joseph Smith. Just when Foster photographed Smith is now a matter of sheer conjecture. The most likely time would have been around the state presidential convention which met in Nauvoo May 17, 1844, and nominated Smith for the presidency of the United States.4 Since photography in 1844 was still in its infancy in the United States, Foster must have been learning how to operate his camera about the time of the state convention. Certainly there was some early experimenting in Nauvoo before he publicly advertised services. But just who was Foster, and where did he learn his photographic skills? Lucian R. Foster was president of the New York Branch of the Mormon Church in 1841 at a time when the faith was growing rapidly in that metropolitan city. He presided until August 27, 1843, shortly after which he moved to Nauvoo to join with the body of the church. 5 We can assume that Foster learned the daguerreian art in New York City. He was a contemporary of Mathew Brady, who later was to become known as Mr. Lincoln's Camera Man and the first of America's great photojournalists. Brady was in New York learning photography at the same time as Foster, between 1841 and 1843. He opened his first gallery there in 1844.6 There is a strong possibility that Foster and Brady learned their skills from the same teacher, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, who later achieved fame for his invention of the telegraph. Morse and another professor, John W. Draper, built a glass skylight on the roof of the University of the City of New York building in the summer of 1840 to experiment and teach students daguerreotypy.7 Foster more than 4

Ibid., 6:386. Ibid., 5:552. 6 Roy Meredith, Mr. Lincoln's Camera Man (New York, 1946), 20. 7 Taft, Photography and the American Scene, 36. s

Nauvoo, 1846, from a daguerreotype taken by L. R. Foster. Carter Collection, LDS Church Information Service.

Utah Historical Quarterly

likely was among those students, eager to learn the new art so he could take it to the prosperous frontier city of Nauvoo. It has already been established that Foster saw Smith in the Mansion House in April 1844 at which time the pencil case was delivered. The topic of conversation was not recorded, possibly because the prophet spent the remainder of the day embroiled in legal maneuvering against the apostates who were plotting his overthrow. But we can suppose that he and Foster talked about the new art of daguerreotypy and that Smith inquired about the photographer's newly-acquired trade and how it might aid in the upcoming campaign. At the time of the political convention, Foster was setting up his gallery on Main Street, fitted with some kind of skylight or window to admit illumination for portraiture. Such a portrait from life of the prospective candidate would be of great value in making engravings for posters, newspaper stories, and articles during the campaign. The daguerreotypist was active at the convention. In the minutes recorded in the History of the Church, we find him among a five-man committee appointed to draft resolutions for the adoption of the convention. He was also elected to a four-member central committee to coordinate Smith's national campaign. In addition, he was elected delegate from New York City and, as such, according to one resolution, was instructed to "make stump speeches" in his district.8 Is it not likely that during all the political furor in Nauvoo that Foster took Joseph Smith into his newly furbished Main Street gallery and captured his likeness on one or more daguerreotype plates? The coming campaign cried for such a portrait. The existence of photographs from life of Joseph Smith is more than mere conjecture. Long after the Mormons settled in Utah, the Smith daguerreotypes mysteriously emerged from their historical burying place. On August 18, 1885, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City reported: C. W. Carter, a photographer of this city3 has in his possession a daguerreotype portrait of the Prophet Joseph Smith, taken in Nauvoo in the year 1843. He has taken photographic copies of the daguerreotype which he proposes to touch up with India ink and have copied again.

And exactly a month later: G. W. Carter has copyright of picture of the Prophet Joseph Smith and now has it for sale.9 Smith, History of the Church, 6:392. Deseret News, September 18, 1885.

Zion's Cameramen

Carter's retouched portrait of Smith can be found in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The author also located the original copy negative, on which the retouching was done, in the Carter Collection now owned by the Mormon Church's Information Service. Carter was apparently convinced he had a daguerreotype taken in life of Joseph Smith, but a little bit of darkroom detective work discloses he could have been mistaken. A painting of Joseph Smith once owned by his wife Emma and now by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, bears striking resemblance to the Carter copyrighted pictures. If the Carter negative is superimposed on the painting in an enlarger, the two match up perfectly, proving they came from the same original source. There are only two possible explanations: one, that Carter actually had the Foster daguerreotype in his possession and copied it, or, two, he had a daguerreotype copy of the painting and was fooled by its realism. By photographing the Joseph Smith death mask from the same angle as one views the painting, and by also superimposing these in the enlarger, one discovers that the painting was indeed an exact reproduction of Smith's face. The author of this paper is reasonably sure that the Carter copy of the daguerreotype represents the most authentic visual image of Joseph Smith now in existence. Even if Carter were mistaken and had a daguerreotype of a painting, it would still add up to a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg! In 1910, the Salt Lake Tribune published the painting of Smith along with a letter from his son Joseph Smith III. The letter questioned the authenticity of a life-size portrait just completed by painter Lewis Ramsey that had been reproduced in the newspaper two weeks before.10 Said Smith in his letter: T h e r e is a n authentic oil p a i n t i n g n o w in the possession of m y son, Frederick M . Smith, at I n d e p e n d e n c e , M o . , p a i n t e d by t h e same artist t h a t p a i n t e d one of m y uncle, H y r u m Smith, which has formed a basis of pictures of h i m since his family w e n t to U t a h . I t fortunately h a p p e n s to us t h a t this portrait, p a i n t e d in 1843, is sustained in its characteristic likeness to m y father by t h e daguerreotype in o u r possession, t a k e n t h e same year, I think, by an artist by t h e n a m e of L u c i a n Foster. 1 1 10

Salt Lake Tribune, March 5, 1910. Ibid., March 20, 1910. The question of an accurate likeness has also been studied by William B. McCarl, "The Visual Image of Joseph Smith" (M. S. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1963). 11

Utah Historical Quarterly

In 1843, Joseph Smith III would have been eleven years old, probably too young to recall whether his father was indeed photographed by Foster, but his testimony is all that remains. The man who executed the "authentic oil painting" of the Mormon prophet is now unknown, according to historians in the Reorganized Church which has the work on display in its Heritage Hall in Independence, Missouri. For years, however, this church told visitors to its headquarters that the painting was done by William W. Majors, an English painter. Unable to substantiate the claim when art experts said it was not Major's style, the church changed the label to "unknown."12 But the author of this paper believes it was Majors who painted the portrait of Joseph Smith, not from life in 1843 but shortly after the prophet's death. Majors used the only authentic visual image of Smith then in existence â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one of Foster's daguerreotypes! An exact duplication of the portrait in oils would explain the difference in styles that one finds in Majors's work. Copies of daguerreotypes would be much different than paintings executed from life. Actually, Majors did not arrive in Nauvoo from England until late in 1844 or early 1845,13 but he could have used an engraver's stylus or a prismatic camera lucida to duplicate in exact detail the visual image of Joseph Smith. That the face of the prophet in the painting is accurate cannot be denied, especially if one compares the painting to Carter's copy and notes the subtle differences and also compares both to the death mask which was cast before Smith was buried. A search among the descendants of Joseph Smith III has thus far failed to turn up the original daguerreotype, but the author is convinced that it does indeed exist somewhere, perhaps now in a tarnished, unrecognizable state. If it should someday be found, there are delicate techniques that could restore it to at least a portion of its original beauty. What happened to Foster? Between 1844 and 1846 he captured the only known latent images of Nauvoo, including pictures of the Mormon temple. He photographed Brigham Young and other church leaders. But when the Saints were driven from Illinois in 1846, Foster was not among them. His name is last mentioned in church records by a terse note recorded September 13, 1846, at Winter Quarters, Nebraska Territory: "Lucian R. Foster was cut off from the Church by the Branch at 12 W. Wallace Smith, grandson of Joseph Smith and currently president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, told the author that at one time it was thought Majors h a d painted the portrait. Interview, November 9, 1971. 13 Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (4 vols., Salt Lake City, 1901-36), 3:674.

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~\ r

DAGUERREOTYPING. A M now ready to execute Daguerreotype Likenesses in the most approved style of thu Art, with all the late improvements, in the building at the north east corner of the "Old Fort," sixth ward, fitted up expressly for the purpose, with a large sky light, so that the work can be done equally as well in foul weather as fair. Particular pains taken with Likenesses of children. Having had nine years practice in the Art, principally in the city of Boston, Mass., I fancy I can suit the most discriminating taste. All persons are invited to call and see specimens of work. References,—W. Woodruff,of the Twelve) W . W . Phelps, Hey wood & Wooiley, E. Whipple, and A.Badlam. M. C A N N O N . Dec. 10, 1850.-22tf

Marsena Cannon, Utah's first resident advertisement in the D e s e r e t N e w s .

sWt n«

'^Hl*

Win

photographer

and his first

New York for apostacy." 14 Whether Foster continued to pursue his daguerreian skills in New York -— or on the American frontier — is now unknown. DAGUERREOTYPY

UTAH

As far as can be determined, the Mormons were without a photojournalist to document their western exodus between 1846 and 1850. Daguerreotypy appeared once more in their midst in Salt Lake City on December 14, 1850. One feature in that afternoon's Deseret News could not help but catch the immediate attention of readers. It was a heavy black sketch of a cannon, heading an advertisement on an inside page. Not only was it the first illustration to appear in the six-month-old newspaper, but its frequent appearance in the next ten years made it a familiar 14 "Journal History," September 13, 1846, Church Historians Office, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. (Cited hereafter as C H O . )

Utah Historical Quarterly

trademark in Salt Lake City. The copy in the ad, too, must have captured reader interest, for it offered a new and remarkable service on the frontier: I am now ready to execute Daguerreotype likenesses in the most approved style of the art, with all the last improvements^ in the building at the north and east corner of the "Old Fort," Sixth Ward, fitted up expressly for the purpose, with a large skylight so that work can be done equally as well in foul weather, as in fair. Particular pains taken with the likenesses of children. Having had nine years practice in the Art, principally in the city of Boston, Mass., I fancy I can suit the most discriminating taste. All persons are invited to call and see specimens of work.

Thus, the first commercial photographer in Utah and the Intermountain West was in business, and the illustration in the advertisement was symbolic of his name: Marsena Gannon, age thirty-eight, recently of Boston, Massachusetts. According to surviving records, and they are scanty, Marsena Cannon was born August 3, 1812, in Rochester, Stafford County, New Hampshire, not far from the border of Maine. His father, Hiram, was a prominent doctor in that region.15 Sometime around 1841 Marsena and his family moved to Boston where they met Mormon missionaries and were converted to the faith. They were listed as "members in good standing" of the Boston Branch in 1846, according to records filed at Cutler's Park, near Winter Quarters, Nebraska Territory, late in that year.16 Even though Cannon's membership records were filed in Nebraska Territory, the daguerreotypist and his family remained in Boston until 1850. His moves in that city, along with his professional connections, are detailed in Wilford Woodruff's journals between 1848 and 1850.17 On March 7, 1848, while Woodruff was at Winter Quarters getting ready to depart for a mission to the East, he recorded in his journal: "I had a call from Dr. Cannon. He wished me to call and see his son Marsena Cannon, 75 Court Street, Plumbe's Dagaurious (sic) Gallery, Boston." Woodruff's entries for March 14 and May 16, 1849, and February 18, 1850, when he was in Boston, describe daguerreotypes taken by Cannon of his family. From Woodruff's entries also come concrete proof that Cannon learned the art of daguerreotypy from John Plumbe, Jr., one of the pioneers of American photography. 15

Family Group Sheet of M a r s e n a C a n n o n , L D S Genealogical Library, Salt Lake City. Certificate of Membership for M a r s e n a Cannon, dated M a r c h 11, 1846, and filed September 20, 1846, at Cutler's Park, Nebraska Territory, C H O . 17 Wilford Woodruff Journals, 1848-50, Xerox copy, C H O . 16

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Brigham Young by Marsena Cannon, first known photograph taken in Utah. Original daguerreotype in LDS Church Historian's Office.

Plumbe opened a daguerreian gallery in Boston in 1840 and soon had a chain of galleries, operated by agents, in a number of eastern cities. He was the first to copy daguerreotypes on lithographic stone, which could explain Cannon's later interest in using his photographs to make engravings. But Plumbe and his agents met financial disaster in 1847, and the galleries were sold to meet the demands of creditors. Cannon and another agent, William Shew, kept Plumbe's Boston gallery in operation, however, first at 75 Court Street and later at 123 Washington Street. This can be proven from the entries in Woodruff's journals. Cannon and his family departed for Utah in the spring of 1850. The photographer may have taken pictures of the wagon trip across the plains and of the Mormon settlements in the Nebraska Territory, but such a feat in those primitive surroundings was not likely, and Cannon later made no mention of this in his advertising. Although he was not the first to make pictures on the western frontier, Marsena Cannon was the first to preserve them well enough

Utah Historical Quarterly

to survive to our time. He was the first known resident photographer in Utah â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the first to take daguerreotype portraits as well as pictures of buildings, landscapes, and news events. His are also the first street scenes of Salt Lake City.18 The enterprising daguerreotypist dominated Utah photography for more than a decade, outlasting a handful of competitors who would set up shop and also advertise in the Deseret News. Occasionally he would take in a partner â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sometimes the competitor who had advertised the week before in the News. Financially, such galleries could not have been very successful. In return for his services, Cannon advertised his willingness to accept cash or payment in kind. In 1857, for example, he ran this ad: 1B Ibid., 248-58, 261-68. J o h n C. Fremont's a t t e m p t to photograph the West on his 1853 expedition was thwarted by heavy snows and waning supplies. Heavy baggage, including the daguerreotype equipment, was abandoned in the Rockies before reaching U t a h . See ibid., 262-66; Solomon N . Carvalho, Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West (New York, 1859), 7 6 ; Charles P'ruess, Exploring with Fremont: The Private Diaries of Charles Preuss . . ., trans, a n d ed. Erwin G. and Elizabeth K. G u d d e (Norman, Oklahoma, 1958), xx-xxi, 32, 35.

Marsena Cannon's daguerreotype of the old Salt Lake Tabernacle built in 1852. Original in the LDS Church Historian's Office.

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T o All Saints: W a n t e d : Hay, oats ; peas, beans, butter, eggs 3 fox a n d wolf skins and cash for Likenesses . . . At the sign of the cannon. O p e n on Tuesdays, Thursdays, a n d Saturdays. 1 9

And in 1858: Those persons who w a n t likenesses^ especially those to w h o m I a m indebted will please call soon as I shall close business in a short time. M . Gannon. 2 0

During his heyday, Cannon photographed Brigham Young on a number of occasions, captured street scenes on both daguerreotype and ambrotype plates, covered the groundbreaking of the Salt Lake Temple in 1853, and photographed the old Salt Lake Tabernacle, the Beehive House, the Council House, and the General Storehouse and Tithing Deseret News, December 9, 1857. Ibid., February 3, 1858.

Ground-breaking for the Salt Lake Temple in 1853 was captured Marsena Cannon in this daguerreotype. Original in LDS Church

Office.

by Historian's

Utah Historical Quarterly

Office. He also made literally hundreds of portraits of early Salt Lakers. His portraits of Mormon authorities were engraved by Frederick Hawkins Piercy in Liverpool and printed in a beautiful sepia ink. Piercy also used several Cannon daguerreotypes in his Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley, an immigrant guide to western America.21 Several things happened between 1859 and 1861 to create a crisis in Cannon's career. New and perhaps better skilled photographers began arriving in the wagon trains from the East. Coincidentally, the art of daguerreotypy was being replaced by the new collodion, wet-plate process that allowed photographers to make enlarged prints in any quantity from a permanent glass negative. Although Cannon was Brigham Young's chief cameraman during the 1850s, the Mormon leader posed for another photographer — C. W. Carter — sometime near his sixtieth birthday in 1861. One of the final dampers to Cannon's career came during the October conference of his church that same year. The names of the pioneer daguerreian and his one-time partner, L. W. Chaffin, were read from the pulpit to go to southern Utah to settle St. George and to grow cotton for the territory. James Bleak, historian for the St. George colonists, lists Cannon and Chaffin as the only two daguerreans out of the 309 names read at the conference. Bleak also lists them both in the census taken in St. George in 1862, indicating, at least, that the two photographers answered Brigham Young's call. Sometime before 1869, however, Cannon returned to Salt Lake City.22 Cannon was a member of the Seventh Quorum of Seventy in Salt Lake City. His name can be found in the minute book of that organization — his participation was infrequent — together with a penciled notation obviously entered years later: "By his own request dropped from the Quorum." 23 Cannon's disaffection is explained, perhaps, by his alignment in 1869 with the so-called liberals in Utah, a group of Mormon businessmen and intellectuals who rebelled against the authoritarian policies of Brigham Young and formed the New Movement, later known as the Godbeites after one of its founders, druggist and general store proprietor William S. Godbe. 21

Frederick Hawkins Piercy, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Valley (Liverpool, 1855), 77, 114, 116. 22 E. L. Sloan and Company, The Salt Lake City Directory and Guide for 1869 (Salt Lake City, 1869), 167. 23 M i n u t e Book of the Seventh Q u o r u m of Seventy, 1856-1909, October 28, 1856, C H O .

Zion's Cameramen

Just two days before the election of 1870, Godbe and his followers announced an Independent ticket, and among the nine candidates for city councilor was one Marsena Cannon, residing on First West Street, between North and South Temple. 24 The results of the election on Monday, February 14, 1870, proved to be a disaster for the liberal cause. Cannon, like the others on the Independent ticket, garnered less than three hundred votes. The fate of the photographer from this point on is somewhat obscure. The last entry in the official records about the former daguerreian artist is made on a small white card filed in the "Old Church Record" in the LDS Church Historian's Office. Typewritten entries for Cannon, his wife, and children state simply: "Cut-off from the Church 1874."25 According to Mrs. Olive Lulu Cannon Rasmussen of Ogden, a granddaughter, Cannon moved to California after his excommunication and lived for many years with his daughter Sarah in the San Francisco Bay Area. But when Sarah married, the photographer, then an old man, moved back to Utah to live with his son, Bouman, then manager of the Salt Lake County Infirmary and Poor Farm. Mrs. Rasmussen recalls visiting the old man at the infirmary sometime shortly before she married in 1899. Cannon would then have been eighty-seven. "He was sick and lying on a cot," Mrs. Rasmussen said. " I remember he cried because he didn't want to live away from his daughter Sarah." She did not remember her grandfather's dying, but his death must have occurred on the Poor Farm shortly after the visit.26 Nearly alone, most of his family scattered, severed from his church, and his life's work forgotten, the one-time daguerreian artist passed quietly from the scene, an unfitting end for the first resident photographer in Utah, the first to look through a camera lens upon the unspoiled beauty of the state, and the first to photodocument the Mormons in their mountain refuge. A

NEW

ERA

DAWNS

During the Crimean War, a young soldier in the British army became interested in photography and decided to pursue the vocation after he was mustered out of the service. From sketchy information that survives, we can deduce that Charles William Carter learned photo24

Edward W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, 1886), 430. The Old Church Record card file has been kept for early members of the Salt Lake City Wards of the Mormon Church, CHO. A duplicate file is in the LDS Genealogical Library. 26 Interview with Mrs. Olive Lulu Cannon Rasmussen, Ogden, Utah, May 26 1971. 25

Utah Historical Quarterly

r^o >

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This Negative resented. 2 years from No. of Negative.

Carter's advertising card, Utah State Historical Society collections. Tintype of Carter courtesy of Mrs. Patricia Baker of Salt Lake City.

graphy sometime during the war. It is not clear just where he served or whether he saw action on the battlefront, but the tall, angular soldier took up the camera shortly after the collodion or wet-plate process forced daguerreotypy into obsolescence in the mid-1850s. Coincidental with Carter's interest in photography, Roger Fenton, secretary of the Photographic Society of London, was the first to document the battlefields of war. Fenton traveled to the Crimea in 1855 with a wagon fitted out as a darkroom and photographed many memorable scenes of the conflict, including the cannonball-strewn battlefield over which the famous Light Brigade charged.27 There is no evidence to suggest a connection between Carter and Fenton, but the feat of photo-documenting war proved the portability of the wet-plate process and undoubtedly influenced Carter's later frontier camera techniques. Sometime after the Paris Peace Treaty 27 James D. Horan, Timothy New York, 1966), 28.

O'Sullivan,

America's

Forgotten

Photographer

( G a r d e n City,

Zion's Cameramen

ended the war in 1856, Carter worked as a schoolmaster, teaching photography on the side. It is not known exactly when or how Carter joined the Mormon Church, but missionaries baptized him sometime between 1856 and 1858. Carter's daughter, the late Mary Carter Osborn of Salt Lake City, remembered him as being tall, slender, reserved, and intellectual, and as having a keen sense of humor. When interviewed at age ninety-two, Mrs. Osborn had difficulty remembering details of her father's life. According to her account, as well as genealogical records, Carter was born August 4, 1832, in London. After his conversion to Mormonism, he came to Utah with several sisters (three or four â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mrs. Osborn was not quite sure), and three friends. About twenty-five miles out of Fort Bridger, the wagon broke down and Carter, his sisters, and friends had to walk the rest of the way to Salt Lake City, arriving sometime before the winter of 1859. At one time in his career, Carter apparently worked for C. R. Savage, but the length of employment and the time are not known.28 Mrs. Osborn remembered her father's saying he spent two hundred dollars for his first wet-place cameras and set up a gallery on Main Street. Later, he moved his gallery to Main and Third South streets. According to Mrs. Osborn, one of the wealthy Walker brothers built her father's first gallery. Carter remained at the Third South location for many years, and his painted sign on the front of the building became a familiar sight. In 1887, the front of the building advertised his services: Views! 1,000 1st Select from Cabinet, Stereoscope, and a l b u m â&#x20AC;&#x201D; U t a h Scenery, Notabilities, Indians etc. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; C. W. Carter, Portrait and ViewPhotographer. 29

As a child, Mrs. Osborn remembered visiting her father at his studio and playing on the chair where the headrest was fastened in front of a huge, wooden view camera. His darkroom, she recalled, was very small, measuring only about ten feet square. The wet-plate process which Carter and his contemporaries used depended on the portability of their cameras and darkroom equipment. Glass plates had to be coated with guncotton (collodion) mixed with excitants like bromine, sensitized in silver salts, loaded in holders while still wet, exposed in the camera while the emulsion was tacky, and developed immediately before the salts dried and crystalized on the glass. 28 Charles R. Savage Diaries, May 30, 1869, in the possession of Mrs. Ivor Sharp, Salt Lake City. 29 S. W. Darke and Company, Salt Lake City Illustrated (Salt Lake City, 1887).

