As documented here many times, I am a huge fan — HUGE fan — of Grand Canyon.
I’ve been to the Canyon 23 times; I’ve hiked many of the backcountry trails; I’ve taken four river trips down the Colorado River. Show me a random photo taken from the rim, and odds are, I can identify the landforms.
I’ve become more familiar with Grand Canyon than the average dude because, for reasons I can’t explain, I find the geography, geology, and history of the place endlessly fascinating.
Which is why I just got through re-reading “The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons” by John Wesley Powell, a remarkable account of the first recorded journey down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon in 1869.
Here are some facts every schoolchild should know about that expedition…
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The leader of the 10-man Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869 was John Wesley Powell, geology professor, self-taught naturalist, and Civil War veteran. His purpose, in addition to being the first to explore the last uncharted stretch of the Colorado River, was to document the geology, biology, and native people of the region.
The members of the expedition:
— Powell, who had lost an arm at the battle of Shiloh and was the only man who wore a life preserver. He was “Major Powell” to the men.
— Walter Powell, his younger brother, a former Union Army captain. Described by the others as “surly and quick-tempered.”
— John Sumner, a trapper and Civil War veteran. Worked for Powell on a previous expedition in the Rockies.
— Frank Goodman, an Englishmen and skilled boatman who came to America to find out what the American West was really like. Signed on to have an adventure.
— Oramel Howland, a mountain man and hunter, but also well educated. Worked as a newspaperman.
— Seneca Howland, Oramel’s younger brother, a war veteran hoping the trip would bring fame and fortune.
— William Dunn, a buckskin-clad hunter and trapper from Colorado.
— William Hawkins from Missouri, the congenial expedition cook, just out of the Army after a series of disciplinary problems.
— George Bradley, an Army sergeant who joined the expedition on Powell’s promise of an prompt discharge afterward.
— Andrew Hall, a strong, hard-working Scottish lad, age 20, a crack shot with a rifle.
Powell’s boat was the Emma Dean, a fast, lightweight, 16-foot vessel built of pine. The other boats, Maid of the Canyon, Kitty Clyde’s Sister, and No Name, were heavy, 21-foot oak vessels. The boats were divided into three compartments, one of which was watertight to protect the provisions.
The four boats were easy to handle on relatively smooth water, but not through the shallow, rocky rapids of the Green and Colorado rivers. Powell portaged most of the larger rapids or lined the boats through the rapids from the shore with ropes.
During the journey, several of the men grumbled that Powell was overly cautious, and many of the rapids he made them portage were runnable.
The expedition lasted three months, from May 24 until August 29. The men traveled about 1,000 miles. They began at Green River, Wyoming, journeyed downstream through a succession of canyons, and emerged from Grand Canyon not far from where the Virgin River meets the Colorado, near present-day Las Vegas.
In 1871, Powell repeated a good part of the original voyage, this time with more provisions, better equipment, and photographers in tow. He also knew what was ahead; the Colorado was the Great Unknown no longer.
After turning his diary of the first expedition into a book, Powell went on to head the U.S. Geological Survey and to serve as a director at the Smithsonian Institution. He died in 1902 at his summer cottage in Maine.
The expedition of 1869 was genuinely harrowing. The No Name was wrecked, the Emma Dean abandoned. They set out with provisions for 10 months, but most of the food was lost or spoiled. Only six of the 10 men completed the trip.
A depiction of “Disaster Falls” in Lodore Canyon, where the “No Name” went down with much of the expedition’s food and supplies.
Probably the most dramatic and climactic event of the expedition occurred in late August, when three men left the group and set out walking north, back to civilization.
Two months earlier, the expedition had lost Goodman, who dropped out after a series of especially difficult rapids.
At the time, the party had reached a stretch of calm water on the Green River in Utah. Rolling meadows covered both banks of the river. The expedition remained there for about a week to make repairs and buy supplies from a nearby tribe of Utes.
On July 5, the day before the party was to continue downriver, Goodman informed Powell that he was quitting. Apparently, he had his fill of adventure.
Now, on August 27, three more men were leaving.
The three were Dunn and the Howland brothers. All were seasoned mountain men. The terrain was harsh and the heat scorching, but they trusted their abilities. With the food almost gone, and fearing that worse rapids were ahead, they concluded that the odds favored striking out cross-country.
This is Powell’s account of the incident in his diary.
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August 27 — After supper Captain [Oramel] Howland asks to have a talk with me. We walk up the little creek a short distance, and I soon find that his object is to remonstrate against my determination to proceed. He thinks that we had better abandon the river here. Talking with him, I learn that he, his brother, and William Dunn have determined to go no farther in the boats. So we return to camp. Nothing is said to the other men.
For the last two days our course has not been plotted. I sit down and do this now, for the purpose of finding where we are by dead reckoning. It is a clear night, and I take out the sextant to make observation for latitude, and I find that the astronomic determination agrees very nearly with that of the plot — quite as closely as might be expected from a meridian observation on a planet.
In a direct line, we must be about 45 miles from the mouth of the Rio Virgen. If we can reach that point, we know that there are settlements up that river about 20 miles. This 45 miles in a direct line will probably be 80 or 90 by the meandering line of the river. But then we know that there is comparatively open country for many miles above the mouth of the Virgen, which is our point of destination.
As soon as I determine all this, I spread my plot on the sand and wake Howland, who is sleeping down by the river, and show him where I suppose we are, and where several Mormon settlements are situated. We have another short talk about the morrow, and he lies down again; but for me there is no sleep.
