Robert Lucas
“The wonders of the
Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech,
nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed
beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language
and illustration combined must fail.”
– John Wesley Powell
Lucasville connections are endless.
Ties to the past as simple as a few words or a faded image pull us
into a pool of knowledge where we can lose ourselves, wander without
restraint, and somehow, by chance, discover story after story that
strengthens our human connections to history. These encounters, no
matter how trivial or how vast, enrich us with a touch of simple
association. Then, we find we really do “know.”
In a prior post, I shared the John
Wesley Powell story. I will relate part of this connection again. However, in this entry I will share two stories related
to other Lucasville figures. The two subjects of this entry are Elizabeth
Minerva Sumner Byers and John Colton Sumner. To understand the lives
of these two people – a brother and a sister – we must explore
the West of the 1800s. Yes, Mr. Horace Greeley ... "Colorado, here we come!"
Two Subjects – Elizabeth Byers and
Jack Sumner
Elizabeth -- Over the course of six decades,
Elizabeth Minerva Sumner Byers (1834-1920) saw the evolution of
Denver, Colorado, from a dirty little supply settlement at the foot
of the Rockies into a thriving capital city. Dedicating her life to
making the quality of life better for those who came to the area, she
was a tremendous catalyst for change. Although never properly
recognized in her lifetime, she remains a venerated figure for
forming groups and institutions that helped the children, the poor,
and the elderly. The Grand Army of the Republic
dedicated a black granite memorial fountain to her in 1923. It was
Denver's first monument honoring a woman.
Jack -- Elizabeth's
younger brother, John “Jack” Colton Sumner (1840–1907) was the
guide and lead boatmen for Major John Wesley Powell when Powell made
his first trip down the Colorado River in 1869. Powell became the
leader of the first scientific exploration of the last unknown area
in the continental United States: In 1869, Powell and his team became
the first people of European descent to travel the length of the
Grand Canyon – a journey of three months and more than 900 miles.
Connections
Please bear with me. This explanation
is rather convoluted; however its complexity is due to multiple local
ties. First let me present the two subjects of this inquiry. Then, I
will explain their genealogical connections to the area.
1. Elizabeth Minerva Sumner Byers
was the daughter of Horation Nelson Sumner and Minerva Lucas Sumner.
She was born August 31, 1834 in
Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. She died on January 6, 1920 in San
Diego, San Diego County, Californa. Elizabeth is buried in Fairmount
Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
2. John “Jack” Colton Sumner was
the son of Horatio Nelson Sumner and Minerva Lucas Sumner.
He was born May 16, 1840, in Newtown, Fountain County, Indiana. He
died on July 5, 1907 in Fort Duchesne, Uintah County, Utah. He is
buried in Riverside Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
Horatio Nelson Sumner and Minerva Lucas Sumner
Mother and Father, Horatio Nelson Sumner (1808-1875) – presumably named after the British Admiral Horatio Nelson – and Minerva Lucas Sumner (1811-1886) were the parents of Elizabeth and Jack. Minerva was born in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1811. She married Horatio and had 9 children. Horatio died on February 4, 1875. Minerva passed away on April 29, 1886, in Denver, Colorado.
Edward Sumner's Stone
Edward Culver Sumner (1764–1821) and Abigail Clark Sumner
(unknown-October 19, 1821) were Elizabeth's (Sumner Byers) and Jack's
(Sumner) grandparents. Edward was born October 14, 1764, in
Connecticut. He died September 20, 1821. He is buried in Old
Wheelersburg Cemetery in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Abigail Clark Sumner is
also buried in Old Wheelersburg Cemetery.
Minerva Lucas's parents were and Robert Lucas (1781-1853) and
Elizabeth (“Eliza or Betsey”) Brown Lucas (1786-1812). So, Robert
Lucas and Elizabeth Lucas were Elizabeth's (Sumner Byers) and Jack's
(Sumner) grandparents, too. Elizabeth
is buried the the Lucasville Cemetery in Lucasville, Ohio.
Robert is buried in in Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City, Iowa.
Are
you confused yet?
To make clearer the Lucasville, Ohio
connection – Both
Elizabeth Byers' and John (Jack) Sumner's grandfather was Robert
Lucas and their grandmother was Elizabeth Brown Lucas.
As we well
know, Robert was the brother of John Lucas, the founder of
Lucasville.