Utah Historical Quarterly

Black Rock at Great Salt Lake in the 1870s by C. W. Carter. Carter Collection, LDS Church Information Service.

This cumbersome, somewhat complicated, and precise process had to take place within a span of ten minutes, or the emulsion would lose its sensitivity. Such a limitation meant, of course, that the photographer of Carter's day had to take his darkroom, chemicals, plates, and all of the rest of his equipment with him on every picture-taking excursion.30 Added to this were the difficulties and complications of changing weather and dust and chemical contamination, any one of which could spoil the plate. In spite of these obstacles, wet-plate photography held sway for nearly twenty-five years. Those who practiced the art â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like Carter â&#x20AC;&#x201D; did an unbelievably thorough job of photo-documenting the western frontier. Thanks to Carter, many of Marsena Cannon's daguerreotypes, as well as several taken by Foster, survive to this day. Carter photo-copied every interesting picture that came his way and filed the negatives for future use. A portion of them can be found in the C.W. Carter Collection maintained by the Mormon Church. Early views of the Beehive House, Main Street, and other pioneer buildings and scenes in this collection obviously pre-date Carter's arrival in Utah. Almost immediately upon going into business in Utah, Carter was successful. His technique captured the imagination of the settlers, and his 30

Beaumont Newhall, Photography:

A Short

Critical History

(New York, 1938), 46-47.

Zion's

Cameramen

Crowd awaits the verdict in Brigham Young's trial for cohabitation in 1872. C. W. Carter photograph, Carter Collection, LDS Church Information Service.

services over the years were always in demand. Among Carter's early customers was Brigham Young, who divided his business between Carter and another English photographer named C. R. Savage. Carter loved to photograph Indians, and his wry sense of humor is illustrated in a notebook entry made shortly after photographing "Pahute Jim and his squaw": I expect that this is the first time that the loving Jim ever had his arm around the neck of his lady love. As a general thing the Indians are not very loving, as the squaws have to do all the hard work and the braves are too high bred to carry bundles through the streets, they are "heap big Indians." But I got Jim to sit for his "pigter" as they call it. He looked so amiable sitting by the side of his spouse, that I could not resist the inclination of putting his arm around her neck. The picture was taken before he was aware he looked so loving.31

Carter also had a good sense of the historic and photojournalistic. In addition to the portraits of leading notables of Salt Lake City, he photographed a wide variety of landscapes, city scenes, and significant 31 C. W. Carter Notebook, in the author's possession on loan from Carter's granddaughter, Mrs. Helen Monson, Benton City, Washington.

Utah Historical Quarterly

historic events. For example, in 1872, when Brigham Young appeared in court on a charge of "lewd and lascivious cohabitation," Carter focused his camera on a large crowd gathered outside Judge James B. McKean's courtroom. The photograph has since been generally captioned as "a crowd scene in Salt Lake City," but in Carter's own caption book it has been labeled "Brigham Young's Trial." 32 Carter also outfitted a darkroom wagon and traveled throughout Utah Territory, photographing geographic points of interest. Once, he met a wagon train of Mormons coming down Echo Canyon and captured Ibid., caption 118.

Carter captioned this photograph "Pahute Jim looking so loving Carter Collection, LDS Church Information Service

Zion's Cameramen

some memorable views of the immigrants slowly making their way through some beaver ponds that blocked the canyon trail. Among the photographer's surviving pictures are a vivid portrait of Ann Eliza Webb Young, the unruly wife of Brigham Young who sued him for divorce in 1873, a series of views of the federal troops at Camp Douglas, and remarkably clear views of Salt Lake City and its surroundings in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, as well as progressive views of the Salt Lake Temple and Tabernacle under construction, from the earliest stages of foundation to dedication. Carter continued his photographic trade through the 1880s and 1890s amid growing competition. As his life waned he opened a stand just outside Temple Square where he sold pictures to tourists, Carter outlived his chief competitor and old employer, C. R. Savage, by nearly nine years. But on March 13, 1906, too old to take any more pictures and too feeble to peddle prints and postcards from his stand, the Englishman sold his entire negative collection to the Bureau of Information on Temple Square. According to the bill of sale, the collection then consisted of fifteen hundred to two thousand negatives "more or less and contained in 21 boxes." In the same transaction, the pioneer photographer sold "all photographs and views . . . and all other accessories and appurtenances," including copyrights and all other materials connected with his photographic work at his residence, 2 Church Street. The photographer attached a notebook which he marked "Exhibit A" to the bill of sale. It contains a partial list of his negative collection. In return for the negatives and equipment, the Bureau of Information gave $25 to Carter on the tenth day of every month until the sum of $400 was paid. The bill of sale was signed by Benjamin Goddard for the Bureau of Information and witnessed by Jacob F. Gates.33 The photographer lived for another twelve years after the sale. Then during the night of January 27, 1918, while staying at the home of a daughter, Mrs. George Smith, in Midvale, Utah, Charles William Carter had a heart attack and died. He was eighty-five.34 Carter's extensive negative collection was used for a number of years in making prints, uncredited, for the Temple Square Bureau of Information. Eventually, after being filed away in boxes in the basement of the museum, it was forgotten. In 1963, museum curator Carl Jones began taking inventory of the museum's holdings and discovered a 33 34

Carter Bill of Sale, Temple Square Museum file, Salt Lake City. Deseret News, January 28, 1918.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

wooden box containing three hundred of Carter's negatives under a pile of dust and junk in the basement. The collection is now held by the Mormon Church's Information Service in its own negative file at Panorama Productions, a commercial studio in Salt Lake City that does photographic work for the church. Much of the collection â&#x20AC;&#x201D; probably a large share of the individual portraits â&#x20AC;&#x201D; has been lost over the years, but many of the valuable historical pictures have been preserved, including the controversial "photograph" of Joseph Smith. CHORISTER W I T H A CAMERA

Charles Roscoe Savage began life in poverty. He was born August 16, 1832, in Southampton, England, just twelve days after Carter was born in nearby London. His father, John Savage, was an impoverished gardener who spent much of his time trying to develop a blue dahlia, a flower for which a great reward had been offered. Because the elder Savage was unsuccessful in financial affairs, his children grew up in want and without funds to acquire an education. Young Charles never learned to read and write as a child but had to teach himself in later life.35 Perhaps this frustration at failing to get a childhood education made Savage the avid learner he was in later years. He became an astute observer of the world around him, believing he could learn from every new experience. This trait gave him a discerning, artistic eye that served him well as a photographer. At the age of fifteen, somewhat bitter and disillusioned about life, Savage chanced upon a Mormon missionary preaching in the Southampton streets. The meeting changed his life. Words flowing from Elder Thomas B. H. Stenhouse's lips made a lasting impression on the teenager's mind. Savage quickly made a number of Mormon friends and before long found himself a convert for life. He was baptized May 21, 1848, when he was not yet sixteen years old After his conversion, Savage found employment in Portsmouth in a stationery store owned by another Mormon, William Eddington. It was a business that would later serve him well as a sideline to his photography. 35 Charles R. Savage Biography, Savage Photo File, CHO. Published sketches of Savage's life include: Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:708-11; William Culp Darrah, Stereo Views: A History of Stereographs in America and Their Collection (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1964), 77; Preston Nibley, "Pioneer Cameraman Old Folks Champion," Deseret News, April 18, 1953, Church News section; Clarence S. Barker, "Early LDS Convert Takes Golden Spike Photos," Salt Lake Tribune, April 6, 1947, p. A12; Arley F. Savage, "C. R. Savage: Utah Photographer," SUP News, 10 (July-August 1964), 7; and Madeleine B. Stern, "A Rocky Mountain Book Store: Savage and Ottinger of Utah," Brigham Young University Studies, 9 (Winter 1969). 144-54.

Zion's

Cameramen

£-..--, I&a&t _^ih[pI<B' Street,- ,1 v

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Charles Roscoe Savage and one of his advertising cards. Utah State Historical Society collections.

At twenty, Savage went on a mission to Switzerland for the Mormon Church, traveling on foot across the countryside in search of converts. During these missionary days he learned French and a little German and continued to educate himself. He returned to England in 1855 and signed up for the emigration to Utah with a company of Italian and Danish Saints. They crossed the Atlantic aboard the ship John J. Boyd, leaving Liverpool December 12, 1856. The voyage was particularly rough, with a number of the passengers swept overboard in heavy seas and a high incidence of death, especially among the Danish Mormons. 36 The ship arrived in New York City February 15, 1857, and Savage acquired a job in Samuel Booth's Printing Office which he held for nearly two years. Savage had been interested in photography even before he came to the United States. In his notebooks, under the date of December 5, 1855, he listed the prices for "camera lens complete, $35; camera box Savage Diaries, January 1856.

Utah Historical Quarterly

minus lens $15."37 It was in New York, however, that he determined to pursue the profession in earnest. Encouragement came from Elder Stenhouse who had reportedly brought a stereoscopic camera from England which both men experimented with in New York. Savage learned what he could about photography, investigating the improved collodion wetplate process. Mathew Brady was then converting his daguerreotype operation over to the wet plate. In 1856, Alexander Gardner, an English photographer, had joined Brady in New York, and with him had come the process of enlarging prints for Brady's gallery.38 At this time, Savage was also participating in a Mormon choir and cultivating an interest in music and singing that stayed with him the remainder of his life. Leaving his family in New York, Savage headed West in 1859 on a special assignment to Florence, Nebraska Territory, for the Mormon Church. There he made his first commercial start in the photographic business, setting up his camera in front of an old grey blanket and taking portraits. His darkroom consisted of a converted tea chest.39 A year later, living with his family once again, he set up shop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In his diary, dated April 30, 1860, he reported total income "from taking pictures" in the first five months of the year at $224.75, plus $50.00 for "giving instructions in the art."40 Apparently he was trying to earn Ibid., December 5, 1855. Meredith, Mr. Lincoln's Camera Alan, 54. Savage Biography. Savage Diaries, 1860.

C. R. Savage captured many historic moments including this 1867 Mormon wagon train heading toward Salt Lake City. From a print in the LDS Church Historian's Office.

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enough money to buy a team of oxen and a wagon to continue west to Utah. H e must have been successful, because on June 7, 1860, Savage loaded his family — a wife and two small sons — into a new wagon, prodded the oxen, and slowly moved toward the western horizon. T h e Savages traveled in the Franklin Brown Company of ten wagons. Savage took pictures of the trek across the plains, but none of them, so far as is known, survives — at least none can be identified. I n his diary, he reported that he "got a view of Bluff Ruins and Chimney Rock" and "a splendid view of Devils Gate," 4 1 but it is impossible to find them in Savage's surviving prints — mostly undated — of the Mormon Trail. T h e Brown Company arrived in Salt Lake City August 27, 1860, with the Savage wagon making its way down Parley's Canyon the following day and reaching the city long after dark. T w o days later, the photographer made arrangements with Marsena Cannon " t o go in with h i m until his departure for the states." Apparently at that time Cannon was planning to leave Salt Lake City. 42 O n January 30, 1861, Savage a n d Cannon placed a solitary ad in the Deseret News, announcing to the public that they would "re-open for business" in their new gallery, the first house north of the Salt Lake House, over Chislett a n d Clark's new store. They advertised "photographs, stereoscopes, ambrotypes and Melainotypes [tintypes], also, pictures on cloth, leather a n d paper to send by mail . . . prices as low as can be afforded for good work." T h e partnership could not have lasted long, however, as Cannon left for St. George at the end of 1861, at which time Savage founded his Pioneer Art Gallery on East Temple Street. I n the years that followed, he beIbid., July 13 and August 5, 1860. Ibid., August 30, 1860.

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Utah Historical

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came the most prolific and talented pictorial Utah photographer of his day. After opening his gallery, Savage lost no time in cultivating contacts with major newspapers and magazines in the East. By 1866, his views were being published as woodcuts in such publications as Harper's Weekly. His "Views of the Great West" were sold as stereoscopic series for both Union Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande Western railroads. These companies supplied Savage with private railroad cars to take him on his photographic excursions. It was his fine work with the railroads that helped establish the Union Pacific tradition for excellent pictorial presentations of the West, a tradition that survives to this day. Savage's feeling for artistic composition made him particularly adept at the panoramic photography that came into national prominence during the wet-plate era. In addition, he had an artist's touch for portraiture. His portrait of Brigham Young, taken in 1876, which shows Young with cane in hand sitting at a table less than a year before his death is by far the best, the most famous, and the most powerful photograph ever taken of the fiery Mormon leader. Another trait that made Savage a great photographer was his willingness to travel. For example, a lengthy trip in 1866 took him first to San Francisco where he boarded a ship and sailed around Cape Horn to New York. He was glad to be back in New York after having been gone for seven years. While there he was escorted around by H. T. Anthony, a pioneer photographer who founded a world-famous photographic supply house. From New York Savage traveled by train to Nebraska City where he fitted out a special photographic wagon for the trip across the plains to Salt Lake City. Later, he described his journey in an article for the Philadelphia Photographer.43 With two spans of mules and provisions for two months, Savage joined a Mormon wagon train and returned to Utah, making hundreds of pictures along the way. Many of these can be found today, and they give an accurate view of the immigrant's trek across the plains. Savage returned to Utah an entirely different photographer. He had made it a point on his entire trip to search out all other lensmen along the way to pick up new ideas about his art. There were many other trips, including a journey with Brigham Young in 1870 to visit southern Utah, including the Rio Virgin country, 43 Charles R. Savage, " A P h o t o g r a p h i c T o u r of Nearly 9,000 Miles," Philadelphia Photographer, 4 ( 1 8 6 7 ) , 287-313. A portion of Savage's report is quoted by Taft (Photography and the American Scene, 2 7 3 - 7 4 ) , w h o correctly dates the excursion as 1866 (see 491 n. 2 9 9 ) .

Zion's

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Harper's Weekly ran Savage's Golden Spike photograph as a woodcut in 1869.

Zion Canyon (then named Little Zion by Brigham Young), and the Mormon settlements in Utah's Dixie. Views from this trip can also be found in many photographic collections. Probably the most newsworthy picture Savage ever took was the linking of the rails on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah. About a week before this historic event, Union Pacific asked Savage to help photodocument the driving of the Golden Spike. Arriving at Jack and Dan Casement's camp a few days early, Savage observed that the railroad workers were the hardest bunch of men he had ever seen assembled in one place. "Every ranch or tent has whiskey for sale," he wrote in his diary. "Verily, the men earn their money like horses and spend it like asses.' On the day of the great event, Savage made this entry: Savage Diaries, M a y 7, 1869.

Utah Historical Quarterly Today the ceremony of linking the ends of the track took place. I worked like a nigger all day and secured some nice views of the scenes connected with laying the last rail.45

For many years Savage was given credit for all of the news photographs of "East shaking hands with West" at the driving of the Golden Spike. But in 1962, with reexamination of the Pacific Railroad photographic collection held by the American Geographical Society, the original negative of the best-known view â&#x20AC;&#x201D;- a huge eleven-by-fourteen inch glass plate â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was found among the Captain Andrew J. Russell Collection. Russell, Savage, and Alfred A. Hart of Sacramento were the three professional photographers who covered the event.46 Before one accuses Savage of getting credit for the wrong picture, he should realize that the three photographers were standing in almost the same spot when the event took place. As a result, many of the pictures are practically identical. As a matter of fact, one can find pictures taken within a split second of one another, only from slightly different camera angles. Savage printed copies of his best views and sent them to Harper's. One was printed as a woodcut June 5, 1869.47 In the summer of 1883, tragedy struck Savage's studio and wiped out his entire negative collection. Shortly after midnight on June 21, flames were discovered in the home of H. B. Clawson, adjacent to the Council House on the southwest corner of Main and South Temple streets. The fire spread rapidly despite the heroic efforts of the Salt Lake Fire Brigade and the Walker Brothers Fire Company. Then, about twelve-thirty, flames ignited a powder magazine. The explosion rocked Salt Lake City, breaking windows for miles and turning Savage's gallery into a seething mass of flames. The next day, Savage grimly estimated the loss at twelve thousand dollars, not to mention the irreplaceable loss of his entire negative collection gleaned over years of hard work.48 The energetic photographer reestablished his business, stayed active in life, and remained a stalwart member of the Mormon faith until the end. He spent much of his time working in worthy charitable causes, singing as a charter member of the Tabernacle Choir, making the aged more comfortable and happy in life, and devoting himself to church service. In 1906 he retired from management of his store and studio, 45

Ibid., May 10, 1869. William D. Pattison, " T h e Pacific Railroad Rediscovered," Geographical (January 1962), 33-35. Robert Weinstein and Roger Olmsted, "Epic on Glass," West, 4 (February 1967), 10-23. 47 Harper's Weekly, 4 3 : 6 0 2 . 48 Deseret News, June 21, 1883. 46

Review, American

Zion's

Cameramen

Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon is a classic example of Savage's skill as a landscape photographer. Utah State Historical Society collections.

Utah Historical Quarterly

then located at 12-14 Main Street, but he still worked there off and on with his sons. Three years later on a Saturday he complained of "feeling poorly" and went home. Shortly after midnight on February 3, 1909, he died, probably of a heart seizure. In his obituary in the Deseret News, he was remembered as much for his work in the Tabernacle Choir and his charity to old folks as for his pioneer photography.4* With the deaths of Savage and Carter, the era of frontier photography drew to a close in Utah. Back in the East, during the peak of their careers, an enterprising young bank clerk named George Eastman started manufacturing dry plates in Rochester, New York. By 1888, the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company was manufacturing a flexible film and the first model of the roll film Kodak Camera. "Anybody who can wind a watch can use the Kodak Camera," advertised Eastman.50 The Kodak and its many successors made picture-taking available to the common man and revolutionized both the art and science of photography, a revolution which is still under way. Of course there were many other frontier cameramen who performed remarkable photographic feats in the Intermountain West during the wet-plate period. John K. Hillers, E. O. Beaman, and James Fennemore lugged hundreds of pounds of wet-plate equipment on John Wesley Powell's danger-packed exploration of the Colorado River in 1871-72, bringing back wet-plate negatives that gave America its first photographic glimpse of the Plateau Province. William H. Jackson's wet-plate photographs of the Yellowstone taken on the Hayden Survey in 1871 eventually convinced Congress to establish the country's first national park. At the beginning of the dry-plate period, one of Savage's apprentices, George Edward Anderson, who later opened a gallery in Springville, spent seven years retracing the "Birth of Mormonism" in photographs and pursuing a dream that to date remains unfulfilled. And Salt Lake City's Harry Shipler, one of the founders of the Shipler photographic business, carried an eight-by-ten inch view camera in a cross country automobile race, photo-documenting the early days of travel by internal combustion engine. But then, these are other stories in Utah's rich photographic heritage. 49 Ibid., February 4, 1909. Savage's role in originating an annual Old Folk's Day is commemorated in a m o n u m e n t featuring his bust located on the northwest corner of Salt Lake City's M a i n and South Temple streets, just outside the wall around Temple Square. 50 George Gilbert, Photographic Advertising from A to Z (New York, 1970), 85.

The Natural Bridges

of Gfiw^s

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White Canyon: A Diary

ofH.L.A. Culmer, 1905 BY C H A R L I E R. S T E E N

Mr. Steen was formerly archaeologist for the Southwest National Monuments and later for the Southwest Region of the National Park Service.

H. L. A. Culmer and a page from his diary. Utah State Historical Society files.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

E ARE PRONE to believe that conservation of natural resources is a product of our own generation and frequently forget that w h a t we do today is built on good solid foundations laid by our predecessors. During the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early years of this one several great forward steps in conservation were m a d e in this country: Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, Yosemite National Park in 1890, the United States Forest Service in 1905, and the National Park Service in 1916. T h e Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities became law in 1906, and two westerners, Byron Cummings of the University of U t a h and Edgar Lee Hewitt of the University of New Mexico, were probably the most active proponents of the bill. Individually, they also were instrumental in the creation of a dozen or more of the great national monuments in the Southwest. With the wave of enthusiasm for preserving both natural and historic features of the country there went a growing concern to attract tourists. T h e lone traveler â&#x20AC;&#x201D; hunter, artist, or recorder of places and events â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was long a p a r t of the western scene. W i t h easier and faster methods of travel the trickle of tourists became an ever increasing stream, and sporadic efforts were m a d e to open up the wilder sections of the West and to make their features known to the general public. T h e diary published here was written during a trip into southeastern U t a h in 1905. T h e large triangular section of land between the Colorado and San J u a n rivers was, at that time, poorly known. Prospectors and cowboys were the only ones familiar with the area, and it is doubtful that any one m a n knew more t h a n a small portion of the mesas and canyons which comprise it. For ten years stories concerning the scenic wonders of the land h a d come out of the San J u a n country, but little definite information was available. Cass Hite, the Glen Canyon prospector, is said to have seen the White Canyon bridges in 1883 and J. A. Scorup in 1895, but the first account m a d e available to the country at large was in Dyar's publication of the notes kept by Horace J. Long who was led to the bridges by James Scorup in 1903. 1 Dyar's account excited Colonel Edwin F. Holmes of Salt Lake City. Holmes was a financier, a member of the Salt Lake Commercial Club, 1 W. W. Dyar, " T h e Colossal Bridges of U t a h : A Recent Discovery of N a t u r a l Wonders," Century Magazine, 68 (August 1904), 5 0 5 - 1 1 ; G. Gregory Crampton, Standing Up Country: The Canyon Lands of Utah and Arizona (New York, 1964), 152. Dyar's article was summarized in "Colossal N a t u r a l Bridges of U t a h , " National Geographic Magazine, 15 (September 1904), 367-69.

