The Yellowstone National Park Part 7

This high purpose Catlin followed throughout the remainder of his life with unwavering fidelity. He visited almost every Indian tribe in North America, gathering sketches and making descriptive notes. He also visited South America, and afterward spent many years in Europe exhibiting his work. The result of his labors was a gallery of more than six hundred pictures, now happily forever safe under the protection of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution in Washington, wherein he delineated the portraits of famous chiefs and the scenes and customs of Indian life. This work he supplemented with the scarcely less valuable work of his pen, leaving behind him probably the best popular description of the native races that has ever been written. His work is a perennial fountain to which students of Indian themes will ever resort. Valuable as it was considered in his lifetime, each pa.s.sing year makes it more valuable still.

Catlin's enthusiasm for every thing pertaining to Indian life, and the grief with which he beheld the certain fading away of it all before the rapid progress of civilization, suggested to him the idea which was to find partial fulfillment at the time to which our narrative has now been carried. In order to preserve, at least on a small scale, the native fauna of America, and a remnant of the Indian races, he proposed that the government should set apart, in some suitable locality of the West, a large tract of land, to be preserved forever as a "_Nation's Park_, containing man and beast, in all the wildness and freshness of their nature's beauty." With his natural enthusiasm and vigor, he unfolded his idea, concluding:

"I would ask no other monument to my memory, nor any other enrollment of my name among the famous dead, than the reputation of having been the founder of such an inst.i.tution."

In the report of the late Prof. Joseph Henry to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution for 1871, it is stated that Catlin made a proposition to the government in 1832 "to reserve the country around these [the Yellowstone] geysers as a public park." While it is more than probable, considering the date, and the wide acquaintance of Mr.

Catlin with the traders and Indians of the West, that he had heard of the geyser regions, still there is not sufficient evidence attainable to justify our acceptance of the above statement. But in every thing else except the particular locality, and the plan of providing a reservation for the Indians, Catlin's idea was the same as that finally adopted by Congress.

Although the project of creating a vast National Park in the West originated with George Catlin, it is certain that Congress could never have been brought to act favorably upon it, except under the influence of some extraordinary motive. That motive was supplied when the innumerable unique and marvelous wonders of the Yellowstone were made known. Their preservation at once became a matter of high public duty, which could be accomplished only by reserving from settlement the region around them.

Since the Park was created and has to such a marked degree received the approval of the people, numerous claimants have arisen for the honor of having first suggested the idea. In truth, no special credit for originality should attach to the matter. It was a natural, an unavoidable proposition. To those who first saw these wonders, and were not so absorbed with gold-seeking as to be incapable of appreciating their importance, it was clear that, within a few years, they must become objects of universal interest. It was equally clear that the land around them would soon be taken up by private parties, and that the beautiful formations would be carried off for mercenary purposes; in short, that the history of Niagara and of the Yosemite would repeat itself in the Yellowstone. To avoid such a calamity only one course was open, and that was for the government to retain control of the entire region. That the necessity of such a course should have been set forth independently by several different parties, as we find it to have been, is therefore not in the least surprising.

But in as much as the development of the project must have started from some one source, it is of interest historically to determine what this source was. We find it to have been the Washburn Expedition of 1870.[AF] The subject was discussed by the party at the first camp after leaving the geyser regions near the junction of the Firehole and Gibbon Rivers. The date was September 19, 1870. The members of the party were sitting around the camp-fire after supper, conversing about what they had seen, and picturing to themselves the important pleasure resort which so wonderful a region must soon become. The natural impulse to turn the fruits of discovery to the personal profit of the discoverer made its appearance, and it was suggested that it would be a "profitable speculation" to take up land around the various objects of interest. The conversation had not proceeded far on these lines when one of the party, Cornelius Hedges, interposed and said that private ownership of that region, or any part of it, ought never to be countenanced; but that it ought to be set apart by the government and forever held to the unrestricted use of the people. This higher view of the subject found immediate acceptance with the other members of the party. It was agreed that the project should be at once set afoot and pushed vigorously to a finish.

[AF] Mr. Folsom deserves mention in this connection. In the ma.n.u.script of his article in the _Western Monthly_ was a reference to the Park idea; but the publishers cut out a large part of his paper, giving only the descriptions of the natural wonders, and this reference was cut out with the rest. Mr. Folsom also suggested the idea to General Washburn, of which fact Mr. N. P. Langford is still a living witness.

From Mr. Folsom's suggestion, however, as from Mr. Catlin's, no direct result can be traced.