All night long I pace up and down a little path, on a few yards of sand beach, along by the river. Is it wise to go on? I go to the boats again to look at our rations. I feel satisfied that we can get over the danger immediately before us; what there may be below I know not.
From our outlook yesterday on the cliffs, the canyon seemed to make another great bend to the south, and this, from our experience heretofore, means more and higher granite walls. I am not sure that we can climb out of the canyon here, and, if at the top of the wall, I know enough of the country to be certain that it is a desert of rock and sand between this and the nearest Mormon town, which, on the most direct line, must be 75 miles away.
True, the late rains have been favorable to us, should we go out, for the probabilities are that we shall find water still standing in holes; and at one time I almost conclude to leave the river. But for years I have been contemplating this trip. To leave the exploration unfinished, to say that there is a part of the canyon which I cannot explore, having already nearly accomplished it, is more than I am willing to acknowledge, and I determine to go on.
I wake my brother and tell him of Howland’s determination, and he promises to stay with me; then I call up Hawkins, the cook, and he makes a like promise; then Sumner and Bradley and Hall, and they all agree to go on.
August 28 — At last daylight comes and we have breakfast without a word being said about the future. The meal is as solemn as a funeral. After breakfast I ask the three men if they still think it best to leave us. The elder Howland thinks it is, and Dunn agrees with him. The younger Howland tries to persuade them to go on with the party; failing in which, he decides to go with his brother.
Then we cross the river. The small boat is very much disabled and unseaworthy. With the loss of hands, consequent on the departure of the three men, we shall not be able to run all of the boats; so I decide to leave my “Emma Dean.”
Two rifles and a shotgun are given to the men who are going out. I ask them to help themselves to the rations and take what they think to be a fair share. This they refuse to do, saying they have no fear but that they can get something to eat; but Billy, the cook, has a pan of biscuits prepared for dinner, and these he leaves on a rock.
Before starting, we take from the boat our barometers, fossils, the minerals, and some ammunition and leave them on the rocks. We are going over this place as light as possible. The three men help us lift our boats over a rock 25 or 30 feet high and let them down again over the first fall, and now we are all ready to start.
The last thing before leaving, I write a letter to my wife and give it to Howland. Sumner gives him his watch, directing that it be sent to his sister should he not be heard from again. The records of the expedition have been kept in duplicate. One set of these is given to Howland; and now we are ready.
For the last time they entreat us not to go on, and tell us that it is madness to set out in this place; that we can never get safely through it; and, further, that the river turns again to the south into the granite, and a few miles of such rapids and falls will exhaust our entire stock of rations, and then it will be too late to climb out. Some tears are shed; it is rather a solemn parting; each party thinks the other is taking the dangerous course.
My old boat left, I go on board of the “Maid of the Canyon.” The three men climb a crag that overhangs the river to watch us off. The “Maid of the Canyon” pushes out. We glide rapidly along the foot of the wall, just grazing one great rock, then pull out a little into the chute of the second fall and plunge over it.
The open compartment is filled when we strike the first wave below, but we cut through it, and then the men pull with all their power toward the left wall and swing clear of the dangerous rock below all right. We are scarcely a minute in running it, and find that, although it looked bad from above, we have passed many places that were worse.
The other boat follows without more difficulty. We land at the first practicable point below, and fire our guns, as a signal to the men above that we have come over in safety. Here we remain a couple of hours, hoping that they will take the smaller boat and follow us. We are behind a curve in the canyon and cannot see up to where we left them, and so we wait until their coming seems hopeless, and then push on.
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Ironically, the expedition was already over. The two boats encountered no more significant rapids. The next day, they arrived at Grand Wash, the unofficial western end of Grand Canyon. There, they learned from Mormon farmers that most of the country assumed they were dead.
Dunn and the Howland brothers were never heard from again. By many accounts, they were killed by men from the Shivwits tribe who mistook them for three prospectors who had raped and killed a Shivwits woman.
Prior to his second expedition, Powell visited the Shivwits, hoping to find out the truth behind the rumors. According to Powell’s Mormon interpreter, Jacob Hamlin, the Shivwits admitted killing the men in a case of mistaken identity. Powell accepted the story and smoked a peace pipe with the chiefs.
But speculation also arose that the Howlands and Dunn were killed by Mormons, who blamed the deed on the Shivwits. The Mormon colonies of the time were paranoid about a possible attack by the U.S. Army. Hamlin easily could have altered the story.
Further, the killings happened only a decade after the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which 100-plus settlers on a wagon train to California were killed by a Mormon militia force.
Shivwits, Mormons, the heat of the August desert — we may never know for sure.
Of the 10 members of the first Powell expedition, nine have geological features in Grand Canyon named after them — a butte, a point, or in Powell’s case, an entire plateau. Not to mention Lake Powell.
The exception is Frank Goodman, who left the expedition before it reached Grand Canyon.
In 1939, on the 75th anniversary of the expedition, the rapid where Dunn and the Howland brothers left the group was named Separation Rapid. A commemorative plaque was placed at the site.
Today, the plaque and the rapid are deep below the surface of Lake Meade.
Drawing of George Bradley rescuing Major Powell from a predicament. One evening, while exploring near camp, Powell became stranded on a ledge and couldn’t go up or down. Bradley was able to haul him up by using his long underwear as a rope.
Photo of Powell prior to the 2nd expedition with Tau-gu, a Paiute chief.
Noted violinist Maud Powell, niece of John Wesley Powell, shown in 1918 at the Powell Memorial, Grand Canyon, Arizona.
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