Natural Bridges of White Canyon

and a booster of Utah's scenic beauties. 2 To publicize the bridges, Holmes proposed an expedition — which he would outfit — to make accurate measurements, photographs, and descriptions. Holmes urged the project on H.L.A. Culmer, a fellow member of the Commercial Club and a painter whose renderings of Utah scenery Holmes greatly admired. Culmer agreed to head the expedition, with the Commercial Club as official sponsor.3 Henry Lavender Adolphus Culmer, known to his friends as "Harry" Culmer, was born in the small town of Davington, Kent, England, on March 25, 1854. He immigrated to Utah with his family in 1867 and subsequently engaged in a number of businesses in Salt Lake City. He became publisher of the Salt Lake Daily Times in 1877, published an early directory of Salt Lake City and surrounding counties (1879-80), and, with a brother, furnished the stone for the City and County Building in Salt Lake City. He was best known, however, as an artist — a painter of western landscapes — and served in 1899 as the first president of the Utah Art Institute, predecessor of the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts. Culmer died in Salt Lake City on February 10, 1914.4 Two other men joined the basic party assembled in Salt Lake City. One of them was S. T. Whitaker, an Ogden architect, commercial exhibit designer, and amateur photographer, who had been director general for the commission which planned Utah's entries in the 1904 world's fair in St. Louis.5 In June 1901, Whitaker had accompanied Culmer on a similar 2 Edwin Francis Holmes, a native of New York state and a Civil War veteran, built a successful lumber business with headquarters in Detroit, operated mills in Michigan, a fleet of vessels on the Great Lakes, and timber yards in Cleveland. About 1893, he became interested in mining and bought shares in Park City's Anchor mine. He went into semi-retirement in 1897, married Utah's "Silver Queen," Mrs. Susanna Bransford Emery, widow of Silver King mining millionaire Albion B. Emery, and moved to Salt Lake City. In 1901 the Holmeses bought Amelia's Palace, a home built in 1877 for Brigham Young's wife Amelia Folsom, and lavishly redecorated it. Paintings of H. L. A. Culmer were among those hung in the home's gallery of art. Holmes served two terms as president of Salt Lake's infant Commercial Club (1903-4), worked to improve the city water supply, and was known for his forestry and irrigation studies. He applied the latest irrigating ideas on vast orchards and grain, potato, and hay farms in southeastern Idaho. Holmes was a world traveler (reporting, for example, his trip to China and Siberia in Utah periodicals in 1903) and a member of the National Geographic Society which publicized the White Canyon expedition of 1903. See "New President of Commercial Club Has Closely Studied Public Problems," Salt Lake Herald, January 18, 1903; "Silver Queen of Utah Would Conquer Washington," New York Herald, February 2, 1902; and other clippings in Mrs. Edwin F. Holmes, comp., "Silver Queen's Scrapbook, 1902-1904," Utah State Historical Society Library. 3 H. L. A. Culmer, "The Great Stone Bridges of San Juan County, Utah," Salt Lake Tribune, May 14, 1905. 4 Biographical information on Culmer is from clippings and other materials in Henry L. A. Culmer, Scrapbook, photocopy at the Utah State Historical Society. 5 Samuel T. Whitaker was a practicing architect who — except for two years (1914-15) as Ogden manager for the Utah Light and Railway Company — maintained an office and residence in Ogden until his death about 1921. For a short time around 1903 he opened a Salt Lake City office in the Whitingham Block, 54-56 West First South. As Utah director general

Utah Historical Quarterly

expedition into relatively unknown canyon country to sketch and photograph the Grand Canyon and the Arizona Strip between the Colorado River and the Utah border. The third party member was twenty-oneyear-old Carleton W. Holmes, son of Colonel Holmes. No record of the trip by either of the latter two men is known, and it seems likely that the journal published here was the only one kept during the journey. At Bluff the expedition personnel was augmented by four more men. Al Scorup who had run cattle in the White Canyon area for fourteen years was the guide and field leader.6 Serving as packers were George W. Perkins and Freeman A. Nielson; Franklin J. Adams was cook for the outfit.7 The men intended to be gone for six weeks. After the visit to the natural bridges they planned to explore Dark Canyon or to cross the San Juan to visit Monument Valley. Exceptionally heavy snows during the preceeding winter, however, had isolated Dark Canyon and had caused such heavy run-off in all streams of the region that, as told by Culmer in his record for April 24, they decided that to attempt to cross the San Juan would be foolhardy; so, they cut the journey short. The Deseret Evening News for April 1, 1905, gave the party a good send-off. In addition to naming the men and describing their objectives the News also listed the equipment carried by the party. The expedition (1903-4) for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, he designed and supervised construction of the U t a h building and Utah's booths in mining and agricultural exhibition halls and supervised the gathering of exhibits. Whitaker's previous work with expositions qualified him for the task. See State of U t a h , Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission, Report of the State Board of Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission for the State of Utah, 1903-1904 (Salt Lake City, 1905), 5. ( T h e report is bound as number 32 in Public Documents. State of Utah, 1903-1904.); R. L. Polk & Co., Salt Lake City Directory, 1903 (Salt Lake City, 1903), 967, 1013; Polk's Ogden City Directory, 1903-1904 (Salt Lake City, 1903), 5 2 1 ; and entries for Whitaker in the Ogden directories for 1905-22. 6 John Albert Scorup (1872-1959), brother of James Scorup who was guide for the Long party, built a ranching empire in San J u a n County. Scorup is described at some length in a chapter entitled " M o r m o n Cowboy" in One Man's West by David S. Lavender (2nd ed., Garden City, New York, 1956), 180-203; and in an article by Neal Lambert, "Al Scorup: Cattleman of the Canyons," Utah Historical Quarterly, 32 (Summer 1964), 301-20. A photograph of the Scorup brothers accompanying the Lambert article (p. 305) is dated April 1905 and may well have been taken by Whitaker (or perhaps Charles G o o d m a n ; see below, fn 2 5 ) . 7 T h e four members of the support team, all young cattlemen from Bluff, were lifetime acquaintances and business associates or linked by interfamily marriages. George W. Perkins (b. 1879) was a rancher in Bluff until 1916 and then in Blanding and was a San Juan County commissioner in 1919. I n 1903, he married Mary A. Bayles, niece of Al Scorup's wife, Emma. T h a t same year, George's sister Margaret married Freeman August Nielson (b.1880), a cattlem a n who operated a small general store in Bluff founded by his father, Jens Nielson (Culmer spells the name Nielsen). T h e expedition's cook, Franklin Jacob Adams (b.1872) must have learned the culinary art from his father, William, a baker who r a n a public house in Bluff. Franklin's brother, J o h n E. Adams, a rancher and hotel keeper, was married in 1888 to Freeman Nielson's sister, Margaret C , and was a partner in the Nielson Cash Store. Franklin Adams and Al Scorup h a d been friends since meeting in 1891, a n d Frank became a foreman and, later, partner with Scorup. J. Cecil Alter, Utah: The Storied Domain . . . (3 vols., Chicago and New York, 1932), 3:219-20, 242, 510-11, 631-33; Lambert, "Al Scorup," 304, 308, 315.

Natural Bridges of White Canyon

had surveyor's instruments for measuring purposes (these were not specified ), an aneroid barometer for determining elevations, and an odometer borrowed from "a government agency" (this was broken in a canyon near Monticello). Also taken were "some of the best photographic devices ever brought to Utah, one being the telescopic or long distance camera costing $1500, a property of Mr. Whitaker, an expert in the work of handling it; also a panoramic camera with a capacity for taking three sides of a section in one great sweep." Rock climbing equipment included 500 feet of rope, a rope ladder, and a body harness for each member of the party. The men also had miner's tents and waterproofed sleeping bags with blanket liners.8 Those familiar with southeastern Utah will recognize the names of most of the geographic features mentioned in the diary. US Highway 163 from Crescent Junction to Monticello pretty well follows the course of the old wagon road from Thompsons Springs to Monticello. From the latter town to Bluff the wagon road lay east of the present road. Mustang Springs, where the party camped on April 7, is about eight miles east of Blanding. On the return they swung northeast from Bluff to cross Montezuma Creek well above its confluence with the San Juan; and Major's Ranch, on the McElmo, must have been about where Ismay's store is at present. Some of the place names mentioned by Culmer failed to last. Several canyons west of Elk Ridge answer the description of Unknown Canyon but the name did not stick, and it is not known which of the gorges so excited them. The Grand Opera House is also a name which failed to last. Although some local residents still call the bridges by their old names, the National Park Service and the Board of Geographic Names have decreed impersonal, Indian-type names for them. Here are the current names of the bridges, with the 1905 names in parentheses, and the dimensions of each in feet as determined by recent measurements: 9 8 The list of equipment and the quotation are from an article, "Exploration of the Wilds of Southeastern Utah," Deseret Evening News, April 1, 1905, pp. 24-25. 9 For the measurements taken on the 1905 expedition, see Culmer's entries for April 14 (Edwin Bridge), 15 (Caroline), and 16 (Augusta). Cass Hite is said to have named the bridges President (Sipapu), Congressman (Owachomo), and Senator (Kachina). The National Park Service explains its renaming of the bridges as follows: Owachomo, meaning "rock mound," from the large, rounded rock mound near one end of the mesa; Kachina, from prehistoric pictographs resembling Hopi masked dancers, or kachinas, on one of the bridge abutments; and Sipapu, suggesting the hole through which the Hopis believe their ancestors emerged from a lower, dark world into the present sunlit one. See Cornelia Adams Perkins et al., Saga of San Juan ([Monticello?], 1957), 290-92; and U.S., Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah (revised, Washington, D.C., 1969), a pamphlet.

Utah Historical Height Sipapu (Augusta) 220 Kachina (Caroline) 210 Owachomo (Edwin/Little) 106

Width 31 44 27

Span 268 206 180

Quarterly Thickness 53 93 9

T w o years after the trip described here Byron Cummings of the University of U t a h visited the bridges. 10 His trip seems also to have been instigated by Colonel Holmes, and the two m e n appear to have worked together to have the Natural Bridges National M o n u m e n t designated by presidential proclamation in 1908. T h e Culmer diary was used during the winter of 1936-37 as a radio script in a series of broadcasts by a Salt Lake City dentist, J. A. Broaddus. T h e late Zeke Johnson of Blanding and Salt Lake City obtained a typescript copy of the diary at that time, and it was first published as a special report in a supplement to the Southwestern Monuments Monthly Re11 port. Culmer's diary is still in the possession of his family and is reproduced here with their kind permission. Punctuation and spelling are retained as close to the original as could be ascertained. I n determining Culmer's use of capital letters, some arbitrary decisions have been necessary because of the similarity between upper and lower case letters, especially the letters " a , " " c , " " m , " "n," and "s." Culmer did some later editing of his own diary. It was not possible to differentiate between the changes m a d e in the field and those made during Culmer's later editing, so all have been treated alike. Words or phrases he crossed out have been indicated with parentheses: (here [crossed o u t ] ) . Interlineations, substitutions for crossed out portions, and additions are enclosed in { } brackets: {of this place}. T H E DIARY

[Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr.

1] 2] 4] 5] 6] 6]

S.L to Thompson Thomp to Moab Moab to Jacobs Well Jacobs to Hatch Hatch to Dry Valley Dry Valley to Monticello

35 22 12 12 25

35 71

10 Byron Cummings, " T h e Great Natural Bridges of U t a h , " National Geographic Magazine, 21 (February 1910), 157-66. See also Cummings, The Great Natural Bridges of Utah, Bulletin of the University of U t a h , vol. 3, no. 3, pt. 1 (Salt Lake City, 1910). 11 Charlie R. Steen, ed., "Personal Diary of H . A. Culmer," in the Supplement for June 1937, mimeographed (Coolidge, Arizona, 1937), 385-406. Johnson led Culmer on a return trip to the bridges in 1938. A photocopy of that diary is on file at the U t a h State Historical Society along with copies of newspaper reports and articles on the 1905 expedition.

Natural [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr. [Apr.

Bridges

of White

Canyon

7] Mont to Mustang 8] Mustang to Bluff 12] Bluff to Freeman Cave 13] F Gave to Little Bridge 14] Little B to Caroline 14-1 8] Excursions 19] Caroline to Trail Cave 20-21] Collins to Horse " & Excursions 22] Horse to George's Cave 23] George to Bluff 25] Bluff to Bluff 26 to Major 27] Major to N. Hall by Horse 425 [429] 27] Hall to Cortez 28] Cortez to Dolores 28] [Dolores to Telluride] 29] [Telluride to Grand Junction] 30] [Grand Junction to Salt Lake City]

61 25 26 25 25 6 40 20 28 24 25 16 45 18

193

75 [79]

April 1=1905. Left S. Lake 8.50 A M . Arr. Thompson's Springs 4.20 P M . Found no news of team promised by J. A. Scorup, but H . A. Ballard 12 (of this place} in response to previous wire arranged to have team and wagon start at 6.30 tomorrow A . M . for Moab, 35 miles south. Thompson's Springs are 6 miles north {of here,} water piped to R.R. and */> doz houses supplied. 2 story little hotel store. Ballard {says he} has seen one of the big bridges in White Canyon. Canyon runs on 2 levels [sketch of canyon cross-section] and water is under arch. Next big canyon S. of White is Red Canyon, next N . is Dark Canyon which runs into Colo near Cataract {Canyon of the Colorado River,} Next is Indian Canyon. Cooper of Cooper Miller [sic] & Co 13 has just sold out Cattle herd that he has kept in Dark Canyon for 10 years. T o the S.E. 50 miles away we see the L a Sal Mtns in snow and clouds. Water here good after treatm[en]t but of sheepy flavor. Hotel kept by m a n named Fike[.] N o snow in sight east of the Wasatch, though it snowed heavily in S.L. City a day or two before we left[.] 12 R. L. Polk & Co.'s Utah State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1912-1913 (Salt Lake City, 1 9 1 2 ) , lists a n H . G. Ballard as a farmer in Thompson's ( p . 4 2 4 ) a n d a n H . S. Ballard & Co., a dealer in general merchandise, coal, a n d grain ( p . 3 4 0 ) . Culmer's " H . A. Ballard" was undoubtedly associated with the merchantile company. 13 Culmer probably means Cooper M a r t i n & Co., which operated a general store in M o a b . I t was m a n a g e d by Vincent P. M a r t i n , w h o became cashier of the First National Bank of M o a b when it was organized in 1916. David M . Cooper of M o a b , a vice president of the bank, m a n a g e d drugstore for the conglomerate, which also r a n cattle. O t h e r partners were William F. Keller, treasurer; David L. Goudelock, a n d H a r r y G. Green. See F a w n McConkie T a n n e r , A History of Moab, Utah ( M o a b , 1 9 3 7 ) , 5 5 ; a n d Polk, Utah Gazetteer, 1912-1913, 144. Daniel A. Keeler, Bountiful, also helped the editors identify this firm.

Route of the 1905 Commercial Club

expedition.

Natural Bridges of White Canyon

Apr 2. Morning cloudy, threatening. All expect rain except barometer and me. Start 7 a m with light load having sent 360 lbs forward by stage. Air soon proves delicious and balmy, the travelling good and all are in fine spirits. T o the East 5 miles away some handsome rock forms worth taking if we had time. Are to noon at a seep in a creek bed, at station called Court House, from design of big isolated rocks. As we approach we get glimpse up a distant side canyon of some obolisks or monuments t h a t seem remarkable and we leave wagon, taking camera, at noon, saying will visit obolisks and reach Court House at 1. Walk briskly for an hour. Monuments still distant. W e first estimated them 50 feet high and 1 y2 miles away. They prove to be over 400 feet high and 4 miles from where we saw them. Are of maroon and dark red sandstone — 3 of them — close together but quite detached by y2 mile from surrounding buttes, beautiful pedestal of nearly 80 feet. F r o m one view two of them show heads of Egyptian profiles. Are most impressive — standing alone in the great surrounding temples. {^Insert note page 7.} *Later Note. Within the following year I painted an important picture of this scene, naming it "Mystery of the Desert". Inspired by the picture W. M. Gotwaldt wrote the following poem: Insert poem. 14 Cut across country and down another gulch and over the hills to Court House Station reaching there shortly after 3. Poor meal, fair water. 1 5 Started 3.30 for M o a b . Off to the East and North other strange rock forms and arches or bridges. 15 miles or more to the N . E . a tremendous monolith, apparently down on G r a n d River. A lively tilt down a sandy wash, roads just right for speed and the Grand River Valley and M o a b are in sight, a most beautiful panorama. A gorge where the river enters from the left, thence westward[.] It {makes its} passage across the green and fertile valley (and [crossed out]) {into} another deep red gorge where it plunges to escape. Beyond the verdurous valley are broken red sandstone steppes, and above them magnificent snow cloaked peaks 13089 feet high. T h e barometer shows altitude at M o a b to be (4000 [croosed out] {3850}ft. T h e r e are few scenes in America to equal this one, and we hope to sketch here tomorrow. W e Cross the river on wire rope ferry and 3 miles more to town. Stop at fairly good hotel. Meet Cooper Martin & Co. who say they hear that Scorup is headed for us, but if he does not come we can be pulled out anyway on Tuesday. Vote this to have been a most enjoyable day and beautiful cloud pageantry. Tonight clear and sweet. Stars never so bright. No moon but Venus is brilliant for evening star. 14 Culmer wrote the "Later Note" in a space following his entry for April 2, on page 7 of the MS diary. No space was available to copy the poem into the diary; if he inserted it on a separate sheet, it has been lost. It could not be located from other sources. "Mystery of the Desert," completed in 1906, hung for several years in the gallery of Colonel Holmes. In 1964, the painting was given to the Utah State Historical Society by the Culmer family. It is on display at the Society Mansion. 15 The men were lured from the road by Court House Towers in the northern portion of the present Arches National Monument. The foundations of the old Court House Station are yet to be seen northeast of the highway and south of the bridge which crosses Court House Wash.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Blanding became the outfitting spot for pack trips into Natural Bridges and was Zeke Johnson's headquarters. Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society. Cooper Martin fail to secure an outfit. We apply to other store, Hammond who say they will do it on time. — Will they?

Apr 3. Bright & Balmy[.] No news from Scorup. Engage another outfit to take us out tomorrow morning to meet him —• teamster named [Tom] Foy 17 from Hammonds outfit. Dr. J. W. Williams 18 took us across the Grand today to sketch (I made 1 [crossed out]) and photograph (Whit made 10 5x7 & 1-12x24. Mostly of [crossed out]) the La Sals that today gleam like white spirits above the red reefs. Dr. Williams is well informed, bright, genial[.] T h e "News" of Apr 1 arrived today and added to the previous newspaper accounts, the page and a half in the News with our portraits puts the town agog as much as if we were celebrities, and I must say most people go out of their way to serve us on more than (or rather less than) 16 This general merchandise and agricultural implement store was known by varied titles during the 1910s and 1920s. According to entries in Polk's Utah Gazetteer, the firm was known as H a m m o n d & Sons Co. in 1912; as H a m m o n d Co., with C. A. H a m m o n d as manager in 1920 and with West E. H a m m o n d as manager two years later; by 1924, it was the M o a b Light & Power Market, with W. D . H a m m o n d , manager; a n d by 1927, it was H a m m o n d Bros., managed by W. D . and West H a m m o n d . See Gazetteers for 1912-13, p . 144; 1920-21, p. 110; 1922-23, p . 127; 1924-25, p . 113; and 1927-2-8, p . 102. 17 Thomas Foy was the oldest son of William B. and Lucinda Foy who settled first in Monticello (1889) and later in Moab where they ran cattle. Perkins et al.. Saga of San Juan, 308-9. 18 " D o c " Williams, ardent and vocal conservationist, moved to Moab during the 1890s when he was about forty years old. H e was the person most responsible for the establishment of Arches National Monument, this in addition to curing the ills a n d delivering the babies of the Moab area for many years. H e died at Moab on August 3, 1956, ten days after his 103d birthday. H e was frail b u t active until a year before his death. H e was well-loved in the community.