As soon as the party reached Helena, a series of articles appeared in the daily papers of that city describing the late expedition, and in one of these, written by Mr. Hedges and published in the _Helena Herald_ November 9, 1870, occurs what is believed to be the first public reference to the Park project.

The next mention of the subject was in Mr. Langford's lecture, delivered, as already related, in Washington, January 19, 1871; in New York, January 21, 1871; and at a later date in Minneapolis. At each of these places he closed his lecture with a reference to the importance of setting apart this region as a National Park. The _New York Tribune_ of January 23, 1871, thus quotes Mr. Langford:

"This is probably the most remarkable region of natural attractions in the world; and, while we already have our Niagara and Yosemite, this new field of wonders should be at once withdrawn from occupancy, and set apart as a public National Park for the enjoyment of the American people for all time."

Such is the origin of the idea which has found realization in our present Yellowstone Park. The history of the Act of Dedication, by which the Park was created, may be briefly told. The general plan for a vigorous prosecution of the project was arranged in Helena, Montana, mainly by Nathaniel P. Langford, Cornelius Hedges, and William H.

Clagett, who had just been elected delegate to Congress from Montana, and who had already himself independently urged the importance of converting this region into a public park. Mr. Langford went to Washington when Congress convened, and he and Mr. Clagett drew the Park Bill, except as to description of boundaries, which was furnished by Dr. Hayden. The bill was introduced in the House by Mr. Clagett, December 18, 1871. Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, had expressed a desire to perform a like service in the Senate, and accordingly Mr. Clagett, as soon as he had presented the measure to the House, took a copy to the Senate chamber and gave it to Senator Pomeroy, who immediately introduced it. In each House it was referred to the Committee on Public Lands. In the Senate no formal report was prepared. In the House the Hon. Mark H. Dunnell, of Minnesota, chairman of the sub-committee having the bill in charge, addressed a letter under date of January 27, 1872, to the Secretary of the Interior, asking his opinion upon the proposed measure. The Secretary replied, under date of January 29th, fully indorsing the project, and submitting a brief report by Dr. Hayden, which forcibly presented all the main features of the case.

The bill, being thus before Congress, was put through mainly by the efforts of three men, Dr. F. V. Hayden, N. P. Langford, and Delegate William H. Clagett. Dr. Hayden occupied a commanding position in this work, as representative of the government in the explorations of 1871.

He was thoroughly familiar with the subject, and was equipped with an exhaustive collection of photographs and specimens gathered the previous summer. These were placed on exhibition, and were probably seen by all members of Congress. They did a work which no other agency could do, and doubtless convinced every one who saw them that the region where such wonders existed should be carefully preserved to the people forever. Dr. Hayden gave to the cause the energy of a genuine enthusiasm, and his work that winter will always hold a prominent place in the history of the Park.

Mr. Langford, as already stated, had publicly advocated the measure in the previous winter. He had rendered service of the utmost importance, through his publications in _Scribner's Magazine_ in the preceding May and June. Four hundred copies of these magazines were brought and placed upon the desks of members of Congress on the days when the measure was to be brought to vote. During the entire winter, Mr.

Langford devoted much of his time to the promotion of this work.

The Hon. William H. Clagett, as delegate from the Territory most directly interested in the pa.s.sage of the bill, took an active personal part in its advocacy from beginning to end.

Through the efforts of these three gentlemen, and others less conspicuously identified with the work, this measure received perhaps the most thorough canva.s.s of any bill that has ever pa.s.sed Congress.

All the members were personally visited and, with few exceptions, won to the cause. The result was a practical unanimity of opinion when the measure came to a vote. This first took place in the Senate, the bill being pa.s.sed by that body January 30th. It was warmly supported upon its pa.s.sage by several members and opposed by one, Senator Cole, of California; a fact the more remarkable because that Senator had in his own state--in the preemption by private parties of the Yosemite wonderland--the most convincing example possible of the wisdom of such a measure as that proposed.

The Senate bill came up from the Speaker's table in the House of Representatives, February 27th. Mr. Dunnell stated that the Committee on Public Lands had instructed him to ask the House to pa.s.s the Senate bill. Hon. H. L. Dawes, of Ma.s.sachusetts, warmly advocated the measure, which was then pa.s.sed by a decisive vote.[AG] The bill received the President's signature March 1, 1872.

[AG] No yea and nay vote was taken in the Senate. The vote in the House was--yeas, 115; nays, 65; not voting, 60.

This subject has been treated somewhat in detail because there has long been a false impression among the people as to who it was that first put forward this important project. To no individual is the public more indebted for the creation of the Park than to Dr. F. V.

