John Wesley Powell River History MuseumJohn Wesley Powell River History MuseumJohn Wesley Powell
Impatient, ambitious, and strong-willed, Powell led the first expedition to successfully navigate the Green and Colorado River from Green River, Wyoming, to the mouth of the Virgin River in Nevada in 1869. Besides navigating the river, he explored and mapped the area, named many of its features, and identified the basic outlines of the region’s natural history. He provided the key to opening up the river to later travel, explorations, and surveys.
Powell’s First Crew
The nine crew members serving in Powell’s first expedition were a diverse and independent lot, many of them having been veterans of the Civil War and/or seasoned frontiersmen. Powell met many of them during his field trips in 1867 and 1868. None was a scientist; instead, each was hired because of his toughness and resourcefulness. Several of these men kept journals of the voyage which provide interesting insights into the expedition and Powell. Of the nine, only five reached the Virgin river, Goodman having left the party at the Ute Indian Agency in the Uinta Basin, and the Howlands and Bill Dunn having climbed out of the Grand Canyon at Separation Rapids, only to reportedly be killed by the Shiviwits band of the Paiutes, who lived on the plateau above the Grand Canyon. In 1870, Major Powell journeyed to the remote area where they would have reached the top of the Grand Canyon and through the Mormon frontiersman, Jacob Hamblin, spoke with the Shiviwits band, who confessed to killing the three men. Their bodies were never found however, and their true fate, the identities of their killers, and the circumstances of their disappearance remains a mystery to this day.
An Army sergeant serving at Ft. Steele, Wyoming, who went along with Powell to escape the boredom of military life on the plains. When asked if he would volunteer, Bradley wrote that he would “go down the River Styx” to escape his enlistment. Bradley’s detailed journal of the voyage is one of the most engaging and readable of the diaries left by the crew members.
A frontiersman who had been with Powell in Colorado and hoped to trap and prospect during the voyage. He and Major Powell did not get along, and when offered a chance to leave the expedition, he accepted. Dunn, along with Oramel and Seneca Howland, disappeared after climbing all the way out of the Grand Canyon, and was presumably killed.
An English “remittance man,” or the second son of a wealthy family who did not stand to inherit, Goodman was touring the West and joined Powell’s expedition for the adventure. In the Canyon of Lodore the boat he was riding in, the NO NAME, was wrecked, causing him to lose all of his possessions, so he left the crew in the Uinta Basin when Powell traveled to the Ute agency to try to obtain supplies.
Hall was a Scotsman, the youngest member of Powell’s first crew, and one of only two men who did not serve in the Civil War. He was recruited by Powell in Green River, Wyoming, shortly before the expedition left. He joined the crew for adventure. It has long been suggested that Hall was the one who came up the name “Lodore,” for the remote canyon, remembering a poem, “The Cataracts of Lodore,” from a childhood primer. However, there is no solid evidence for this in the historical record.
Also known as William Rhodes, Hawkins had met Powell during the latter’s explorations of Colorado prior to the voyage. Along with Andy Hall, Hawkins was one of the two Powell crew members who followed the Colorado River all the way to mouth of the Colorado in the Gulf of California.
A Colorado newspaperman, Howland had met Powell in Denver. Unlike his brother, Oramel was not a veteran of the Civil War. He and his brother Seneca, along with their friend Bill Dunn, were hoping to trap and prospect along the river. Oramel also hoped to write and sell stories about the journey. Oramel was one of the three who disappeared after successfully climbing out of the Grand Canyon.
Oramel’s younger brother, he was a trapper and frontiersman. He left the river with his older brother and Bill Dunn near the end of Grand Canyon, and along with them, was never seen again.
John Wesley Powell’s older brother, he was captured by Confederate troops during the Civil War and spent months in one of their notorious prison camps. The terrible conditions he endured affected him mentally, so Powell brought him along on the 1869 voyage, hoping that the experience would help solve his mental problems. Known by the crew as “Old Shady,” because he would often sing a popular Civil War song by the same name.
Sumner was one of the first frontiersmen Powell recruited in Colorado. Resourceful and courageous, Sumner rowed Powell’s smaller boat, the EMMA DEAN, that the Major used to scout the rapids ahead. Sumner was the only one of the 1869 crew that Powell invited to be part of the 1871 expedition, but was delayed by snow in the mountains and was unable to reach the launch in Green River, Wyoming before the crew departed.
Powell’s Second Crew, 1871-72
The character of Powell’s second crew was much different than the first. The members of the 1869 expedition had been generally an irreverent, rough-and-tumble group of frontiersmen, not prone to accepting the Major’s authority. The second crew was handpicked by Powell and full of men he trusted and had worked with in the past. Many were college-educated, sober, scientifically minded and veterans of the Civil War. Several stayed with the Powell survey after the river journey ended, surveying and mapping southwestern Utah until 1875.
Powell’s brother-in-law, a well-known geologist and topographer who served as second-in-command and chief topographer of the expedition. Was generally referred to as “the Prof.”
Mathematician, surveyor, topographer and teacher, he served as assistant to Thompson. Was an important jurist later in life.
An acquaintance of the Major from the Battle of Vicksburg, when both searched for fossils in the trenches. Served as assistant to Thompson.
Religiously-minded chief cartographer of the expedition who made the first accurate maps of the river course. Converted to Mormonism, he later served as professor of natural sciences at the University of Deseret in Salt Lake City.
An experienced photographer brought along by Powell to photographically record the expedition, left the party at Lee’s Ferry because of a personality conflict with the Major.
An art student from New York and, at 17, the youngest member of the expedition. He went on the voyage without telling his parents for fear they would not give permission. Later wrote two books about the journey, A Canyon Voyage and Romance of the Colorado.
A teamster from Salt Lake City who eventually became assistant photographer, then chief photographer when Beaman quit the expedition. Later became a noted photographer in his own right, and as head photographer for the U.S. Geologic Survey, took over 2,000 images of native Americans and western landscapes.
Chosen by Powell to be in charge of camp for the expedition.
Assistant to Hattan. Left the expedition in Browns Park.
Cousin of the Major who served as assistant to the photographer. Tried to take over after Beaman left, but couldn’t manage the clumsy wet-plate camera apparatus , which he called “that infernal mountain howitzer.”
Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00am – 5:00pm
Adults (18+)
Seniors (62+)
Children (7-17)
Family
$8
$6
$3
$25
Free admission for children under 7, museum members, and Green River residents.