Natural Bridges of White Canyon

reasonable terms. M a n y trees are green with leaf and yet they say this is a backward season. It is a fine fruit town, but Dr. Williams (here [crossed out]) says the people get M o a b fever after the first year. It is so easy to make a bare living and so hard to get rich here. T h e symptom of Moab fever is chronic laziness. April 4. A start with 4 horse outfit and driver ( T o m Foy) who is also cook. T i m e 8.30 having had to complete a number of matters. Weather clear and beautiful, air delicious invigorating, temperature just right. W e n t u p Pack Creek, again heading to the glorious La Sals until we are within 12 miles of the base of M t Peale when we noon at Poverty Hill. Make small sketch. (Whitaker takes l/2 a dozen photos with various lenses [crossed out]) Was a dry noon, we having brought our water in canteens. Started at 3.10 reached Kane's Spring 4 miles at 5.30 and continued on to Jacobs Wells 4 miles reaching at 7.30. T h e afternoon among huge sandstone cliffs, with rocky and sandy road â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wonderful descent into K a n e Wash with the gleaming Peale dominating the head of the canyon. This was after crossing Blue ridge, altitude 5230. O n ascending from K a n e Wash we wound around the edge of Mule Shoe Wash to Jacobs Wells. Here we can no longer see the La Sals, but on Blue ridge we caught a glimpse of the Blue Mountains far away. It seemed as if our destination was nearly in sight, though we know that we have hundreds of miles of rough travel ahead. W e c a m p on a rocky promontory with half a gale blowing, but all are hearty and good natured a n d enjoy our supper by the big cedar fire. T h e altitude is 5050[.] N o news of Scorup and though we have pressed on it seems that we may not make Gordons (6 miles this side of Monticello) by tomorrow night. Feed is scarce all along the line as the country is sheep-cursed. Apr 5 Started early from Jacobs Wells or as some n a m e the camping place "Shirt-tail point". Thrilling picture of getting water[.] Was uncomfortably cold in the night, frost this morning. After going a few miles the L a Sals again swing in sight as near and almost as beautiful as ever. T h e Blues are closer. M t . Aba jo here called the Shay Mountains to the S.W. quite handsome. Soon we come to Looking Glass rock where we make some fine subjects. About here the lonely carrier of the U S Mail passed us, a quaint figure on a weird cayuse ( W e took here [crossed out]) H e said that Scorups team was waiting for us at Hatch's Wash where we would noon. W e found I r u m Perkins 19 here and exchanged loads and sent Foy back to M o a b . W e made a long traverse of Dry Valley (in the afternoon} and thought we would c a m p at the Tanks, b u t it was so sheep cursed that we moved on to the open desert where we c a m p at 8 pm[.] Weather warmer, clear & fine. Dry C a m p . But for lack of water this would be one of the finest valleys in U t a h but the thirsty soil drinks u p the rain and the grass that is disposed to grow freely is stamped out by the sheep. Altitude 6130. 39 Hyrum Perkins (b. 1851). father of George W. Perkins, who joined the expedition at Bluff. Hyrum and Rachel Corry Perkins were members of the Hole-in-the-Rock colonizing mission and had a son Hyrum C. (b. 1885). David E. Miller, Hole-in-the-Rock: An Epic in the Colonization of the Great American West (Salt Lake City, 1959), 145; and Alter, Storied Domain, 3:219-20.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Apr 6. Going at 6.45 A M and up on Peters Hill ridge by 10 oclock, crossing at an elevation of 6980, but kept (up [crossed out]) (on) climbing to Gordon's ranch 20 where we nooned at altitude of 7160, the Blues close by with snow to their base. Lone Cone, Telluride {Colo} to left, Rico to right, ranged along in [on?] the Colo, line, Ute ( M t n ) nearly to the South. Orson Dalton here nearly 7 years. This is noted old ranch, cabin being built in 1883. Some wild stories told of it: An Irishman, a b u m and nuisance hit u p the ranch one night when the keg was full and they said (for once [crossed out]) they wanted him to have enough red eye for once, so they threw him and poured the whisky down his throat as they sat on him and in an hour or two he was dead. They fixed up a box for him and it was too short, then debated whether they should cut off his legs or make another box. All drunk; made another {box} and squeezed him in and took him to Monticello where they told the populace that he was too long for the box (and [crossed out]) but he was all there and if (when [crossed out]) they opened up they would find his l e g s — o n e (of [crossed out]) {on} each side of him. Gordon himself has been known to shoot u p the town and has made the boys dance to a tune while he shot at their toes. Here we got Dalton to ride a couple of pitching horses while we tried to snap them. It was too quick work in all probability for any camera[.] T h e cabin is full of holes from guns. Gordon in one fray stood off 3 men in the East cabin, beat two of them till they ran and was on the other beating him over the head with a sixshooter when help came. Meantime Gordon had 9 wounds, one thro the lungs. T h e men he had discharged and they came back, found his six on the window sill — took out the cartridges and put the gun back, then turned loose. {^Insert from next page} * Got doctor from Denver who gave him one week to live. He replied "G d you I 11 be riding the range when you are dead." 2 years later the doctor died[.] Gordon & Dalton went to Moab last winter and stuck a fellow up with feathers &c[?]. 21 (and [crossed out]) T h e town thought the Gordon outfit was loose and the marshal was not to be found — they just had a good time[.] Gordon had $800 flo worth of fun in "Monticell(o [crossed o u t ] ) " last spring shooting through a man's hat. T h e man turned out to be Dalton's uncle, though Dalton was not there. They were fighting at close range and Gordon's gun was taken away from him in the scuffle, as he was not the only nervy man in "Monticell"[.] 20 W. E. " L a t i g o " Gordon, a foreman for the Carlisle outfit, resided in a cabin sometimes known as the "double cabins" six miles north of Monticello. Gordon later helped organize the Moab State Bank (1915) and served as a director. Lambert, "Al Scorup," 274, and Tanner, History of Moab, 55. 21 This is not clear. Several persons familiar with the language of the old West have been asked the meaning of the phrase "to stick a person up with feathers." None had a definite answer; although two suggested that the m a n was tarred a n d feathered. This seems importable because Gordon and Dalton apparently were just out for a n evening of good clean fun — at some else's expense.

Natural

Bridges of White

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Gordon's place is the old Carlisle station and probably {the} Carlisles have an interest in it yet.22 They came here from Scotland 3 brothers — 20 years ago and became the ranch Kings of this part. Some years ago — in the good times, — a bunch of cowboys came and shot up the school house {at Monticello.} Someone had tied up a bottle to the schoolbell in the rude tower and this challenged the marksmen — then they shot thro the windows into the ceiling and the poor Kids thought their end was at hand, until the boys rode away yelling like Apaches[.] In the Gordon Cabins, Dalton said there must have been a million shots fired. Certainly the logs are well peppered, and we were shown a post where 3 bullets went thro from a Winchester after they had wounded Gordon. Gordon has no fingers on his right hand. They were pulled out by getting them in a twist or loop of the rope when making a exhibition here of cow throwing. He calls [changed from called] a district or space of country "I have never been over that scope of country." He is good looking—-intelligent and except when charged with red eye very kind and peacable. We met him on the road. He was on his way to a ram herd in Rattlesnake Valley and could not go back, but he said we could walk right in and take away the ranch and Dalton would be there and tell him to give us everything. I had a present for Gordon in the shape of a qt demijohn of whisky from Cooper of Moab and a letter of introduction stating that the bearer carried a small bottle of red eye, and he hoped we would hit it a few and he would give us some stories as to his experiences and some examples of his wit. Hoped to reach Verdure and see Scorup tonight, but it was sunset and growing cold when we reached "Monteceli" and Verdure 7 miles of bad road away. We went to Benj{amin} Perkins' 23 home, which is the most comfortable semihotel we have so far met and go to bed early, tired and well. New moon tonight. The La Sals still loom to the N. many miles away. Monticello altitude 7250 ft. Today we injured our odometer, putting it out of commission in a canyon by riding on a jutting rock that just fitted the job. It was through no carelessness, but it was a hard country we were coming through. Another Gordon ranch story. Had a new cook — a cowboy came in late after the others were through. Cook served up liver. Cowboy tired and cross. "Who the hell ever saw liver served up in a cow camp? Take it away and bring me some meat." Cook draws gun. "Proceed to eat that liver and proceed quick. Eat it all up. Now tell these gentlemen that you like liver — that you are stuck on liver[.]" 22 For the story of the Carlisle brothers, see Don D. Walker, "The Carlisles: Cattle Barons of the Upper Basin," Utah Historical Quarterly, 32 (Summer 1964), 268-84. 23 Benjamin Perkins, a younger brother of Hyrum Perkins (senior), played an important role as a captain of ten in the Hole-in-the-Rock expedition. He moved to Monticello in 1902 and there engaged in farming, freighting, and road work. He was well known for his snappy Welsh jigs and love of dancing; he served as San Juan County's first assessor. The Perkins Hotel, under the management of Sarah Perkins, was still serving traveler's needs as late as 1912. Benjamin Perkins died in 1926. Miller, Hole-in-the-Rock, 81, 101, 103-5, 182, 200: Polk, Utah Gazetteer, 1912-1913, 146; Perkins et al., Saga of San Juan, 324-25.

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Slept tonight at Benj Perkins in a bed. A Welsh family clean and comfortable home. His brother 24 has been our teamster for several days and is a quaint old customer. T h e other night Carl remarked last thing, " I wonder if I shall be troubled by tarantulas or rats (snakes [crossed out]) or any small varmints?" Never mind", said he "they wont bother strangers." Apr (6 [crossed out] ) 7 C a m p tonight at Mustang Springs, 25 miles from Monticello & 26 from Bluff. (Alt. [crossed out]) It is warmer tonight and we are among the cedars on the south slope of the Blues. This afternoon at an Alt of 7250 we looked to the S.E and saw into Colo{rado,} New Mex(ico) and Arizona. T o the S. the sandy Desert Land strange forms in the Navajo reservation — a wierd [sic] and desolate stretch — and we were thankful we were not bending in that direction. In the West to our right and not so very far away was the Elk Ridge; and the Orejas del Oso (Bears Ears) sticking above the level, marks the head of White Canyon[.] They were only about 25 miles away, but the snow was too deep for us to go that way and we have to go around 100 miles yet. (A gap in Elk Ridge marks the head of Dark Canyon.) At Verdure — Bob Hobb's place — 8 miles S. of Monticello, we met Bob and Scorup. T h e latter rode with us a few miles and we had our first opportunity to plan the essential part of our adventure, and it certainly looks more formidable than ever. We can already see the necessity of hiring four men to go with us and 16 horses at a minimum [.] O n the other hand it seems imperative to limit our trip from Bluff & return to 12 days. Still the things we are promised to see are so splendid that it will probably be an exciting and glorious jaunt — full of hard work but fine results. We have to give up the idea of going into Dark Canyon as that requires passing over Elk Ridge and the snow there is too deep; but in compensation we can get down into Grand Gulch, a canyon 100 miles long and full of wonders and of great depth{. It is) said to surpass Dark Canyon, and yet we have never before heard of it, and some well informed people who claim to know the country, deny its existence. In fact it is only in the last few days that we have heard of Dark Canyon, which runs to the North from Elk Ridge. Mustang Springs must be pretty when the leaves are out. T h e water lies in a dark grotto and only flows a few rods down the gorge. Shading the spring is a magnificent old cottonwood that we would like to see in leaf. T h e country all around is still sheep cursed and we long for the canyons to the West, where the cattlemen have kept out the sheep. We know more about the Bridges and they will be fine. Scorup had to go away to the White Mesa but will reach Bluff tomorrow night ahead of us. Apr (7 [crossed out]) 8 Reached Bluff this evening. Scorup kindly sent out a light rig to bring us in from a few miles up the road. Traveled today through Cedar Woods or over rolling sage brush land of fine quality. From Dry Valley nearly to Bluff, a distance of 75 miles, there has been abundance of good farming land that only requires a water supply to make it productive; or else the work of the Experiment Stations in the direction of dry farming will be the only 24

" I r u m , " i.e., H y r u m Perkins (senior). See fn 19.

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way to utilize it except for grazing land. Even as it is the grass would grow freely over large areas but for the sheep. Today we saw far into the Navajo Country, and the forms that seemed faint yesterday show bolder today, and through the glass seem to be extraordinary in character, especially those in Monument Valley with their forms something [sketch of the Mittens] like these, and the monuments about 500 ft high, apparently. It is doubtful whether we can get away Monday morning. Tomorrow is Sunday and but little can be done in preparation. We have been so slow coming that we have about decided to go home by way of Dolores, Colo, a point on the Rio Grande that we can reach with light conveyance in two days. About noon we crossed a muddy stream named Recapture Creek. We are now in the midst of the so called Cliff Dwellers ruins. {Frank} Adams, who goes with us to White Canyon and Grand Gulch, says he has explored many of them and thinks there were three successive races, the cave dwellers, cliff dwellers and mound builders. We shall see whether his theory appears to be tenable [.] We sleep at Scorups and eat at Mrs Allen's. This old lady has been here some 23 years and has many a tale to tell.25 Apr 9. Sunday. Little doing to-day. It is now decided that we must use 4 men and 20 head of horses, for which we must pay for 12 days $384°° and furnish food for the men. This will give us 7 days travel and 5 days stopping in White Canyon and Grand Gulch. We cannot leave tomorrow morning, but must wait until Tuesday, as horses have to be shod and the men have to be gathered up. T h e resources of the little town are taxed to provide for us. There are some handsome residences here — built of buff stone in coursed Ashlar and with hard oil finished wood work interiors and neatly painted wood work outside. I had a bath today in a nearly modern bath tub and all has to be brought 90 miles from the nearest railway point Dolores. T h e peach trees are in full bloom. It has been showery today — the first rainfall since we started. Last Tuesday I said it would rain here on Sunday and not before. Altitude here 4700 ft[.] Apr 10—Making preparations to start tomorrow morning — rained a good deal today. Apr 11—A lost day. It rained all last night and nearly all day today. This evening barometer is rising. So much rain is remarkable here at this season, but the stock men and farmers are rejoicing. We hear fairy stories of the wonders of Monument Park on the Navajo Grant which could be reached by a 5 days trip from here. 25 Culmer's description best fits Jane Fleming Fergensen Shaw Allan, wife of John Allan. Born in 1845 of Scottish descent, Mrs. Allan has been described as a friendly, helpful woman who was "always hospitable and known for her housekeeping and good cooking." T h e Allans moved to Bluff from nearby Fort Montezuma following the flood of 1884. Perkins et al., Saga of San Juan, 294.

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A Zeke Johnson pack train scrambles over the rocks on the way to Natural Bridges. Johnson ran a guide service into the monument for many years. Utah State Historical Society photograph, gift of Charles Kelly.

Natural Bridges of White Canyon

Apr 12. W e "plunged" and had 25 miles of life in the mountains with a pack train, Starting (at [crossed out]) (not before} 9.30 owing to the labor of saddling and packing 20 animals, we certainly m a d e a startling effect as we passed thro the town of Bluff and most of the populace turned out to see us depart. I never enjoyed myself better than today. It was cloudy and threatening but did not rain until about 4 pm. A local photographer named Goodman — a very skilful m a n — took the cavalcade on our departure and again as we splashed thro the swollen waters of Cottonwood Creek. 26 T h e first adventure was 6 miles further in crossing Butler Wash. I took {photos of) the party coming down the trail — then stopped to renew my films. By the time I came to the wash, the others were all a cross [sic], but my handsome horse, (Misnamed D o b b i n ) , dashed down into the quicksand and rushing torrent and up the impossible rocks with a speed that took my breath away. I had an audience that was scarcely over the excitement of crossing and I guess they concluded that I was no tenderfoot the way Dobbin carried me through. T h e next adventure was 2 miles later crossing Navajo Pass. This is over Comb Ridge into Comb Wash. This ridge is about 500 feet high and runs N &S. 30 miles with only this place to cross it, and it is one of the dizziest things on earth, — Narrow, steep and rocky, But at the foot is Navajo Spring, a cold, clear, sweet and never failing supply that is famous for its excellence. Here we took lunch. Then u p Comb Wash, fording a fierce stream a number of times, then up rocky steeps to the cedar mesas above. W e were at a high altitude, and the view in every direction was superb; rocky canyons, breaks and cliffs, the Blues to the North East, the Elks to the N . W . where we were heading, and swooping swirling thunderclouds everywhere. T h e n the rain overtook us and every rock and cliff glistened in the rainshine. Among the sand and cedars, in a land where the sheep have never browsed, for none have been permitted to pass Navajo trail. Grass and flowers and an abundance of sweet water at this season. T h e n as evening approached we entered Cascade Gorge with a hundred merry waterfalls swelling the stream, and around among the pines and cedars by a dizzy trail to a huge cave discovered by the cow boys a year or two ago. They asked us to name it and we called it Cascade Cave[.] T h e day was not without mishaps. Among other things, 2 of the 3 mules gave out right after lunch and they lay in the sand by the river as forlorn a sight as one might wish to> see. But they dissimulated. As their loads were released, one of them turned loose with his business end and sent some of our food over into the Navajo Reservation, A fine shot at a can of Bents Crackers filled the air with dust and sent the larger pieces out into Monument Park 20 miles away. So they say.

20 Charles G o o d m a n seems also to have been a correspondent for the Deseret Evening News. O n April 22 the News ran a front page story of the d e p a r t u r e of the expedition from Bluff with a picture of the party crossing Cottonwood Wash. T h e article was signed with the initial " G . " Illustrated articles describing the entire trip were published in the News, M a y 1, 1905, a n d the Salt Lake Tribune, M a y 1 and 14, 1905.

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:|ffi:5iin^f?^^ii^"

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Freeman's Cave, called Cascade Cave in the April 12 diary entry, from a Culmer watercolor reproduced by the Salt Lake Tribune in its May 14, 1905, account of the Commercial Club expedition. T h e altitude at Cascade Cave is 5950 ft and the distance yet to go to Little Bridge is about 25 miles, O u r trail yesterday was so direct that it shortened the distance by many miles over the usual trail. Cascade Cave is fully 350 feet from the front springs {of arch,} 100 ft from floor rim to back, and 100 feet from floor to top of roof. At the farthest recesses are 2 springs of delicious cold pure water that never fail in the dryest season. Evidences of cave dwellers have almost been obliterated but are still plain, the rocks squared up and "bonded" just as a modern mason would do. But the floor is solid rock and probably nothing is buried here. T o night, the bonfire lights up a portion of the cavern, but the rest is buried in the blue depths of a smoky haze. Outside, the moon is breaking through indigo clouds, and the whole scene is wierd. Tales of robbers retreats, and pictures of old time gatherings of ancient tribes in this important cave come to the mind and fill the night with strange dreams. Mar [sic] 13. At the Little Bridge! Arrived at 5.30 {pm} with no mishaps. Most of the way has been over woods of pinion pine and cedar, with little grass, and with evidence that the snow had but recentiy melted away. T o the East was Elk Ridge, above which the flat topped Bears Ears towered a thousand feet and {were} covered with snow. We crossed Cedar Ridge and could see far down across the San Juan, and for the first time saw Navajo Mtn, lonely and desolate near the junction of the San J u a n and Colo, {rivers} to the S.W. All between was cedar, cedar, cedar, and they say that hardly anything will grow among them perhaps owing to the pungent odor, which we know in cedar (to [crossed out]) {oil to be} a vermifuge, (and [crossed out]) A few men have fenced or barred the few passes along the trail and keep here as many cattle as the range will feed. They use it as a breeding place, selling

Natural

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their yearlings for about $16°'° and could only get 4 00 more for 2 year olds. They are bought by Colorado feeders, and usually the cattle men do well, but winter before last nearly ruined the range and the cattle men too. It rained a little on the first of September and not again until the 21st of March-—-nearly 7 months. We nooned today at Kane Gulch, where we hoped to find two large jugs that had been dug out and hidden 6 years ago. But someone had found the hiding place for they were missing. A good ten miles through pathless woods and rocky breaks and we saw the Little Bridge about a mile (distance [crossed out]) {away.} It spans a gulch from the north that feeds Armstrong Creek, a branch of White Canyon and where another stream comes in from the south. We take a few photographs, but I am too tired to sketch or measure and we will leave that for tomorrow. We are camped right under it, and the impression I have is that it is wonderfully lofty, graceful in style and very symmetrical. Apr 14. "Brite & fare." U p at 5.15 to see the sunrise on Little Bridge. Got a good start for a sketch before breakfast, though I had to cross the gulch with a good climb and come back at the breakfast yell. By rising early, I got a good sketch, (we [crossed out]) made a number of photographs and pulled out for White Canyon after lunch, leaving at 11.45. It had been decided before leaving that Little Bridge was no proper name for this magnificent example of Natures handiwork, so before leaving we christened it the Edwin Bridge, after Col. Edwin F. Holmes, ex Pres. of the Commercial Club and the man who first advocated the expedition. We recorded in good New Era black paint The Edwin Bridge Span 205 Height 111 Thickness 10 Breadth 30 Altitude 6350 H L A Culmer S T Whitaker C W Holmes

feet " " " " Commercial Club Exploration Ex pedition. Apr 14, 1905

I took a photograph while these measurements were being made, and C W Holmes[,] Freeman Nielson and Al. Scrorup [sic] were on the top. I was making my sketch at the time. The camp had been against the base of the bridge, The stream that runs under the bridge joins the Armstrong just as it emerges. The canyon from which it comes had no name so we called it Edwin Gulch. Opposite are the remnants of some so called cave dwellers, which we explored, but though difficult of access it had already been looted, and only a few broken pieces of pottery were found. The structures and conditions further confirmed my belief that they were tombs, not homes of a forgotten race.

Map showing location of the three bridges in White Canyon with drawings of the bridges taken from Culmer's diary.

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Natural Bridges of White Canyon

A mile on our way we saw picture painting on the rocks which were in so awkward a position that it is not likely our photographs are successful. They seemed to me to be an epitaph, and nearby were ruins of structures that seemed to belong to the signs. These too, were much despoiled. A couple of miles farther and a well preserved structure was seen and our guide thought this had never been molested, as it was so inaccessible. We therefore proceeded to scale the lofty cliffs and in about an hour we were there. It was closed up and in perfect preservation, but contained very little. I found a bone awl and an arrow head. While the others dug into an adjoining structure and found corn cobs, wheat stalks (said to be very rare {in fact altogether new)} squash rind, rushes woven and some strong string made they say from the fibre of the oose.27 We crawled into the narrow opening and believe we were the first whites to enter the room. Why it was deserted is a mystery. We are now camped in a pleasant spot near Caroline Bridge, having descended a frightful trail, which we can see from camp. We shall remain here part of tomorrow before going to Augusta bridge. On the way {today} we had a great mishap. The old mule named William Livingston, had left the trail at the rear of the outfit, got into a deep water hole in Armstrong Creek and was discovered lying on his side, with the pack under water. That is, he was struggling and floundering and finally got rid of his load and struck for shore, (and [crossed out]) {He} was not caught until he had made two good miles up the canyon. His was the choicest load of the lot having the big camera box and nearly all our plates, or two telescopes with all my films, clothing etc and finally our two grips, having all our little gimcracks. That is why our camp tonight looks like a laundry and this book is stained and generally disreputable. It was an anxious moment as we unpacked, and even now we do not know whether our films are ruined or not. Apr 15 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 05. Dried all our stuff this morning in the bright sunlight, then I spent some hours in the difficult task of making a sketch of the Caroline Bridge; but was somewhat distracted by the cries of the rest of the party in their discoveries of the relics and hieroglyphics in the surrounding caves, The Caroline Bridge was named by Long in [ ] after the (wife [crossed out]) {mother} of his guide, James Scorup, brother to our present guide. Our cook, Franklin Adams, who has had a lot of experience in digging out cave and cliff dwellings, went to the place we explored yesterday and returned with a big bowl or water jar [sketch] and a digging or planting stick [sketch] some examples of the woven willow sticks used for coffin [sketch] making and the shucks that we thought was wheat, but which he says is only the head of wheat grass. At the hieroglyphics or picture (painting) scratching or peckings was written the names of W. C. McLoyd and C. C. Graham {winter of} 1892-3 [.] McLoyd is considered to be the first white man to explore White Canyon and he gathered 27 What is oose? There is no mistaking the word as it appears in the diary; it is clearly written. Further on in the diary Culmer describes some cords made of yucca. It seems most likely that oose was a short-lived colloquial name for a plant â&#x20AC;&#x201D; possibly yucca, juniper, or cliff rose.