Hayden, who was long prominently connected with the geological surveys of the government. But he did not, as is generally supposed, originate the idea. His statement in his report for 1878, Vol. II, p. xvii, that, "so far as is now known, the idea of setting apart a large tract about the sources of the Yellowstone River, as a National Park, originated with the writer," is entirely erroneous; and there is the less excuse for the error in that Dr. Hayden had himself heard the measure advocated by Mr. Langford in his Washington lecture. In fact, he is known to have said in later years, only a short time before his death, while residing in Philadelphia, that when the project was first talked of among the members of his party, in the summer of 1871, he personally disapproved it because he doubted the practicability of adequately guarding so vast a region; but that, upon further reflection, he became converted to the measure and was thereafter its most ardent advocate.

But it is not so much actual facts, as what men believe these facts to be, that controls human action; and it is unquestionably true that the above quotation correctly expresses the views of the great majority of members of Congress when the Park measure was before that body. It is not too much to say that Dr. Hayden's influence, as the official representative of the government, was a controlling factor in the pa.s.sage of that measure.

Perhaps no act of our national Congress has received such general approbation at home or such profuse commendation from foreigners as that creating the Yellowstone National Park. The lapse of twenty years has only served to confirm and extend its importance; and to give additional force to the sentiment so well expressed by the Earl of Dunraven when he visited the Park in 1874:

"All honor then to the United States for having bequeathed as a free gift to man the beauties and curiosities of 'Wonderland.' It was an act worthy of a great nation, and she will have her reward in the praise of the present army of tourists, no less than in the thanks of the generations of them yet to come."[AH]

[AH] Page xi, "The Great Divide." See Appendix E.

It was a notable act, not only on account of the transcendent importance of the territory it was designed to protect, but because it was a marked innovation in the traditional policy of governments. From time immemorial privileged cla.s.ses have been protected by law in the withdrawal, for their exclusive enjoyment, of immense tracts for forests, parks and game preserves. But never before was a region of such vast extent as the Yellowstone Park set apart for the use of all the people without distinction of rank or wealth.

The example thus set by the United States has been widely followed.

We have now the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, and numerous parks upon the sites of great battle-fields. The State of New York has a Niagara Park and contemplates setting apart a portion of the Adirondack region. Minnesota has the Itasca State Park, including the sources of the Mississippi. Canada also has a public park at Niagara, and a large reservation in the midst of the finest scenery of the Rocky Mountains. New Zealand has set a part for public use the region of her hot springs and geysers. Finally the question is being mooted of reserving a vast tract of Africa wherein the large game of that continent may be kept from annihilation.

CHAPTER XI.

WHY SO LONG UNKNOWN?

There is no more singular fact connected with the history of the Upper Yellowstone country than its long immunity from the presence of white men. From the date when Lewis and Clark first stood at the Three Forks of the Missouri, less than one hundred miles distant from this notable region, sixty-five years elapsed before it was fully known. In the meantime all the surrounding country had been thoroughly explored.

Cities, villages, farms and highways had been established throughout the west. A railroad had been built across the continent. But around the head waters of the Yellowstone, the most attractive region of all, it was still _terra incognita_. A fact so remarkable requires adequate explanation.

The most difficult feature of the question is the fact that no knowledge of this region appears ever to have been derived from the Indians. Lewis and Clark were told of the Great Falls of the Missouri, and of other notable geographical features, long before they saw them.

But of the far more wonderful falls of the Yellowstone, of the great lake in the mountains, or of the marvelous volcanic phenomena in the same neighborhood, they received no hint. There is not a single instance on record, so far as we can discover, except in the meager facts noted in an earlier chapter, where rumors of this strange country appear to have fallen from the lips of Indians. And yet it was not a region unknown to them, for they had certainly pa.s.sed back and forth across it for a long period in the past. Their deep silence concerning it is therefore no less remarkable than mysterious.

But how was it that the long period of the fur trade should have pa.s.sed without disclosing this country? To this question a more satisfactory answer may be returned. The Upper Yellowstone country was indeed, as we have seen, frequently visited in these early years. But it was never favorite territory. Old trappers say that, although it abounded in beaver, they were not so plentiful as in lower alt.i.tudes, while on the streams impregnated with mineral matter, the furs were not so good. The seasons also were unpropitious. The winter snows were so deep--they came so early and remained so late--that little could be done there except from the middle of June to the middle of September.

But furs taken during the summer months are of inferior quality, and there was consequently no inducement to trap. Moreover it was generally at this time that the gatherings at posts and rendezvous took place, and after these were over but little time remained. Causes like these prevented extensive operations in this region, and doubtless only a comparatively small number of trappers ever saw it.