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Culmer's oil painting of Caroline Bridge now hangs in the Utah State Supreme Court chambers, State Capitol. Photograph courtesy of Utah State Institute of Fine Arts. a n u m b e r of relics, making a collection that was exhibited in D u r a n g o and afterwards sold it to Eastern parties for over $5000Â°Â°. Last evening Carl Holmes climbed to the top of Caroline Bridge {alone} a n d stuck {on a tree} two (white [crossed out]) {red} flags made from a handerchief. H e tried it again this morning for the purpose of measuring b u t there was a slight frost and the rocks were too slippery. It is said that no> one has climbed this bridge before. T h e ancient dwellers at the bridge have left the imprint of their hands in good red pigment on the wall, as though they intended the imprints to form a frieze. It is usually a fine quality of Tuscan red, but others are of a rich golden ochre. {^Insert Page 57} *We later saw these handprints in such number and arrangement as to suggest a census of the inhabitants. What a chance for Puden head Wilson! This afternoon Carl Holmes and Freeman Nielsen again reached the top of the bridge and let down a rope for measurements. T h e thickness of the bridge is 60 feet, the height from stream to t o p is 182 feet, the width is 60 ft at narrowest part, the span is 350 feet. {Altitude 6000 ft.} Frank Adams and George Perkins attempted the ascent, but failed. I did not fail. I think Ruskin lamented that in all his examination of cliffs in the Alps he was unable to find one that was really perpendicular â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they all fell short of the vertical, having a slight slope backward at the t o p : H e should come here and lament no more for there are scores and scores of them (that at [crossed

Natural

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out]) hundreds of feet in height (and [crossed out]) overhanging from 10 to- 60 and 70 degrees. Caves unnumbered. They are pleasant places, {â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many of them â&#x20AC;&#x201D;} sheltered, ferny and ample; cool, echoing lofty and often affording fine views up or down huge canyons. From them the approach of friend or enemy could be easily marked. Frequently, a cool spring drips from the deling [sic], especially at the time of the year we are here, and probably throughout the winter. From the brink, huge clambering pines, wind their way from the cool and damp to the outer sunshine, and these pines are tenacious of life and engage in a life and death struggle with the cedars. We have seen many instances where the pinion pine has survived, throttling its victim like the Laoeoon, and there it was {living vigorously} with its serpent strangle hold (living [crossed out]) around a dead but never decaying cedar. One of the best examples of this we saw on the very top of Edwin Bridge and I have always been sorry we did not have the camera with us to preserve the memory. Apr 16 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 05. A notable day. I saw and sketched the great Augusta bridge, though a week could be spent in painting it from various points of view. It is a most magnificent and shapely structure, and though its height, beneath the arch, is not so great as Long states, it is still one of the biggest things in Nature. Measurements showed it to be 83 feet thick, the height from stream to top 265 feet, span 320 ft feet [sic]. The width of the causeway is 35 ft. {Altitude 6050 ft at base[.]} It has been deemed inaccessible, but again Carl reached the top in company of {George Perkins &} F. A. Nielsen and they were probably the first men to set foot there. Later in the day, I went across with Frank Adams. The afternon was spent in climbing high places in search of Moqui? or Aztec? ruins and relics. By the aid of ropes and ladders, we got to ledges that no' white man had scaled, but found little to reward our labors. Whitaker and I each drew out a stone ax or hammer, unusually well preserved with handles complete. When we returned to camp at the Caroline, we were all thoroughly tired. I think I have hit on the reason for the many caves that abound in this region the same causes producing the bridges. The canyons are all eroded through a series of sandstone strata. Between the ledges, the mass is often 50 to 200 feet in thickness, and made up of beds from a few inches to 30 and 40 feet in thickness. These beds are frequently non-conforming and of unequal compactness. In some the cementing element is almost wholly lacking and they crumble away like brown sugar. In others the cement is lacking in the laminations and where they are undermined they fall in great flakes altho sometimes the chunks come down with a conchoidal fracture. These pieces, if soft, are disposed of by sand blast of the winds, or by water erosion, while the ceiling is being air slacked ready for another fall. [Two sketches identified by Culmer as "Non-conforming strata or crossbedded sandstone" and "Cave Making".] The wind usually keeps the back chamber well cleared and gives a chance for the soft stratum to desiccate. Nearly all of the cave houses are in such places and the clay from the soft stratum has been manipulated with burnt lime or some other medium so as to make it very enduring. Nearly all of the houses are braced at the front by poles sunk into cieling [sic] and floor [sketch].

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T h e causes of the caves are partly the causes of the bridges. T h e 3 big ones are at the junction of streams [sketches of bridges]. T h e Bridge ledge is h a r d a n d covered with water pockets, full of water w h e n we saw them, This ledge is level strata or beds. Below the beds are (unconformable [crossed out]) {cross-bedded} in every way and of varying hardness. I n each case, at the original base of the spring of the arch is this {soluble} clay bed, a n d it is evident that the streams attacking on each side [of] the wall t h a t separated them, {one or the other} finally found a way through this clay seam, and the rest was merely erosion a n d successive fallings of the cielings [sic]. T h e bridges will become higher all the time from these causes. 28 Apr 17. W e climbed again the dangerous steeps at Augusta Bridge, which we have n a m e d in derision the Scorup Trail a n d from the high mesa above (went [crossed out]) {tramped} eastward 4 miles over rocky ledges a n d cedar ridges a n d across small canyons, to the canyon we have n a m e d " U n k n o w n " [.] 29 N o white m a n has ever before been into it. {Scorup has tried to get down it from the head in vain[.]} A day or two ago, Whitaker & Scorup tried t o get u p it from the mouth, and now we tried to get in it from the top, b u t would certainly have failed b u t for our equipment of rope ladders and scaling lines. T h e descent was m a d e more eagerly because of t h e extensive ruins t h a t were plainly seen close by on the other wall. U n k n o w n Canyon does not appear on the m a p s but it is one of the deepest, wildest and most tortuous gorges in this p a r t of the country. Altho, these dwellings h a d not been previously molested they afforded little reward for our labor. Sandals were in curious a b u n d a n c e , a n d some fragments of especially well decorated pottery. These and some cordage were all we got. Scorup and I returned ahead of the party a n d managed to get down cliffs t h a t h a d only previously been scaled by use of ropes and ladders. W e are getting to know our feet better and fearlessly go in places t h a t a few days ago would have taken the color from our cheeks. It was sunset when we returned, footsore and weary. Whitaker and A d a m s h a d spent the (day [crossed out]) m o r n i n g in a village further u p in White a n d h a d more trophies to show t h a n we. F r o m their descriptions, there is so m u c h to be learned there that we will visit it tomorrow. U n k n o w n Canyon runs its course winding along the foot on the south side of the West Elk ridge, the latter not appearing on any of the maps. Its length is about 15 miles to follow its windings b u t not more t h a n half t h a t in a straight direction. O u r walk across country took us nearly to its head. Apr 18. Beautiful morning cool a n d sparkling. T h e canyon narrows quickly above the Augusta Bridge and in about 2 miles, after passing huge caves, or coves, 28 Culmer's discussion of cave and bridge formation in the area is essentially correct. Since his time a number of other studies have been made and more detailed descriptions of the processes written. The most readily available is in Herbert E. Gregory, The San Juan Country, A Geographic and Geologic Reconnaisance of Southeastern Utah, U. S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 188 (Washington, D.C., 1938), 103-4. 29 They must have walked westward because four miles in an easterly direction from the Augusta Bridge would have put them just about at the trail from Bluff to the bridges.

Natural

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one of which was 600 ft. in length by 150 front to back, we came to a cave settlement of great interest. 30 It was in two parts, the lower being but little above the trail and consisting of a dozen or so houses, so fashioned that it is difficult to decide their uses, whether for sleeping rooms or receptacles for the dead. Few of them are lofty enough to sit upright in, while souie are so shallow that one's (feet [crossed out]) {toes} would touch the cieling [sic] in the only way he could lie down if he were 5 ft long [sketch]. 31 It was suggested that perhaps these smaller ones were for children. There were much larger circular apartments, cemented inside, but so arranged with flues, alcoves &c. that they must have been kilns for either baking or finishing pottery. Many fragments of well decorated pottery lie everywhere, but McLoyd had looted the place years ago. The interior of one of these round apartment [s] was well covered with scratched sketches of the designs most frequently found on the pottery, as though the artist had sketched out the designs for less inventive artisans to follow. There was room in this one chamber for a dozen workers, and except that rats had partially filled the place it was pretty much as it must have been [when] abandoned many centuries ago. Above this,— and only to be reached by an ancient ladder 60 feet in length, and then by some hazardous climbing, partly on steps hewn in the rock, partly by wooden stairs of cedar, cemented in the walls, — was a fortress, well arranged, and supplied with portholes. 32 Many chambers ranged along the wall of the cave and other kilns were there •— a cistern and a font to catch the water of a spring that once flowed in this upper gallery. If these small rooms were occupied by living people, which continues to be doubtful in my mind, there were accomodations in the lower village and in the stronghold above for at least 200 people. A clue that indicates their living occupancy is the polished or worn condition of the sills of the apertures, but if they were caches, as the one described on page 49 [the small storage structures near Caroline Bridge — whence the oose fibers came] certainly seemed to be (It had thongs hanging from the rafters to hang meat upon and there were as many as the room would hold [sketch]) or if they were individual storehouses, or warehouses, for food or valuable pottery made by the people below, it can be understood why the place would be fortified against banded marauders. With the water supply indicated, the place could be made to hold 30 The Bear L a d d e r Ruin. This site has some remarkably well-preserved roofs on houses and kivas and some unusual petroglyphs -— pottery designs scratched onto the smoke-blackened wall of a kiva. 31 I t seems strange that men who had been poking around in ruins for several days did not recognize unexcavated rooms. 32 Two forty-foot douglas fir poles which probably were cut in the thirteenth century leaned against the cliff. T h e pre-Columbian builders of this ladder probably lashed rungs to the poles with heavy yucca cords but no trace of the rungs remained at the beginning of this century. Cowboys nailed thin juniper poles to the uprights, and these were renailed from time to time. I n the early 1960s this menace to life and limb was removed, and it is now no longer possible to climb to the upper level of Bear Ladder Ruin. T h e Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona made borings of the poles to try to get dates for the ladder. The latest growth ring on one of the poles was laid down in AD 1137, but an unknown number of rings had been eroded from the pole, and the construction date could not be determined. Bryant Bannister et al., Tree Ring Dates from Utah S-W. Southern Utah Area (Tucson, 1969) ; Charlie R. Steen, "Archeological Investigations at Natural Bridges National Monument," Southwestern Monuments Monthly Report (May 1937), mimeographed (Coolidge, Arizona, 1937), 329-337.

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out for a long time. T h e cliffs and caves hereabout are of hugest proportions and with but a narrow winding passage for the stream beneath. In a month or two this stream and all the others in the vicinity will have dried up, and one not knowing of the secret water pockets might wander to his death by thirst; but now many of the cliffs are ashine with running water and every side canyon furnishes a little rill. A couple of weeks ago, the entire canyon bottom and all those of the tributaries were filled with torrents from 10 to 20 feet deep that have washed out trails and left rags [rugs?] of weeds and cedar bark clinging to» high boughs under which we now ride. Many of the places formerly rode are filled with deep water holes where the horses lose their feet (and we our heads) while quicksands abound that sometimes set us floundering, and the horses either struggle with us to firm land or we roll off {to lighten his weight} and get there the best way we can. With such torrents as appear to have recently rushed through these gorges, we can understand how erosion is going on, and how the landscape is being swept down into' the Colorado' river. T h e nights are flooded with brilliant moonlight, the moon being now almost at the full[.] Apr 19. Moved camp to day 20 miles to Collins Canyon, occupying a cave 33 at an altitude of 5450 ft. This canyon is sometimes called Trail Canyon, as it [is] (one of the few ways [crossed out]) {the one} way of getting down into Grand Gulch, the bottom of which is only about a mile distant. 33 A p h o t o g r a p h of Collins Cave, littered with the bedrolls a n d supplies of an unidentified cowboy, appeared as an illustration in Lambert, "Al Scorup," 307.

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Drawing which appeared in both Century Magazine and National Geographic Magazine in 1904 dramatizes the size of Augusta Bridge by comparing it with the Great Pyramid and the national Capitol. Culmer's oil painting of this bridge hangs in State Planning Office, State Capitol.

Natural

Bridges of White Canyon

This has been a day of trouble with our animals, the several days' rest having made them full of the old nick. A sorrell [sic] that had been named after {a certain} Senator [space left for name] on a{ccount} of his mild and retiring (manner [crossed out]) {disposition} ran amuck among the rest and shed his pack. He caught sight of a dozing mule on the brink of the river bank and deliberately bunted him over with his pack into our swimming pool. He then proceeded to kick up the camp seriatim and seven men for a while failed to catch him. The next mishap was that we heard a wild rumor that the camera mule, (that was [crossed out]) bringing up the rear and being led, had fallen over the precipice[.] An hour later he joined us, little the worse for wear, but he had a frightful slide to the brink of a cliff and would have gone over but for the two men's help. While we were waiting for them to come up, the sorrell [sic] again became festive. He had borne most of the food supplies and the long climbing rope 250 feet in length was coiled on his pack. With a few well arranged pitches he soon got these in a fine mix up. The air was full of flying missiles. While the coffee can was in the sky, he smashed two potatoes against it with a well directed blow; but before he was completely undressed the line became entangled in the branches of a cedar and he proceeded to do business with it. He made a ring around the tree and nearly included several horses and men in his round up. They had to step lively to prevent being bound to the tree. He himself miraculously escaped from the tangle and bounded for the same mule who was now with Whitaker (who had not dismounted) gazing into the depths of the abysses below. But muley was not going to be shoved again. One double slug in the breast and then a couple of rapid fire shots in the ribs turned the sorrel and probably saved Whittakers [sic] life. The circus continued, but finally ended happily with peace restored and we were on our way again. Up on the mesa a furious wind was howling driving the sand in our faces. As soon as we got clear from the cedars and reached the Scorup winter range, the wind was so fierce that we looked like a party of Bedouins traversing the desert. I tried to Kodak the pack, but my horse was so restive that I could not even get a snap. The cook rode up to hold my bridle. He is an expert horseman, but we got badly mixed up and he (got [crossed out]) {was} thrown, with a broken bridle and stirrup in hand. His horse careered over the plain and it took us a long time to catch him. I am not quite certain what happened to me. I managed to keep my saddle, Kodak in hand, open for use, but whether I made a snap shot or not only the developer can tell. {Later Note. By some miracle I had taken a good picture.} Tonight James Scorup paid us a visit from his camp near by, and I learned a lot more about the surrounding canyons, their names and courses. The government map is evidently a work of the imagination. It has been a day of swirling clouds and snow flurries and threatens rain tonight. But we are under cover and don't care. Apr 20. Early morning we all went down break neck trails into Grand Gorge. Bad as the way is, it is (one of the few ways [crossed out]) {the only

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means} of getting into this strange canyon, and in order for us to get out on the east side we must go ten miles u p the (canyon [crossed out]) stream. It is called a stream, but most of the time the water is invisible, and only quicksands fill the river bed. At the foot of Trail Canyon, we sent the pack 5 miles u p G r a n d Gulch to camp, while we went as far down the gorge to examine the scenery. It was certainly very wild and strange. T h e cliffs uprose higher t h a n any we h a d yet seen on the trip â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 500, 800, 1000 ft sheer, and the canyon so tortuous t h a t we sometimes traveled half a mile to make 100 feet of direct distance. Strange shapes and grotesque faces varied the forms and huge cottonwood trees, hoary with age, twisted and bent in dragon writhings to add to the effect. But we had descended many hundreds of feet and for the first time this (season [crossed out]) {year} we saw the cottonwoods and maples in their bright spring green. T h e season h a d developed here while we were u p on the higher lands [.] But the day was sweet and cool, the tempests h a d subsided, linnets sang sweetly in the old trees, and the glow from the salmon hued cliffs warmed the landscape and m a d e every t u r n in our course either interesting or beautiful. O u r voices echoed and the footfalls of the horses resounded in the narrow passes. W e have been in many canyons b u t G r a n d Gulch seems to have character of its own. It is rarely more t h a n 200 feet wide at the bottom, sometimes only 15 feet and it winds [sketch] like a wounded w o r m ; b u t the feature t h a t was repeated again and again in the few miles we explored was a line of overhanging cliff from 300 to 600 feet in length, washed at the base by the stream and lined at a few feet distant by splendid old cottonwoods through which [sketch] the sunlight gleamed in fine contrast with the shadowy cliff. T h e latter was always on the ( N o r t h [crossed out]) South side of the creek and the trees bordered the stream on the North. Each of these m a d e a fine subject for a painting, and it was an artist's morning never to be forgotten. Returning to Trail Canyon, we continued u p G r a n d Gulch to Castle Pasture where c a m p had already been m a d e and dinner awaited us. Altitude at c a m p {nearly} same as Collins Cave 5350 feet. Scorup assures us that in all probability no m a n has been in the G r a n d Gulch, below Trail for 5 years, or since some parties were there hunting Moqui? relics and very few ever enter the part where we are now camped. T h e canyon continues in the same character nearly 40 miles to the San J u a n river where it grows even wilder, and the stream leaps some 300 feet into that river. N o one goes down its lower stretches. Ruins of ancient people are around us now on every side, b u t they are unimportant repetitions of others we have seen. Where the canyon narrows to less t h a n 30 feet, the evidences of torrent work are tremendous. At one place, where it is only 5 feet wide, the water has been backed u p to 50 feet in depth and the fury must have been terrific at flood times as the huge trunks of trees piled u p show. If these wild galleries are wierd in the daytime, (what [crossed out]) how do they seem at night! Tonight the moon rose late, and in the early part of the night, I m a d e my way in the silence through deep and dismal passages, where the starlight scarcely penetrated, but where {many of} the shelves were the desolated abiding places of a long forgotten people. T h e echoing corridors responded to a

Natural

Bridges of White

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(whisper, [crossed out]) {finger-snap,} and the cracking of a twig brought forth a rustling whisper from, (the [crossed out]) depths that were deeper than the eye could penetrate. Soon a faint, warm and ghostly glow seemed lighting hidden places, (and [crossed out]) {for} high overhead the moonbeams had reached the rocky crests and seemed to render the spires and domes transparent. As the moon light (touched [crossed out]) {reached} them in succession, their outlines, that had been hard against the sky, disappeared, and they seemed to be melting away in a faint rosy gray mist. The nearby crags were firm and plain enough, part in the light and the rest in shadow; and now fingers of silver light stole through the trees, or gave a trembling touch (to [crossed out]) on some uprearing cliff, playing with the mystery of these dusky galleries[.] Apr 21. We camped tonight in a cave in Horse Creek {Gorge,} and were glad to get under cover as it is windy and rain is threatening. Today we rode many miles up Grand Gulch amid bewildering arrangements of crags and gorges, the lines growing heavier as we ascend, until they are cyclopean, titanic rather than fantastic. Cliffs with holes through them, cap rocks like tam-oshanters, rim rocks far overhanging, cave seams with Moqui houses not all in ruins —• and with seeing so many I begin to see darkly thro the mystery — rich bits of bottom land that must be extremely fertile, sage brush rich and luxurious 10 feet high and splendid in bluish green contrast to the pink and orange rocks and gleaming sands. Maples and tremendous cottonwoods make imposing features of the landscape. We were again assured by Mr. Scorup that no one had been up this canyon. Returning to Horse Canyon we made pictures of the interior of the splendid "Grand Opera House" and going afoot up the frightful passes of this canyon, found the pack animals and the rest of the party awaiting us near the head, (and [crossed out]) {where we} went into camp, tired but thoroughly satisfied with the day. Apr 22. Rode 27 miles today, again crossing the Cedar Ridge and camp in St. George's Cave just below the rim that looks down on Dead Bull Flat. We made an 8 o'clock start, but it rained while we were eating breakfast. So' there was no flying sand among the cedars, tho the wind was blowing fiercely. Soon after ten it commenced again to rain and continued all day and far into the night[.] Yet we enjoyed the ride, being high up among the flying clouds. The land is blessed with unusual rains this spring and responds with grassy slopes and flowering meads, to the great satisfaction of the cattle men, whose herds are flourishing. Frank Adams gave some exhibitions of cattle roping. We nooned under the cedars in the rain but are all provided with waterproof clothing, and to night in this greatest cave of all, sleep snugly while the rain falls in torrents outside. At the extreme back of this cave is a never failing spring of purest water[.] Today, Scorup trusted the lead to George Perkins, whose cattle roam through "Cigareet" and he lost his way in fifteen minutes. We were only % mile from the trail, yet found ourselves at the brink of an awful canyon cut up in gorges of the wildest description [.] Sunshine was bursting thro the rain and

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mists were driving among the temples and broken crags for miles and miles. Scorup promptly rescued us by leading us to the trail with unerring instinct; but the sight we had seen well repaid for the adventure. This is our last night out on this jaunt, but in the wierd [sic] charm of this cave our interest is as vivid as ever. Apr 23. Left St. George's Cave at 8 am and rode out on a point that overlooks R{h}oad Canyon and Comb Wash. W e were on a high out jutting point and saw a world at our feet and in the distance. Not far away to the South, in "Barton's land," were pinnacles and monuments; but far across the San Juan, some 30 miles away, were the spires of Monument Park that we are so anxious to visit. T o the East of them, the Chuckaluck Mtns, 3 4 snow covered, and the Comb reefs stretching across our path from as far as we could see â&#x20AC;&#x201D; reaching from the Elk Mtns clear into Arizona. W e rode gaily homeward, having only 25 miles to make. T h e stream in Comb Wash was higher, which gave ominous suggestions as to the San Juan. I have not yet fallen from my horse, but it is not the fault of the rest of the crew, who love to see Dobbin prance in his high spirited way. While we were crossing the river, one of them fired a Winchester 3 times and I thought Dobbin would j u m p over the Comb reef; but we stayed together and it was George {Perkins} who nearly bit the sand. I had the advantage however, of suspecting what was intended, and was watching the gun out of the corner of my eye. We lunched again at Navajo Springs where we met an old Navajo named Jim Joe, who is one of the brightest Indians in the country and has settled at the foot of the Comb and off the reservation. H e was intending to herd his sheep near the spring, but the party told him he could not. H e said he had a paper from Washington saying he might, and promised to bring it to town and show us tomorrow. I dreaded Butler wash, remembering my flying exploit on the way out; but was relieved to find the stream had changed its course and it was not necessary to make the leap off a high rock into' the water. T h e crossing was bad enough, however. I learn today for the first time, that on the way out the party all dismounted at this rock and were petrified to see me {come along and} take the whole thing on horseback. They did not know I couldn't help it and that Dobbin was the real hero. W e came into town in lively marching order, everybody feeling well and a large proportion of the townspeople watching the parade. It was Sunday and the well dressed folks made us appear like a lot of tramps. Monday Apr 24. This we had set apart as a day to rest and look into the question of crossing the river for a 4 days trip to Monument Park. We spent most of the morning by the river bank watching the Indians in their daring performances on the water. T h e San J u a n was furious, and rushing its muddy volume laden with big drift wood at the rate of 8 or 10 miles an hour, yet we saw a couple of Navajos put off from our side and make the passage across in a 34

The Carrizo Mountains.