Then, the interest of the trader was against the dissemination of any knowledge which might induce immigration and hasten the certain ruin of his occupation. The stress of compet.i.tion also caused him to remain silent concerning the places he had seen, lest a rival should profit thereby. He took no pains to reveal the country, and the trappers were too illiterate to do so had they wished. With the one notable exception which has been mentioned in a previous chapter, no important press notice of these regions appeared during the entire sixty-five years.

The fur business itself quickly ran its course, and with it disappeared all probability of an early discovery of the geyser regions from this cause. The war with Mexico followed, with the vast cession of territory which it secured. Then came the highly important discovery of gold in California. Already the Mormon emigration had taken place. These great events completely changed the character and purpose of western exploration. The whole west was forgotten excepting only California and the Salt Lake Valley, and the routes leading to them. None of these led close to the geyser regions. On the north were the British fur trader's route, and the Missouri River route, both of which led directly west to the Columbia. To the south was the great thoroughfare along the Platte River and though South Pa.s.s, leading to Utah, California and Oregon. Still further south were the long known routes near the border of Old Mexico. It was hopelessly improbable that gold seekers bound to the Pacific Coast along any of these routes would stray into the mountain fastnesses about the sources of the Yellowstone.

Finally the whole energy of the government in the field of exploration was directed away from this region. In the period from 1804-6, the date of Lewis and Clark's expedition, to 1870, the date of the real discovery of the Park, there were no fewer than one hundred and ten explorations in the country west of the Mississippi, nearly all of which had government authority, and were conducted on a scientific basis. Of these, eighty-four were in the territory lately acquired from Mexico, and mostly in the far south and west. Nineteen were east of the Bighorn Mountains, five north of the Yellowstone, and only two in the region about the Upper Yellowstone. Of these two expeditions one was that of Lewis and Clark, and was in no wise intended to explore the Upper Yellowstone further than might be necessary to find a good route to the Pacific. This leaves but a single expedition of the whole number, that of Captain Raynolds, which was directed to this specific territory. How the purpose of this expedition was defeated by the heavy snow in the mountains and by the solar eclipse of 1860, has been elsewhere related.

And so it came about that it was the gold-seeker who finally revealed the well-kept secret of the Yellowstone. Itself dest.i.tute of mineral wealth, this region could not escape the ubiquitous prospector. It was not, indeed, by him that it was publicly proclaimed to the world. He cared little for any country that was dest.i.tute of "color" or "pay."

But the hints he dropped put others on the track and opened the door to real discovery.

This fact of long delay in the discovery of the Upper Yellowstone is the most important in its history. Had it been known at an earlier date, its fate would have been deplorably different. The period of the fur traders was too early for the interest of the people to demand, or the power of the government to enforce, its protection. If Captain Raynolds had discovered it, all its most valuable tracts would have been preempted long before the government would have been able to give it attention. Fortunately, the discovery was delayed until there was a considerable population in the country near by, and the government was prepared actively to consider the matter. Before settlers could establish a permanent foothold, the Park was created, and all the vexatious obstacles, which might otherwise have defeated the project, were avoided.

CHAPTER XII.

LATER EXPLORATIONS.

As soon as the remarkable character of the country about the sources of the Yellowstone became generally known, there was a rush of explorers to its borders. Every expedition that could possibly extend the field of its labors in that direction did so, and there was scarcely a summer during the next twenty years that the Park was not the scene of some official exploration or visit.

By far the most important of these were the various expeditions under the United States Geological Survey. Dr. Hayden was again in the country with two parties in 1872, and very widely extended the range of observations of the previous year. In 1878, survey parties again entered the Park and resumed work there on a much more minute and extensive scale. The result of that year's explorations appeared in 1883 in the form of an elaborate report by Dr. Hayden and his co-workers, which entered with much detail into the more important subjects of scientific interest. It was embellished with a great number of engravings and colored plates, and with an exhaustive series of topographical and geological maps. The work was again taken up in 1883, and was continued for several years. All questions of scientific importance were investigated more thoroughly than ever before, and many valuable official reports and monographs, together with a superb map, have been the result.

In 1872, General John Gibbon, U. S. A., with a considerable party, made a tour of the Park, pa.s.sing by the usual route from Mammoth Hot Springs _via_ Mt. Washburn, the Grand Canon, and the Lake, to the Firehole Geyser Basins. On his way home he attempted to ascend the north Fork of the Madison, following an old trail; but he abandoned the attempt after going a few miles. His name, which was given to the river, has also attached to many other features along that valley.