Natural

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wretched flat bottomed dingy [sic] that leaked. They had paddles, roughly made and clumsy rowlocks yet they landed safely about half a mile below. They then towed the boat up the opposite bank for a long distance and took in some passengers, with bundles of wool. Then across to a sandy island in mid stream. Back again for another load until they had of squaws and bucks eleven persons. The bucks waded and pushed and towed until the edge of the deep water, when all got in and let the rushing current carry them in a eddy to our side, they paddling for life and making the crossing successfully. They can all swim like fish and have no fear of the water, while they understand the currents and how to manage them perfectly. If we cross, it must be this way and I think we will not trust ourselves to the ordeal, but it is not necessary for either of us to back out, for everybody agrees that it would be a physical impossibility to get our horses and packs across. No one will undertake it, and (as [crossed out]) the chances of drowning several valuable animals are so great that we decide to' cut out the trip. The afternoon is spent in trading off saddles, guns and other things for Navajo blankets and we prepare to start bright and early for Dolores, Colo, where we take train for Utah. Tuesday Apr 25. As we pulled out this morning, Mrs. Jones ("Aunt M a r y " ) 3 5 who runs the Coop store asked "When shall we see you here again?" "Probably this evening," I replied. And sure enough here we are. We were out 8 miles this morning, when the river proved to have overflowed to such an extent that we had to turn back. It was past noon when we reached here and to take another road at that time of day was out of the question, as we had no facilities for camping out and must make 45 miles to the first house. So we resolve to start earlier tomorrow and take the mountain road via Recapture Creek, tho whether we shall run into fresh difficulties is still unknown. Tonight we were invited to address the community at the meeting house, and I spoke for a hour on art as my duty was as a member of the Board of the Utah Art Institute. It seemed like carrying the subject far afield, but the principles are universal and apply here as well as anywhere. Wed. Apr 26. Left Bluff at 5.30 in light outfit, the most of our baggage having gone forward yesterday afternoon in a heavy wagon. Nooned on the prairies a mile or two from Montezuma Creek and at night reached Majors place, a sort of Mexican adobe home, where beds were supplied, and altho things were of the crudest, the hearty welcome made all pleasant. Mrs Perkins & Mrs Wood had already arrived and prepared our meals. T h e ranch is in McElmo canyon and ruins of the ancient dwellers are everywhere. In Bluff, the last day we were there, we met two worn and half sick men whose story told to what remote and untrodden fields we had wandered. They 35 Mary Nielson Jones (b. 1858), a daughter of Jens and Elsie Nielson (and thus a halfsister to the expedition's teamster, Freeman A. Nielson), was the wife of Bluff cattleman Kumen I. Jones. The couple arrived with the Hole-in-the-Rock group in 1880. " A u n t Mary" was nurse and midwife to local settlers and Indians until her death in 1933. The store in Bluff was known as the San J u a n Go-op Co. Another Mary Jones, Mrs. Frederick I. (Mary Mackelprang) Jones, lived in Bluff between 1882 and 1887. She helped run the Monticello Co-op after moving to that settlement in 1888. Perkins et al., Saga of San Juan, 313-15.

Utah Historical Quarterly

were Jas McEwen and [ ] Tolmy 36 who had been to the settlements in Rabbit Valley to buy cattle for Colorado. They live at Cortez. They thought they would return by a direct course crossing the Colo, river at Hole in the Rock, a few miles south of Hite. Both were experienced men in this western rock country and McEwen had crossed the San Juan region before, but they got lost in the maze of rim rock and box canyons and for fourteen days wandered among them unable to find their way Westward. 37 T h e wet weather gave them plenty of water but for four days and a half they were without food until they ran across James Scorup in Grand Gulch and found the trail we had left. And the way James came to be there was that we had made a big smoke and cedar fire to attract his attention as had been previously arranged with Al, our object being to get some fresh meat, and this was to be the signal for him to* bring an animal over from the winter range. H e came and stayed with us all night and being so far from his usual camp and the spring round u p at hand, he decided to go down the Grand Gulch for any stray cattle that might be there. It was the first time he had been down the canyon for a year and no one else had been down in the meantime, so the meeting of these men was well nigh a miracle, (and [crossed out]) McEwen looks upon Jas Scorup as being his deliverer and says he can have anything of his he wants as long as he lives. This dramatic incident impresses us the more that we were camped within a few miles in security and plenty, hardly able to realize that we were in an unknown land, yet our presence there led indirectiy to the rescue of these hapless wanderers who confess that they were nearly [at] the end when help came. And but for the very exceptional rains they would have perished sooner for want of water. Never in the memory of the oldest inhabitant have there been such rains â&#x20AC;&#x201D; never have the hills been so green. Passed Ruin Canyon 38 today. Thurs. Apr 27. One of our horses died in the night, perhaps over worked yesterday on the heavy roads. We drive 18 miles to N . Hall's place {at foot of Ute M t n 9660 ft} where we take luncheon at a thrifty farm. Large fields, green and glowing. Peach orchards abloom. Father & Mother, 2 sons & 3 daughters at work in the fields, stop to prepare meal and enterain us. Cliff dwellings among the rim rocks with steps cut in rocks to ascend. Are still in McElmo Canyon. In afternon drive to Cortez, {alt 6600} a trading town of 2 or 3 hundred {people.} Strong contrast to Bluff, there being saloons & gambling -â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no shade trees [.] Friday Apr 28. Drove in morning by stage 16 miles from Cortez to Dolores, where we reach the narrow guage [sic] Rio Grande Southern R.R. There we found passes awaiting us for Thompson's. T h e heavy storms in the mtns had made all trains late and we were a couple of hours behind time at starting. Then the trip up the Dolores river to Rico, a former prosperous mining town but now s8

Apparently Culmer could not remember Tolmy's first n a m e although he left a space

for it. 37

H e must have meant eastward. O n the Utah-Colorado line. One of the units of Hovenweep National Monument, the Square Tower Group, is at the head of this canyon. 38

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most of the houses are empty. T h e splendid San Miguel peaks, the highest being Mt Wilson 14309 were crossed at the Lizard where the pass was 10500 ft and we dropped rapidly to Vance Junction, 8,400, only to start u p again on the Telluride branch, reaching the latter town at sunset Alt 9150 ft. Here we have to stop all night at a good hotel, the New Sheridan Pop. 2500. {The} Mines {are} of permanent character {being} low values {in} gold. Milling mostly, but a big giant hydraulic plant {is} in operation on placer mining. T h e fortunes of Rico seem to be on the rise owing to its being a zinc camp and the great demand arising for zinc is greater than the supply [.] Sat. Apr 29. Left Telluride at 9.15 am. Swung around among the great Uncompahgre Peaks into Happy Valley where the long range of high peaks that surround Ouray and Telluride make a splendid panorama. T h e unusual quantity of recently fallen snow and the very clear day combine to make them impressive. Stopping for a few monments at Ridgway went on to Montrose for noon. Waited there a couple of hours and went down to Gunnison river valley to Grand Junction at 6.15. Here we had to stay until 2 a.m. though if the train had been on time would have left at 12.15. Went to {theatre to} see White Whittlesey in Soldiers of Fortune. Sunday Apr 30. Arrived home 12 20 train 2 hours late.

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is published quarterly by the Utah State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102. T h e editor is Melvin T . Smith, the managing editor is Glen M. Leonard, and the assistant editor is Miriam B. Murphy with offices at the same address as the publisher. T h e magazine is owned by the Utah State Historical Society, and no individual or company owns or holds any bonds, mortgages, or other securities of the Society or its magazine. The purposes, function, and non-profit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. The following figures are the average number of copies of each issue during the preceding twelve months: 2,500 copies printed; no paid circulation; 2,049 mail subscriptions; 1,939 total paid circulation; 110 free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier, or other means; 2,049 total distribution; 451 inventory for office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing; total 2,500. The following figures are the actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 2,500 copies printed; no paid circulation; 2,193 mail subscriptions; 2,083 total paid circulation; 110 free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier, or other means; 2,193 total distribution; 307 inventory for office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing; total 2,500.

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BOOK R E V I E W S 77i£ iCAmericanization" of Utah for Statehood. By GUSTIVE O. Marino: The Huntington Library, 1971. xiii + 328 pp. $7.50) Aspects of the half-century struggle of Mormon Utah to gain statehood have been developed in general histories, monographs, dissertations, and theses since the days of Orson F. Whitney and Brigham H. Roberts. Gustive Larson brings these findings together; enriches them in substantial measure from his own extensive research in the journals and correspondence of key participants; and produces a readable, informative, and frequently entertaining account of a unique chapter in American political history. The thesis is that the peculiarities of the mid-nineteenth century Latter-day Saints stood as a barrier to political acceptance by the nation until the deviant policies and practices were gradually modified or abandoned under the pressure of adverse congressional and court action and changing times. The first two chapters, "The Political Kingdom of God" and "Plural Marriage Among the Mormons," describe the chief Mormon peculiarities and the typical non-Mormon responses. In these, as in later sections, Professor Larson's sympathies are clear, but the beleaguered Saints appear not above stubbornness, folly, and even tactical duplicity, while only two or three of the Gentiles are villains. Most of the book traces the political and intercultural conflict from the AntiBigamy Act of 1862 to the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890—by which polygamy was abandoned — and the proclamation of statehood in 1896. Partic-

LARSON.

(San

ularly interesting and replete with amusing, sometimes startling anecdotes are the sections dealing with life on the Mormon underground and in the penitentiary during the height of the antipolygamy crusade. The accounts of George Q. Cannon's jumping bail (pp. 150-51) and Wilford Woodruff disguised in sunbon.net and mother hubbard (pp. 137-38) bring these giants of LDS hagiography into very human perspective. The Tabernacle Choir has probably not sung in a penal institution since its visit to the territorial penitentiary on May 30, 1888, at about the same time that thirteen Mormon bishops and one apostle were mustered for a picture in prison stripes. The journals of Abraham O. Cannon, L. John Nuttall, and John W. Whitaker illuminate the political activity which attended the Woodruff Manifesto and the establishment of national political parties in the early 1890s in place of the pro-Mormon People's party and the anti-Mormon Liberals. Cannon quotes Apostle Joseph F. Smith as favoring stump activity "to convince the people that a man could be a Republican and still be a saint" (p. 289). Annotation is extensive, yet Professor Larson makes quite a number of unsupported assertions for which sources would be of interest to many readers: that most of the church leaders, for example, tried to conform to the Edmunds Act "by furnishing separate housing for their polygamous wives and, except for

Book Reviews and Notices providing for their subsistence, ceased to cohabit with t h e m in every sense" (p. 1 1 5 ) ; or, t h a t "authority for performance of plural marriages was quietly withheld in 1889" (p. 2 3 9 ) . Regrettably, The "Americanization" of Utah for Statehood is badly flawed editorially a n d typographically. Misspellings abound, footnoting is inconsistent in format, a n d the index —- arbitrary in w h a t it includes — lists "St. David, U t a h " (Arizona) a n d "Vachees, O. W . " (Vorhees). References to the same topic a p p e a r in different chapters as though each were a first appearance. T h e incidence of polygamy is presented as ten percent (pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ) , b u t a n official statement " t h a t the m e n w h o practiced polygamy constituted only about two percent of the C h u r c h membership" is included without c o m m e n t (p. 125). T h e bibliography lists almost all of the relevant works (the reviewer's dissertation is omitted, though it is cited on p .

60), but the styles of citation vary widely a n d t h e listing of each manuscript diary a n d journal with the location first is not helpful. W i t h some repetition, Professor Larson makes the same point in the last two chapters — " t h a t m u c h individual a n d community suffering would have been avoided h a d the federal governm e n t allowed 'the corrective force of advancing civilization' " to bring the M o r m o n s into political a n d cultural conformity (p. 280; cf. p p . 301-2). No evidence is given, b u t as one reads this comic-tragic history of the coercive efforts to "Americanize" U t a h for statehood, he is d r a w n almost inescapably to the conclusion t h a t there must have been a better way. RICHARD D.

POLL

Vice-President for Administration Western Illinois University Macomb

Union Pacific Country. By ROBERT G. A T H E A R N . ' C h i c a g o : R a n d McNally & Company, 1971. 480 p p . $15.00) I n preparation for the centennial celebration of t h e joining-of-the-rails a t Promontory Summit, officials of the U n i o n Pacific Railroad C o m p a n y commissioned Robert G. Athearn, distinguished professor of history at the U n i versity of Colorado a n d former president of the Western History Association, to write a centennial history. D r . A t h e a r n wisely chose not to write another story of the construction of the transcontinental railroad. T h a t story has been told m a n y times by other qualified persons (although perhaps by persons not so well qualified as Dr. A t h e a r n ) . Moreover, as Professor Athearn discovered, the U n i o n Pacific archives contained little on the construction phase that would a d d to w h a t h a d already been written. Instead, Professor A t h e a r n chose to dwell primarily on the U n i o n Pacific story after 1869; he might well

have entitled his book "Promontory Epilogue." T h e t h e m e of Union Pacific Country is the vital role played by U n i o n Pacific a n d its branches a n d auxiliaries in the growth a n d settlement of the West in the last third of the nineteenth century. Union Pacific Country is not a corporate history b u t a story of the railroad's expansion a n d of the development of the country — from t h e Missouri River to the Pacific Northwest a n d from Texas to M o n t a n a •—• t h r o u g h which the road a n d its m a n y branches ran. These branches a n d auxiliary lines, incidentally, comprised a far greater mileage t h a n the original trackage t h a t ended at Promontory. D r . A t h e a r n concludes with the reincorporation of U n i o n Pacific in Salt L a k e City in 1897. Union Pacific Country is thus concerned primarily with the pioneering period of the com-

Utah Historical Quarterly

90 pany's history â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with the p r e - H a r r i m a n era. N o other person is equipped to tell this story so well. D r . Athearn has previously written Rebel of the Rockies: The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and High Country Empire: The High Plains and Rockies. These studies gave h i m a feel both for railroads a n d for the West as a region. Athearn is also a master storyteller. Union Pacific Country is essentially written from primary sources, although Dr. A t h e a r n takes care to point o u t his dependence on the prior researches of other scholars. H e is the first scholar to have h a d unrestricted use of the Union Pacific archives at O m a h a a n d Portland, and he also m a d e extensive use of diaries, letter books, local newspapers, magazines, a n d government reports in other archives. F o r t h e delight of t h e reader D r . Athearn has also included fifty-four photographs, most of them previously unseen by the general public, In Pursuit and

of the Golden Dream:

Southern

Mines,

1849-1857.

a n d there are a n u m b e r of splendid maps. T h e bibliography, footnotes, a n d index comprise almost a fourth of this book. U t a h n s will be delighted to know that a large portion of Union Pacific Country is concerned with U t a h and the Mormons. Situated as it is in the heartland of the American West, U t a h inevitably played a major role in the construction of b r a n c h railroads a n d in the growth of contiguous territories and states. Moreover, the rapid growth of the M o r m o n community brought about a dispersion which provided laborers a n d settlers for m a n y sections of U n i o n Pacific Country. I n writing of the contributions of the M o r m o n s to the spread of the U n i o n Pacific system, Dr. Athearn h a s m a d e good use of the rich materials in the archives of the C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. LEONARD J. A R R I N G T O N

Professor of Utah State

Reminiscences

of San Francisco

and the

Economics University Northern

By H O W A R D C. GARDINER. Edited by D A L E L.

MORGAN. (Stoughton, Mass.: Western Hemisphere, Inc., 1970. lxv + 390 p p . $30.00) This impressive volume, printed in large type on fine p a p e r a n d h a n d somely bound, is m a d e doubly valuable by Dale L. Morgan's bibliographical essay on " T h e California Gold Rush in Retrospect." This must have been one of M r . Morgan's last efforts before his untimely death, a n d it leaves us with a sense of tragic loss that a m a n with such knowledge, vision, a n d literary ability will n o longer be adding to his significant contribution to the understanding of the American West. I n his essay, Dale Morgan classifies the types of literature about the California Gold Rush under three headings: (a) contemporary records a n d letters; (b) travel narratives, written a n d p u b lished soon after the event; and (c) "reminiscences which look back down

the years." Since Gardiner's writing is classified as a reminiscence (arbitrarily defined by the editor as recollections published after 1860), the essay surveys only this category of gold-mining literature. I t includes such authors of memoirs as William Tecumseh Sherman, Jessie Benton Fremont, William Lewis Manley, H e n r i c h Lienhard, J o h n Bidwell, James Brown a n d H e n r y Bigler (of M o r m o n Battalion f a m e ) , a n d Erwin G. Gudde, whose book, Sutter's Own Story, M r . M o r g a n regards as only a partial reminisence. Organized on a chronological basis, this review of reminiscence literature provides a valuable annotated bibliography for any serious student of this epoch in California history. T h e remaining p a r t of M r . Morgan's writing contains a family history of

Book Reviews and Notices Howard C. Gardiner, including a delightful exchange of letters between Gardiner and Louise Crosby, who eventually became his wife. It also gives a brief history of Sag Harbor, the little seaport town on the eastern end of Long Island, where the Gardiner family lived for seven generations. Howard Gardiner's preface presents some rather bold claims when he asserts that: "Every incident in the narrative is related just as it occurred. . . . Though nearly half a century has elapsed since the events transpired, every detail is as distinctly remembered as if it were an occurrence of yesterday." While it appears to be true that some elderly people remember trivial events of their youth much more clearly than important happenings of a few months before, memoirs do not have a good reputation for historical accuracy. Apparently Dale Morgan decided to accept Gardiner's recollections at face value, for there is no sign of his editing the narrative and no word of criticism or explanation. Gardiner's story is a valuable addition to the literature of the gold-mining epoch. His experience embraced the whole panorama of the California Gold Rush including the voyage by way of Panama, the little known story of crossing the isthmus, and the long wait for transportation from Panama tO' San Francisco which required seventy-six days sailing. Life in San Francisco in July, August, and December 1849 is described as well as other visits to the city in 1850, 1851, and 1857. Life in the mines, especially the southern region along the tributaries of the San Joaquin River, is narrated. The youthful optimism, the comraderie, and the few rich strikes are tempered by the

back-breaking work, poor food, inclement weather, hordes of mosquitoes, disappointing claims, and sickness. Examples of miner's justice are on almost every page. The development of mining techniques from the pan to the rocker and the long torn is described. Almost every aspect of the miner's day is portrayed. Gardiner's recollections detail considerable contact with Chinese, Mexicans, and other minority groups who not only suffered the same difficulties as the American Argonauts but who could not count on miner's justice to function in their case. The arbitrary hanging of a Mexican innkeeper by three drunken miners for some slight offense is a case in point. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Gardiner's reminiscences is the scope of experience it contains. He was in the mines for almost eight years except for the few months spent in San Francisco, and he traveled widely during that time. And while he didn't strike it rich, he finally acquired a "few thousand" and felt he could afford a trip home. He planned to return, but fate decreed otherwise, and he spent the remainder of his life engaged in business activities in Wisconsin. At the age of seventy, he began writing his memories of the gold fields at the request of his children. It is a remarkable account and well worth the reading. If his memory was that good, it is all the more remarkable; and if he has embellished the truth a little, it has only added flavor to an interesting story. EUGENE EDWARD CAMPBELL

Professor of History Brigham Young University

The Chew Bunch in Brown's Park. By A W O N Scrimshaw Press, 1970. xviii + 110 pp. $12.50) In recent years interest in Brown's Park has mushroomed. At least two

C H E W HUGHEL.

(San Francisco: The

notable narratives have documented life in this remote section of the three-corner

92 region of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado: Outlaw Trail, by the late, noted Utah chronicler, Charles Kelly, and Where the Old West Stayed Young, by John Rolfe Burroughs, the latter being perhaps the most concise work to date on the history of Brown's Park. Now, another volume has been added to Brown's Park lore: The Chew Bunch in Brown's Park by Awon Chew Hughel. Awon Chew was one of fourteen children born to John Hoyle Chew and Mary Eliza Metcalf. The Chew Bunch in Brown's Park is perhaps not so much about Brown's Park as it is the story of John Hoyle Chew. John Hoyle Chew was born in Sabden, Lancashire, England, on August 11, 1852. In 1864 he immigrated with his parents and a group of Mormon converts to Utah, settling at Nephi. While in the process of stealing a spoonful of honey, young John Chew was caught by his grandfather, John Hoyle, who beat him unmercifully. John Chew then ran away "to join the Wild Bunch." On the road he met Tom McCarty who took him under his tutelage and in whose household John Chew was raised to young manhood, learning to handle horses, cattle, and guns. On July 9, 1881, John Hoyle Chew was married to Mary Eliza Metcalf, and they set up housekeeping on nineteen acres in Sanpete County which John Chew called "The Place." "Mother began having babies with monotonous regularity," writes Awon. Interesting sidelights develop when Grandfather Anthony Metcalf decides to take a second, polygamous wife against the protestations of his family, but the important incident in this section centers around John Chew once more when he is sentenced to the penitentiary for three years for rustling beef, a charge partly arranged by his in-laws, the Metcalfs. When John Chew was released from prison in 1893, he returned to Sanpete County where he was given the care of

Utah Historical Quarterly the Circle Dot and Flying Diamond herds. In 1897 he sought out new range for the cattle, and thus it was that he first visited the lush mountain grazing lands of Brown's Park. The Chew bunch entered Brown's Park for the first time in the summer of 1901, and Awon presents a delightful picture of that first encounter. The remainder of the book deals with life in Brown's Park. There is much interesting material on Queen Ann Bassett, the Hoys, and others whose names are becoming an integral part of Brown's Park lore. But perhaps best of all is the firsthand account, artfully described by Awon Hughel, of pioneer life in the rugged mountain valley. Little is said of outlaws and bloodshed, which is a refreshing change from the great amount of such material ever more available from this section, and a valuable addition has been made to the story of life in a dugout, the problems of schooling, and the excitement of new birth in rugged surroundings. The author has not been afraid to present the story of her "bunch" in her own peculiar vernacular, nor does she mince words. The result is a coarse narrative, not meant to be gentle, and enhanced by the very intention. The book, which is not large by present standards, would have been greatly enriched by the use of illustrations. The author plants such an interesting and delightful picture of her father and family in the mind of the reader, that one desires greatly to see his photograph as well as those of other subjects therein. The book does contain a photograph of the author, taken circa 1918, and several excellent maps of Brown's Park, but little else aside from the text. The tinted paper is a welcome aid to easier reading, and the book is further improved with a preface by the renowned O. Dock Marston and an introduction by editor Dave Bohn. There is no biblio-

Book Reviews and Notices graphy a n d n o index, n o r were any needed. Students of Brown's Park history will perhaps b e disappointed that A w o n Hughel did n o t include illustrations or that she did not elaborate upon famous Brown's Park personalities, but they canThe Boston-Newton

Company

By J E S S I E G O U L D H A N N O N .

not help b u t b e delighted with t h e unique a n d direct way in which t h e a u t h o r has presented t h e story of The Chew Bunch in Brown's Park. KERRY R o s s BOREN

Manila,

Utah

Venture: From Massachusetts to California in 1849. University of Nebraska Press, 1969. xiv +

(Lincoln:

224 p p . $6.95) Stories of t h e forty-niners hold great interest for students of western history. The Boston-Newton Company is no exception. Using primarily t h e journals kept by Charles Gould a n d David Staples, Jessie Gould H a n n o n has done an excellent job of telling the company's story: its planning stages in Boston; t h e adventurers' departure by train April 16, 1849, to Albany a n d Buffalo, N e w York; their embarkation o n a river steamer t h a t carried them to St. Louis and nearly t o Independence; their outfitting with wagons a n d wild mules; their trek across t h e plains, past Scott's Bluff a n d F o r t L a r a m i e to South Pass and Fort Bridger; their contact with the Mormons a n d a week of recruiting in Great Salt Lake City, where they traded wagons for pack outfits before heading north a n d west o n the Salt Lake cutoff; their reaching a n d descending the H u m boldt to t h e Great Sink; their ascent of the Sierras; a n d , finally, their arrival at Sutter's Fort September 27, 1849. Fortunately, H a n n o n has provided good background data on t h e gold seekers so that the reader can share their excitement a n d understand t h e conditions that captivated these educated, intelligent, young m e n a n d caused them

to venture their lives a n d fortunes for gold. T h e i r story is a remarkable one, not because it was particularly dramatic, b u t rather because it was quite ordinary. T h e men h a d planned well. Financially they were better off t h a n most, yet o n e m a n of their party of twenty-five died on t h e plains. Quarrels a n d organizational problems were few. T h e book not only traces their travels, but reveals also their New England p u r i t a n values a n d the evolution some of these underwent enroute to California. Although t h e Staples journal h a d been published previously, its present publication, with Charles Gould's journal in day-by-day comparison, is a n imp o r t a n t addition to forty-niner literature. T h e binding and printing are good. Unfortunately the book has n o index. A few errata m a r a n otherwise careful editorial effort â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a footnote date (1745) on p . 108, a subtitle date (July 16) for chapter seven, a n d a return date (1950) on p . 216. These examples a r e minor criticisms that detract little from a fine book which c a n be read a n d enjoyed by almost anyone. MELVIN T. SMITH

Utah State Historical

Society

Political Dynamiting. Edited by F R A N K H . J O N A S . (Salt Lake City: University of U t a h Press, 1970. xiii + 281 p p . $8.00) T h e r e is a cliche to the effect that the camel is a n animal p u t together by a committee, a n d t h e implication is that

such joint efforts do not come off too well. This book was, in effect, p u t together by a committee, or a panel, a n d

94 it comes off very well indeed. A 1963 Western Political Science Association session featured a collection of papers on political slander as a force in certain western state campaigns, and Political Dynamiting is the printed result of that gathering. The campaigns discussed in this volume are the senatorial contests in Utah in 1950, Montana in 1954, Arizona in 1958, and general elections in California in 1958 and 1962. For the political scientist, political historian, and the general reader this is a very interesting book. It might well have been titled "Dirty Politics in the New West." Political Dynamiting involves the career of a man named Walter Eli Quigley whose talents were available for hire in several political campaigns over the years. Quigley, a Minnesota product, was supposedly a man of principle and belief, but his hired gun approach to campaigns is chronicled in an interesting manner. There are some people who believe that the American political tradition teaches that it is enough to win â&#x20AC;&#x201D; rather than to attempt to' entirely destroy one's opposition â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and also that there are certain rules of fairness to be followed in this process. Such people may not appreciate the type of campaigns examined here, but, nevertheless, they cannot deny that such practices are used more often than one cares to admit. If one operates on the premise that the political dynamiters are the "bad guys" and their victims the "good guys" then as the editor of this volume admits, the Republicans do not appear in a good light. In each campaign explored, the GOP is the group utilizing the Quigley technique. However, the selectivity employed in focusing on some campaigns and not on others is explained in terms of the political climate existing in the period following World War II. In a way, the campaigns discussed reflect the new importance of the western states in American politics. If five elections in

Utah Historical Quarterly five western states had been the topic of a similar book written in the period prior to the middle of the twentieth century, in all likelihood after the passage a few years, no one would have heard of or remembered any of the characters involved. Yet here we have the political careers of Barry M. Goldwater and Richard M. Nixon discussed. This book is well documented and for the most part is objective in its reporting. It serves to give the reader a good view of what elections were like back in the good old days when Uncle Joe Stalin seemed to be a major participant in so many campaigns. It may not be as easy now to use the red scare business as it once was, but would-be campaign managers and workers can still profit from reading this. The issues may change, but undoubtedly the voters are just as willing as ever to be influenced by dynamiting techniques. It is sad that the political process probably has not changed too much from a decade or two ago. One is left wondering whether or not things like this happen in other parts of the country or whether the West is perhaps not quite as mature as the other sections. This reviewer suspects political dynamiting has at least a national rather than a provincial quality. At one point in the book, it is suggested that the measure of whether something is good or bad is whether or not it contributes to a winning campaign. Perhaps the ends do justify the means in politics, but Political Dynamiting will leave some idealists and believers in clean campaigns a little queasy in the stomach. There is much in this book to make one wonder at the nature of the political process as seen in these elections and to reinforce the notion that after all, politics is a pretty dirty game. J O H N S. G O F F

Phoenix College Phoenix, Arizona

Book Reviews and Notices

Ute People: An Historical Study. Compiled by J U N E L Y M A N a n d N O R M A D E N V E R . Edited by FLOYD A. O ' N E I L a n d J O H N D . SYLVESTER. (Salt L a k e City: U i n t a h

School District a n d the Western History Center, University of U t a h , 1970. viii + 127 p p . $4.00) Like the famous frontier patchwork quilt, the Ute People may very well have considerable utilitarian value in the classrooms of the U i n t a h Basin, as claimed by C. Gregory C r a m p t o n in a prefatory note, b u t as a model work for the enhancement of American I n d i a n students' self-image and cultural pride, it falls short of fulfilling its implied promise. U t e children should know more about their people as a result of the use of this book in their classrooms, b u t the book just does not seem to have that unity of theme a n d design that would be necessary for students to emerge from its study with anything like a coherent view of their heritage. Part of t h e problem is t h a t this is still not a Native American history written by Native Americans using Native American sources. As I understand the nature a n d purpose of the Duke Indian O r a l History Project â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to which the book grants a n acknowledgementâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;'it should have m a d e a major contribution, at least toward the development of sources t h a t would have m a d e a n I n dian-oriented history possible. Instead, the compilers a n d editors appear to have assembled a n assortment of miscellany that may well represent t h e general sequence of events a n d many of t h e principal actors a n d issues in U t e history b u t which still does not reflect the unique and often anguished U t e ethos. O n e chapter in the book, " A n Anguished Odyssey: T h e Flight of the Utes, 1906-08," seems to have some of the characteristics which this reviewer would see as being desirable. T h e event described is a microcosm of the total conflict between whites a n d Indians. As with the Nez Perce before them, one finds members of a subjugated minority acting out their internal response to repeated injustices â&#x20AC;&#x201D; probably

with little or no real hope of ultimate success b u t with absolute determination to act rather t h a n to submit. This is the stuff of real nobility, a n d it comes through loudly a n d clearly in the narrative. Quotations from local newspapers of the era relating to the event add immeasurably to the telling, for in them one can observe the biases of the frontiersman about Indians blatantly displayed, rather than simply asserted or alluded to. O t h e r chapters fail to come off so well. T h e chapter on "Famous Utes" is notable primarily for its brevity a n d for the limited n u m b e r of personalities about whom, presumably, biographies could be written. Secondly, the criteria by which the quality of "famousness" was determined a n d the personal virtues extolled a p p e a r to have been determined largely on Anglo terms. T h e material on O u r a y a n d Chipeta is of sufficient length a n d detail that the reader begins to get some semblance of a picture of real h u m a n beings (if, withal, through white eyes), b u t the other three sketches are hopelessly inadequate. " T h e Utes of Eastern U t a h " is a chapter rich in historical detail a n d anecdotes in which Wakara, incidentally, emerges as m u c h more of a real person than he does in the sketch in the "Famous Utes" chapter, b u t it is marred by editorial comments which seem to be designed primarily to demonstrate that the author is a better guy than other white men. And, again, it is not integrated with t h e rest of t h e book. By title, it nearly duplicates t h e subject m a t t e r of the total work but fails to incorporate substantive matters which are then appended almost as afterthoughts. O n balance, it seems to us that the book is m u c h better being t h a n not being. Someone has finally acted upon

96 good intentions voiced for many years. It is most disappointing, however, in its paucity of first-hand materials from Utes stated from the Ute point of view. Perhaps this shouldn't really be expected until they start writing their own histories. If there is any indication that they are interested in doing so, why not

Utah Historical

Quarterly

give them the money and support necessary to develop their own historians and histories? ROBERT F. GWILLIAM

Director of Instructional Programs Human Resources Institute University of Utah

Western Wagon Wheels: A Pictorial Memorial to the Wheels That Won the West. By LAMBERT FLORIN. (Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1970. 183 pp. $12.95) Western Wagon Wheels is an 8 ^ - b y 11-inch hardbound book containing 125 photographs (black and white) and ten drawings. Almost all the pictures were taken at more than seventy-five different sites, all in the western United States. According to the jacket summary, no towns portrayed in the eleven previous volumes of the West by Lambert Florin are duplicated in this volume. Of the three volumes that I have read, I think this one is the best. The beautiful color photograph on the dust jacket of a sheep wagon in a mountain setting and the first full-page photograph, which is of a heavy rugged wheel and brake shoe, are worth a large fraction of the price of the book. With few exceptions, even the poor photographs are more than compensated for by the fact that they are old, rare, authentic, and portray the bygone scenes more vividly than most writers of that time, or their present-day counterparts who try to recapture the past. In general, the author has let photographs carry the main burden of his story with only a brief written account accompanying each picture. However, he has not held rigidly to this format. His two-page foreword; his full-page historical summary of the story of the wheel from the remote past to the modern automobile; his page on the development of carriages from the civil war period to the advent of the first car;

and the reprints of hard-to-find articles by J. Quinn Thornton, Lucile McDonald, Ardis Edwards Burton, and Arizona Bob Kubista are substantial contributions to the theme though they say little directly about wheels. Wheels are not featured on every page, but the photographs of antique harnesses, historic corrals, typical barns, livery stables, blacksmith shops, and shacks of the early West, make one feel that even though a buggy or wagon is not visible, some kind of wheel is inside or behind the buildings. Some of his most vivid and interesting pictures are taken of wheels in place, in ghost towns of the West, just as visitors have seen them in all seasons for many years. The interest and value of the book would have been enriched for many readers if the space given to the invention and development of the wheel had been greatly enlarged. How did a photograph of a classic Mexican carreta (p. 25) get published on the same page as a picture of an Irish gig? And how did the old advertisement for sleighs get placed among wagons? But why continue this nit-picking? Those who like their history in capsule pictorial form â&#x20AC;&#x201D; lots of good authentic photographs and limited narrative â&#x20AC;&#x201D; will like this book. DARYL C H A S E

President Emeritus Utah State University

Book Reviews and Notices The Navajo

Mountain

Community:

Social Organization

and Kinship

Terminology.

By M A R Y S H E P A R D S O N a n d B L O D W E N H A M M O N D . (Berkeley a n d Los Angeles: U n i -

versity of California Press, 1970. ix + 278 p p . $9.50) I n the northwest corner of the Navajo Reservation, there is a n isolated region called N a v a j o M o u n t a i n , bounded by the San J u a n a n d Colorado rivers a n d by the Navajo a n d Nakai canyons. This 688-square-mile area is marked by sandstone mountains, narrow ravines, a n d open spaces, a n d sprinkled with juniper, sagebrush, a n d other browse. Here some six h u n d r e d Navajos survive by grazing their sheep, goats, a n d horses a n d by raising corn, squash, a n d other vegetables. Occasionally, the Navajo adults venture into surrounding areas by traveling a primitive road which according to the season is marred by sand traps, m u d holes, or snow drifts. Consequently, these Navajos have little contact with whites. I n their study, M a r y Shepardson a n d Blodwen H a m m o n d seek to describe, analyze, a n d interpret the Navajo M o u n t a i n social structure a n d kinship system. But like all studies, this one rests on some rather basic assumptions. T h e authors first assume that because the Navajo M o u n t a i n Indians live in isolation they will more likely retain their traditions t h a n Navajos living elsewhere. T h e authors also suppose the Navajos they interviewed represent the opinions of all Navajo M o u n t a i n Indians. From the authors' data, it appears that their informants were not representative; many interviewees h a d considerable contact with whites. M a n y of their informants were employed by outside agencies: t h e Navajo Tribe, Arizona State, the Bureau of I n d i a n Affairs, a n d the Public H e a l t h Service. Finally, the

authors presume that enough similarities exist between their work a n d Malcolm Collier's 1938 study of Navajo organization to permit comparisons for illustrating cultural change. If one accepts these assumptions, Shepardson a n d H a m m o n d ' s study makes four relatively important contributions. First, it describes social structure, residency patterns, kinship roles, and terminology. Second, it analyzes t h e interaction of Navajos while earning a living, rearing children, making various decisions, exerting social pressure, a n d dealing with surrounding society. T h i r d , the authors show how Navajo ideas regarding witchcraft, deity, a n d personal relationships influence Navajo M o u n tain puberty rites, marriage a n d divorce customs, a n d rituals involving illness a n d death. Fourth, they explain how Navajo social organization has preserved m a n y traditional Navajo ways in the face of considerable outside pressure for change. Today, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, social case-workers, educators, tribal leaders, a n d government agents are trying to understand a n d to cope with such problems as education, urbanization, crime, alcoholism, drugs a n d identity. All these professionals will find t h a t The Navajo Mountain Community is a volume useful in discovering Navajo social patterns. L A W R E N C E G. C O A T E S

Professor of History Ricks College Rexburg, Idaho

Lincoln County, Nevada, 1864-1909: History of a Mining Region. J A M E S W. H U L S E , N e v a d a Studies in History a n d Political Science N o . 10. ( R e n o : University of N e v a d a Press, 1971.82 p p . $3.00) T h e r e is a refreshing tendency within N e v a d a historical research to waive the overblown attractions of the Comstock

lode a n d begin to chip away at the other ninety-nine percent of t h e state. Professor Hulse has chosen to follow this trend

98 by producing a short, topical treatment of present-day Lincoln County in Nevada's largely ignored southeast. The author left Pioche, the Lincoln County seat, for the big city (Reno) where he is a member of the University of Nevada at Reno History Department. However, the tone of the book implies that it was produced as a sort of Festschrift to an area that is still an economic backwater but which is remembered kindly by those who have lived there. Thomas Wolfe believed that you can't go home again, but historians have an advantage over mere mortals â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they have an obligation to return and can call the result history. One of the results of the preeminence of the Comstock in Nevada historiography is the belief that nothing challenged Virginia City and environs in economic importance. Dr. Hulse makes it clear that occasional boom and bust camps like Pioche had impact in Nevada economic and political circles. Although most of the scant eighty-two pages are concerned with the first decades of Lincoln County's existence, there is more than enough description of what happens to a mining area after the veins pinch out or water overcomes the pumps. The book is basically the chronologic treatment of Lincoln County's struggle to survive in a remote, marketless Great Basin environment. This situation faces most mining districts in time. The struggles of promoters like W. S. Godbe are compared with the quiet acceptance â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even preference â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Utah Historical Quarterly by Mormon farmers of the depression periods. Like most worthwhile historical treatments, the book raises more questions than it answers. The influence of the Las Vegas and Colorado River settlements on Lincoln County needs amplification. At a time when Lincoln County is beseeching its offspring to absorb it, this is a legitimate field of study. Further, neither Engineering and Mining Journal nor Mining and Scientific Press were consulted. These professional mining publications contribute a great many data on the boom days in Pioche. Economic ties to both San Francisco and Salt Lake City were important in the various boom periods, and the study of these sources of risk capital should tell who was doing what, by long distance, in Pioche. Finally, our old friend George Hearst was scrambling for the main chance in Pioche as elsewhere. His legal holdup of the Raymond and Ely firm deserves more work as one of his imaginative bits of profiteering. All in all, Dr. Hulse has pointed the way for local historians to beneficially labor for years to come. Hopefully, the work will be duplicated by individuals for the other counties of the state. Then, Nevada history may be something more than the story of railroads, California banks, and the Comstock. Professor Hulse has shown what needs to be done. J O H N M.

TOWNLEY

Reno.

Nevada

An American Heritage Guide: Historic Houses of America Open to the Public By the editors of AMERICAN HERITAGE. (New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1971. 320 pp. Soft bound, $3.95.) Ten Utah houses are among those listed in this convenient guide for travelers to historic places in the fifty states. Each brief entry explains major architectural and historical features, lists the date of construction, the organization operating the house, and the hours it is open to the public. Photographs illustrate selected entries. The Utah sites included are: the John Carson House (stagecoach inn), Fairfield ; Brigham Young Winter Home, St. George; Beehive House, Forest Farm Home, Keith-Brown Mansion, Lester F. Wire House, Pioneer Village Museum, and Thomas Kearns Mansion, all in Salt Lake City; Jacob Hamblin Home, Santa Clara; and Little Rock House (tithing office), Vernal. Heaven on Horseback: Revivalist Songs and Verse in the Cowboy Idiom. By AUSTIN

and

ALTA FIFE.

Western

Texts Society Series, Vol. 1, No. 1. (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1970. vi + 114 pp. Paper, $2.00.) This book by folklorists Austin E. and Alta S. Fife examines the influence of religious ideas and hymns on cowboy songs. Brief notes identify the sources and explain the settings of forty-nine songs, with selected variants, including songs of death, nature, the Christian ethic, and cowboy heaven. Entries are indexed by title and first line.

The 114-page volume is the first offering of the Western Texts Society, which was organized at Utah State University to publish (1) diaries and documents of interest to researchers and (2) indexes to Western Americana collections. Tales of the Frontier: From Lewis and Clark to the Last Roundup. Selected and retold by EVERETT DICK. Reprint. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, 1971. x + 390 pp. Paper, $2.25.) Human interest stories of mountain men, bull whackers, riverboatmen, prospectors, sod busters, road agents, and other frontier types make up the fabric of this delightful anthology. Tales of the Mormon Trail, handcart companies, Forty-niners, the overland stage, railroading, and western outlaws are among the eighty stories Professor Dick has compiled as a mirror of nineteenth century life in the West. This paperback reprint makes available to a wider audience an entertaining book first published in a hard cover edition in 1964. The volume includes twelve maps and a list of sources. Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Socio-Political Groups. By JULIAN H. STEWARD. Reprint of 1938 edition. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970. xii + 346 pp. Paper, $5.00.) Bosque Redondo: An American Concentration Camp. By LYNN R. BAILEY. (Pasadena: Socio-Technical Books, 1970. 176 pp. $7.50.) Navajos and Mescalero Apaches in eastern New Mexico.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

C. Ben Ross and the New Deal in Idaho. By M I C H A E L

P. M A L O N E .

(Seattle:

University of Washington Press, 1970. xxiii+ 1 9 1 p p . $7.95.) The

Great Persuader.

By DAVID L A V E N -

DER. (Garden City: Doubleday a n d Company, 1970. ix + 444 p p . $7.95.) Biography of the Central Pacific Railroad's Collis P. Huntington. Great Trails of the West. By RICHARD D U N L O P . (Nashville a n d N e w York: Abingdon Press, 1971. 320 p p . $7.95.) Indian

Fights

and Fighters.

By C Y R U S

T O W N S E N D BRADY. R e p r i n t of

1904

edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, 1971. xx + 424 p p . Paper, $2.25.) The Keys of the Priesthood

Illustrated.

By L Y N N L. B I S H O P a n d S T E V E N L .

B I S H O P . (Draper, U t a h : Review a n d Preview Publishers [P. O . Box 368, D r a p e r 84020], 1971. ii + 382 p p . $9.95.) Examines Fundamentalist claim to priesthood keys via the Council of Friends. King Strang. By R O B E R T PERCY W E E K S .

(Ann Arbor, M i c h i g a n : Five Wives Press, 1971.) A Magic Dwells: A Poetic and Psychological Study of the Navajo Emergence Myth.

By S H E I L A M O O N . ( M i d -

dletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan U n i versity Press, 1970. 206 p p . $7.95.) Mining Engineers and The American West: The Lace-Boot Brigade, 18491933.

By C L A R K

C. S P E N C E .

(New

H a v e n : Yale University Press, 1970. xii + 4 0 7 p p . $12.50.) Nevada

Ghost

Towns

Oral History Directory.

in the United States: A Compiled by GARY L.

S H U M W A Y . Edited by L o u i s

STARR.

(New York: O r a l History Association [Box 20, Butler Library, Columbia University, N e w York 10027], 1971. 120 p p . $4.00.) Recording

Historic

Buildings.

By H A R -

LEY J . M C K E E . (Washington, D . C . :

Government Printing 165 p p . $3.50.)

Office, 1971.

The Santa Fe Trail: A Historical graphy.

By J A C K D .

Biblio-

RITTENHOUSE.

(Albuquerque: University of N e w Mexico Press, 1971. 271 p p . $12.00.) Sociology

and the Study of Religion. By

THOMAS

O'DEA.

(New

York:

Basic Books, 1970. 370 p p . $8.50.) Collected essays o n Catholicism a n d Mormonism. Travelers Edited

on the by

JOHN

Western FRANCIS

Frontier. MCDER-

MOTT. ( U r b a n a : University of Illinois Press, 1970. xii + 351 p p . $10.95.) The

Wake of the Prairie Schooner.

IRENE

PADEN.

Reprint

By 1943

edition. (Carbondale a n d Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press; L o n d o n a n d A m s t e r d a m : Feffer a n d Simons, Inc., 1970. xxii + 514 pp. Paper, $2.95.) The Wyoming Country before Statehood: Four Hundred Years under Six

Mining

Flags. By L. M I L T O N W O O D S . (Chey-

Camps. By STANLEY W. P A H E R . (Ber-

e n n e : Author a n d Wyoming State Archives a n d Historical D e p a r t m e n t , 1971.218 p p . $7.95.)

keley: Howell-North 492 p p . $15.00.)

and

On the Border with Crook. By J O H N G. B O U R K E . Reprint of 1891 edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, 1971. viii + 492 pp. Paper, $2.45.)

Books, 1970.

AGRICULTURE Anderson, J. LaMar, and Alvin R. Hamson, "Utah's Tomato Industry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Its Development and Future," Utah Science, 32 (March 1971), 4-5. Cannon, Orson S., "A History of Tomato Breeding in Utah," Utah Science, 32 (March 1971) 3,5. "Halogeton: Utah's Nemesis for Sheep," Utah Natural History, 3, no. 2 (1971), 3. Simmonds, A. J., "[Utah State University] President's Home Built as a Model [Farm House]," Outlook [USU alumni publication], 3 (September 1971), 11. ARCHITECTURE AND H I S T O R I C SITES Francaviglia, Richard V., "Mormon Central-Hall Houses in the American West," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 61 (March 1971), 65-71. Lumpkins, William, "A Distinguished Architect Writes on Adobe," El Palacio, 77 (September 1971), 3-10. Steen, Charlie, "An Archaeologist's Summary of Adobe," El Palacio, 77 (September 1971), 29-38. Utah State Department of Parks and Recreation, "Camp Floyd State Historical Monument," Pow Wow, 5 (September 1971), 3. BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY Dunyon, Joy F., and F. Earl Walker, "Baldwin Radio Plant $2 Million Pioneer Industry," The Pioneer, 18 (September-October 1971), 7. Menzies, Richard, comp., "Seventy-five Year Old Dream Waits to Come True [Dream Mine at Salem, Utah]," Salt Flat News, 1 (October 1971) 2, 7. Spendlove, Earl, "Like a Hawk Flying [aerial tramway for lumber at Zion National Park]'" Desert Magazine, 34 (November 1971), 24-25, 31. Townley, John M., "The Tuscarora Mining District," Northeastern Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 2 (Summer and Fall 1971), 5-39. CONSERVATION AND RECLAMATION Abbey, Edward, "Slickrock," Sierra Club Bulletin, 56 (July-August 1971), 12-17. Alexander, Thomas G., "Senator Reed Smoot and Western Land Policy, 1905-1920," Arizona and the West, 13 (Autumn 1971), 245-64. Kinney, J. P., "Beginning Indian Lands Forestry: An Oral History Interview," conducted by Elwood R. Maunder and George T. Morgan, Jr., Forest History, 15 (July 1971), 6-15.

102

Utah Historical Quarterly D E S C R I P T I O N AND TRAVEL

Findley, Rowe, " R e a l m of Rock a n d the F a r Horizon: Canyonlands," National Geographic, 140 (July 1971), 71-91. H o w a r d , Enid C , " U t a h Loop T r i p , " Desert Magazine, 34 (August 1971), 30-33. EXPLORATION AND FUR

TRADE

Chase, D o n M., "Was I t Jedediah Smith [who told the Nez Perce a b o u t Christianity]?" The Pacific Historian, 15 (Fall 1971), 3-10. Stevens, H a r r y R., "A C o m p a n y of H a n d s a n d T r a d e r s : Origins of the GlennFowler Expedition of 1821-1822," New Mexico Historical Review, 46 (July 1971), 181-221. Weber, David J., ed., "William Becknell as a M o u n t a i n M a n : T w o Letters," New Mexico Historical Review, 46 (July 1971), 253-60. GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY Hilliard, Sam B., " I n d i a n L a n d Cessions West of the Mississippi," Journal of the West, 10 (July 1971), 493-510. Penick, James, "Professor Cope vs. Professor M a r s h : A Bitter Fued A m o n g the Bones [dinosaur excavations of the 1870s]," American Heritage, 22 (August 1971), 5-13. "Retired C u r a t o r Takes Look Back [Golden York, former curator, University of U t a h E a r t h Sciences M u s e u m , pioneer of early dinosaur digs]," Utah Natural History, 3, no. 2 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 1,4. Wiecek, William M., " I m a g i n a r y Geography: A R a r e M a p of Another Great Salt Lake, D a t e d 1703 [William Delisle's 'Carte du C a n a d a ' containing information from Baron L a h o n t a n ' s Nouveaux Voyages]" The American West, 8 (September 1971), 10-12. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Alexander, T h o m a s G., "A Conflict of Perceptions: Ulysses S. G r a n t a n d the M o r m o n s , " The Ulysses S. Grant Association Newsletter, 8 (July 1971), 29-42. Nash, Gerald D., "Bureaucracy a n d Reform in the West: Notes on the Influence of a Neglected Interest G r o u p , " The Western Historical Quarterly, 2 (July 1971), 295-305. HISTORIANS AND

HISTORIOGRAPHY

Bannon, J o h n Francis, " H e r b e r t E u g e n e Bolton â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Western Historian," The Western Historical Quarterly, 2 (July 1971), 261-82. Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr., " T h e Political Context of a N e w I n d i a n History," Pacific Historical Review, 40 (August 1971), 357-82. Edwards, Paul M., " W h y A m I Afraid to Tell You W h o I A m ? [policy of t h e R e organized C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of L a t t e r D a y Saints Historians Office on historical research]," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action, 1 ( J u n e 1971), 241-46.

Articles and Notes

103

Righter, Robert W., "Theodore H. Hittell and Hubert H. Bancroft: Two Western Historians," California Historical Quarterly, 50 (June 1971) 101-10. Washburn, Wilcomb, "The Writing of American Indian History: A Status Report," Pacific Historical Review, 40 (August 1971), 261-81. INDIANS Collins, Dabney Otis, "Battle for Blue Lake: The Taos Indians Finally Regain Their Sacred Land," The American West, 8 (September 1971), 32-37. Hogan, William T., "Kiowas, Comanches, and Cattlemen, 1867-1906: A Case Study of the Failure of U.S. Reservation Policy," Pacific Historical Review, 40 (August 1971), 333-55. Jacobs, Wilbur R., "The Fatal Confrontation: Early Native-White Relations on the Frontiers of Australia, New Guinea, and Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;-A Comparative Study," Pacific Historical Review, 40 (August 1971), 283-309. Lurie, Nancy Oestreich, "The World's Oldest On-Going Protest Demonstration: North American Indian Drinking Patterns," Pacific Historical Review, 40 (August 1971), 311-32. Reeve, Frank D., "Navaho Foreign Affairs, 1795-1846: Part I I , 1816-1824," New Mexico Historical Review, 46 (July 1971), 223-51. "Theft from the Ute Indians: First Security Bank, Transfer Agent," Ramparts Magazine, 10 (August 1971), 7. LITERATURE Haslam, Gerald, "Wallace Thurman: A Western Renaissance Man," Western American Literature, 7 (Spring 1971), 53-59. Kimball, Edward L., "What Sam Taylor Could Have Said," The Carpenter: Reflections of Mormon Life, 1 (Spring 1971), 37-43. Taylor, Samuel W., "Through Darkest U t a h : Stalking the Wily Mugbook [an essay examining works by Utah writers]," The Carpenter: Reflections of Mormon Life, 1 (Spring 1971), 29-36. Walker Don D., "Essays in the Criticism of Western Literary Criticism. I I : The Dogmas of [Bernard] De Voto," The Possible Sack, 2 (July 1971), 1-7, (August 1971), 6-8; 3 (November 1971), 1-7. . . â&#x20AC;&#x201D;, "The Meaning of the Outlaw in the Mind of the West," The Possible Sack, 2 (September 1971), 1-7. "Past Shock; or, The Death of Jim Bridger," The Possible Sack, 2 (October 1971), 1-6. MORMONISM Berrett, Bernell W., "General Authorities Born in the British Isles," The New Era, 1 (November 1971), 42-43. Howard Richard P., "The 'King Follett Sermon' Teaches a Lesson in Church History," Saints' Herald, 118 (September 1971), 49. Jonas, Frank H., "Mormonism's Negro Policy: In Reply," The American West, 8 (November 1971), 48.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Kellogg, Steven C , "Temples of the Restoration. Part I : Kirtland," Saints' Herald, 118 (September 1971), 10-12, 30-31; "Part I I : The Independence and Nauvoo Temples," (October 1971), 15-17, 48-49; "Part I I I : 1852 to 1968," (November 1971), 18-20, 32-34. Kimball, Stanley B., "The Anthon Transcript: Egyptian, Mesoamerican, or Phoenician?" Newsletter and Proceedings of the Society for Early Historic Archaeology, no. 126 (August 1971), 1-5. Lang, F., "Mormon Empire," Ramparts Magazine, 10 (September 1971), 36-43. Wheaton, Clarence L., "The Book of Commandments," Zion's Advocate, 48 (June 1971), 86-89. M O R M O N S BEFORE 1846 Dudley, D. A., "Bank Born of Revelation: The Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Co.," Journal of Economic History, 30 (December 1971), 848-53. Grant, H. Roger, "Missouri's Utopian Communities," Missouri Historical Review, 66 (October 1971), 20-48. Howard, Richard P., "Since Yesterday: The Joseph Smith Store, Church Headquarters at Nauvoo?" Saints' Herald, 118 (October 1971), 34. , "Since Yesterday: The Times and Seasons Building Number Two," Saints Herald, 118 (November 1971), 48. Jennings, Warren A., "The First Mormon Mission to the Indians," The Kansas Historical Quarterly, 37 (Autumn 1971), 288-99. Todd, Jay M., "A Pictorial Story of the Founding of the [Mormon] Church in the British Isles," The New Era, 1 (November 1971), 20-27. SOCIETY AND C U L T U R E de Jong, Gerrit, Jr., "Mormons and the Fine Arts," The Carpenter: Reflections of Mormon Life, 1 (Spring 1971), 5-15. Edwards, Elbert B., "The Panaca Co-op â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A Way of Life," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 14 (Summer 1971), 58-61. Ely, Evelyn, "Ojos de Dios" and "How to Make an Ojo [the symbolic 'eyes of god' in Indian and other art]," El Palacio, 77 (July 1971), 2-18. "A Pretty Fast Past: Early History of Bonneville Salt Flats," Salt Flat News, 1 (August-September 1971), 2. [Young, Brigham], "Proclamation: For a Day of Praise and Thanksgiving for the Territory of Utah [dated December 19, 1851, proclaiming January 1, 1852]," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1 (November 1971), 40-41. SOURCES Andrews, Thomas F., " ' H o ! For Oregon and California!': An Annotated Bibliography of Published Advice to the Emigrant, 1841-47," The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 33 (Autumn 1971), 41-64. Bush, Alfred L., "The Prineton Collections of Western Americana," The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 33 (Autumn 1971), 1-17.

Articles and Notes

105

Dodds, Gordon B., "Conservation and Reclamation in the Trans-Mississippi West: A Critical Bibliography," Arizona and the West, 13 (Summer 1971), 143. Evans, Frank B., "The National Archives and Records Service and Its Research Sources—-A Select Bibliography," Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, 3 (Fall 1971), 88-112. Greenwell, Scott L,, comp., "Sources and Literature for Western American History: A List of Dissertations," The Western Historical Quarterly, 2 (July 1971) 30720. Hanna, Archibald, "Western Americana at Yale," The Western Historical Quarterly, 2 (October 1971), 405-8. •— , "Western Americana Collectors and Collections," The Western Historical Quarterly, 2 (October 1971), 401-4. WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND SETTLEMENT Bowen, Norman R., and Albert L. Zobell, Jr., "General Thomas L. Kane: The Pioneer," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1 (October 1971), 2-5. Brodie, Fawn M., "A Letter from the Camp of Israel, 1846," The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 33 (Autumn 1971), 67-70. Brown, Leanor J., "Papa Was a Latter-day Pioneer: Part I," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1 (August 1971), 36-39; "Part I I : The Errand," (September 1971), 44-47; Part I I I : The Trail" (October 1971), 40-47; "Part IV: Scattered Leaves" (November 1971), 42-45. Godfrey, Audrey M., "No Small Miracle," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1 (November 1971), 52-55. Lewis, T. H , "Letters from Welsh Pioneers," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1 (September 1971), 35-37.

T h e efforts of LeRoy R. Hafen, professor emeritus of history at Brigham Young University, are being recognized by the State Historical Society of Colorado. The Society's board of directors recendy established an annual $100 LeRoy R. Hafen Award for the best article published each year in the Colorado Magazine. The honor is in recognition of Dr. Hafen's service as Colorado state historian and editor from 1925 to 1954.

106

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Quarterly

More t h a n three thousand negatives from the files of the old U t a h Photo Materials company have been donated to the U t a h State Historical Society by R o n Inkley of Inkley's, a Salt Lake City photographic equipment company. T h e subjects include Salt Lake City street scenes, monuments, buildings, architectural drawings, mountain scenes, family portraits, agricultural and industrial photos, transportation, and advertising ordered by clients. Of major significance are around one thousand negatives of scenes in the national parks of southern U t a h . These were taken by a M r . Wilkes about 191718. T h e collection also includes photos by Earl L y m a n and J o h n Bennett. Bennett, an apprentice to Charles R. Savage, copied old pictures to preserve them. T h e collection is being catalogued by Margaret D . Lester, the Society's picture librarian. " T h e West: Its Literature and History" will bring scholars, writers, and buffs to the U t a h State University campus J u n e 5 - 9 , 1972. T h e Logan conference will feature such well-known authors as: Wallace Stegner, H o w a r d R. Lamar, Robert G. Athearn, J o h n Francis Bannon, S. J., Juanita Brooks, Austin E. Fife, LeRoy R. Hafen, Alvin M . Josephy, Jr., Frederick Manfred, Jack Schaefer, and Keith Wilson. T h e conference is jointly sponsored by U S U , Western Historical Quarterly, Western American Literature, Environment and M a n Program, and the U t a h State Historical Society. Further information may be obtained from the Conference and Institute Division, U S U , Logan, U t a h 84321. Gustive O . Larson, Brigham Young University professor, has received the M o r m o n History Association Citation for the most significant book on M o r m o n history published in 1971. T h e book, The "Americanization" of Utah for Statehood, was issued by the H u n t i n g t o n Library Press. Mr. Larson is the author of sixty articles including several which have been published in the Quarterly and is a Fellow of the U t a h State Historical Society. D e a n C. Jesse, a staff member of the Church Historian's Office, C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was given the association's top prize in article competition for " T h e Writing of Joseph Smith's History," which appeared in Brigham Young University Studies for Summer 1971. T h e Dale L. M o r g a n Memorial F u n d has been established at the University of California, Berkeley, in memory of the distinguished historian of the American West and research specialist at Bancroft Library. A n annual prize will be awarded that graduate student enrolled at Bancroft w h o submits the best paper dealing with some subject of the American West. T h e faculty committee on prizes will judge the entries and awards will be granted over a period of time extending for twenty to twenty-five years if sufficient funds are available. Contributions to the fund may be sent to the Friends of the Bancroft Library with notation that they are for the Dale L. Morgan Prize Fund.

Articles

and Notes

107

T h e Board of Trustees of the Weber River Historical Fund has awarded a $4,000 grant to the history department of Weber State College to write a history of the water resources of the Weber River system. T h e fund is sponsored by water boards in Davis and Weber counties. T h e grant is the result of a class assignment by Richard Sadler, assistant professor of history, who asked students to investigate the preservation and documentation of irrigation and river water history in the area. Research projects now underway at the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, include the following which are supported through the library program of research grants during the current fiscal year: Howard R. Lamar, Yale University, Overland Trails; T. A. Larson, University of Wyoming, Woman Suffrage in Western America; Masaharu Watanabe, Yamaguchi National University, Frederick Jackson Turner and the Frontier Thesis.

General Land Office records useful in locating the names of early settlers and in defining the background of original U t a h land holders have been accessioned by the Federal Records Center, Denver. Most of the correspondence of the U t a h surveyor general for the years 1855 to 1914 and records documenting the survey and sale of federal land in U t a h are among the papers filed at the center. T h e Land Office records list allotments for 1905 to the Uintah, White River, and Uncompahgre Utes. Other accessioned series include registers and abstracts of the Land Offices in Salt Lake City, 1861 to 1914, and Vernal, 1905 to 1914. T h e record copies of land patents for the public domain in U t a h and fifteen other western states for the years 1855 to 1907 have been transferred to the archives branch of the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. T h e center earlier accessioned the land tract books containing land entries and depositions for the same period. Among recent aditions to the Senator Elbert D . Thomas papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library are drafts of the senator's books, certificates of appointment and honorary degrees, a small quantity of miscellaneous correspondence, materials on World W a r II, and correspondence and photographs concerning the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. These papers were donated by the University of U t a h Library. T h e papers of Housing and U r b a n Development Secretary George Romney have been processed by the Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan. A detailed list of contents and a comprehensive index of correspondence have been prepared for the papers, which will remain closed during Romney's tenure in public office. Romney was Republican governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969.

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Quarterly

A new historical publication is being issued by the Enchanted Wilderness Association with headquarters in Salt Lake City. The publication, Enchanted Wilderness Magazine: Journal of the Colorado Plateau and Its Borderlands, began bi-monthly publication with a January-February issue in 1971. The Utah State Historical Society is receiving a new monthly newsletter aimed at "the various denominations that follow some or all of the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith." David C. Martin is editor and publisher of Restoration Reporter. It began publication in June 1971. New periodicals from college campuses in Utah include Utah Clear and the Eagle's Eye. Utah Clear is a newsletter issued by a group calling itself Utah Concerned about Limited Energy and Air Resources. T h e first issue is devoted to an article by Bill Marlin, "The Desert is Dying," which discusses proposed power plants in the Four Corners area. Students, faculty, and administration of the Brigham Young University Indian Program are publishing the Eagle's Eye. The periodical was initially issued in newspaper format in December 1970. A historical trek through Utah by nineteen history students from La Palma, California, is reported in the October 1971 issue of History News, monthly magazine of the American Association for State and Local History. Group supervisor Todd Berens and his wife led two exploring teams along gold rush trails in southern Utah during the spring 1970 expedition. Mr. Berens returned to Utah last summer with his students to document further Utah historic sites and conduct research at the Utah State Historical Society.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Division of D e p a r t m e n t of Development Services BOARD O F STATE HISTORY MILTON C. ABRAMS, Smithfield, 1973

President DELLO G. DAYTON, Ogden, 1975

Vice President MELVIN T. SMITH, Salt Lake City Secretary DEAN R. BRIMHALL, Fruita, 1973

M R S . JuANITA BROOKS, St. George, 1973

JACK GOODMAN, Salt Lake City, 1973 M R S . A. C. JENSEN, Sandy, 1975 THERON L U K E , PTOVO, 1975

CLYDE L. MILLER, Secretary of State

Ex officio HOWARD C PRICE, JR., Price, 1975 M R S . ELIZABETH SKANCHY, Midvale, 1973

MRS. NAOMI WOOLLEY, Salt Lake City, 1975 ADMINISTRATION MELVIN T. SMITH, Director

GLEN M. LEONARD, Publications Coordinator JAY M. HAYMOND, Librarian GARY D. FORBUSH, Preservation Director IRIS SCOTT, Business Manager

The Utah State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, and publish Utah and related history. Today, under state sponsorship, the Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials; locating and documenting historic buildings and sites; and maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past. MEMBERSHIP Membership in the Utah State Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions interested in Utah history. Annual membership dues are: institutions, $7.00; individuals, $5.00; students, $3.00. Life memberships, $100.00. Tax-deductible donations for special projects of the Society may be made on the following membership basis: sustaining, $250.00; patron, $500.00; benefactor, $1,000.00. Your interest and support are most welcome.

Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 40, Number 1, 1972

Articles inside

Stone Houses of Northern Utah

Zion's Cameramen: Early Photographers of Utah and the Mormons

The Natural Bridges of White Canyon: A Diary of H.L.A. Culimer, 1905