Historical
Note – Elizabeth Brown Lucas died very young (age 26). Robert
Lucas then married Friendly Ashley Sumner Lucas (1796-1873). So,
Friendly also has ties to the subjects of interest, Elizabeth Byers
and Jack Sumner.
Elizabeth "Libby" Byers
Elizabeth Minerva Sumner Byers
A scion of colonial patriots and a
heartland native from Chillicothe, Ohio, Elizabeth was born to
Minerva Lucas Sumner and Horatio Nelson Sumner on August 31, 1834.
She married a politician, William Newton Byers, in November 1854 at
Muscatine, Iowa.
In 1859 (two years before Colorado
became a U.S. territory), Elizabeth Minerva Sumner Byers traveled
west with her husband, William Newton Byers, and their two young
children. Mary Newton-Robinson, their daughter, recalled her mother
saying …
“I was the eighth white woman
in Denver, and when I climbed out of the little buckboard with my two
babies I felt that I was the advance guard of civilization at the
foot of the Rocky Mountains.”
William Byers was known as a founding
figure of Omaha, Nebraska, serving as the first deputy surveyor of
the Nebraska Territory, on the first Omaha City Council, and as a
member of the first Nebraska Territorial Legislature.
The Byers moved to Denver to take
advantage of recent gold strikes in the area. They traveled by
oxcart, and in the back of their buckboard, they carried a printing
press, the beginnings of the Rocky Mountain News – Colorado's
first newspaper and a major civilizing agent for the West. (It
continued publication until 2009.) William founded and edited the
paper while Elizabeth worked as co-publisher and journalist.
In time, William would be called “the
greatest Denver promoter of all.” The newspaper attracted newcomers
and money to upstart towns such as Denver. Byers became the spokesman
for Denver and helped to organize a Chamber of Commerce. He
tirelessly promoted Denver as the “Queen City of the Rockies.”
Elizabeth is often remembered for her charitable work and wonderful civic contributions to Territorial Colorado.
It was a time of great hardship, as
settlers tried to build a new civilization for themselves in an
unfamiliar land, amid often-stormy relations with native populations
and in a harsh climate. The experience of Elizabeth “Libby”
Byers, surrounded by the realities of life in the territory, gave
rise to the first charitable association in Denver – inspiring a
future of benevolence in a rough new town.
The immediate area offered little
comfort to its first inhabitants: no gold, no mines, no jobs, no
farms, little lodging, and little support. The earliest citizens
struggled to organize and settle, as desperation and incidents of
“shiftiness” led to even greater hardship. The undeveloped gold
industry demanded much from the influx of traveling miners, or “Pikes
Peakers.”
Civil involvement began in earnest in
January 1860, when a meeting was held at the home of William and
Elizabeth Byers. As a result, the Ladies Union Aid Society (LUAS)
took shape. Its purpose was to aid and comfort those in need. The
LUAS was the first of many charitable organizations to come. In the
years that followed, Denver saw a significant rise in such
institutions.
Libby Byers was well known and well
liked for her caring and ambition in alleviating the suffering of
others. Elizabeth formed the Pioneer Ladies Aid Society shortly after
in auxiliary to her husband’s charitable aims. The society’s sole
purpose was to provide care to “indigent pioneers and those
depending on them.” In addition to being a charter member of the
Ladies Union Aid Society and the Pioneer Ladies Aid Society, she
chartered the Ladies Relief Society and helped open a home for aging
women.
The Ladies Relief Society founded a day
nursery, kindergarten, and free medical dispensary as well as a free
clothing and supply distribution center by the end of the 1880s. By
1889, the society supported 2,600 individuals. Byers also ran a
working home and orphanage for boys. But despite her involvement in
the growth of a benevolent civilization, Libby Byers never aspired to
be a symbol of civic development.
Overshadowed by the business
enterprises and successes of her husband, Libby Byers was a pioneer
in her own right. Her contributions to the development of charitable
organizations in the ravages of early Denver are arguably as
significant as the political and professional accomplishments of her
husband.
During the construction of the State
Capitol dome in 1899, a committee took charge of identifying
individuals significant enough to the history of Denver to honor with
murals. William Byers was identified as the father of journalism in
the city, for his establishment of the Rocky Mountain News.
The Ladies Relief Society nominated Mrs. Elizabeth Byers as the “wife of the editor of the first newspaper in Denver”; she declined the nomination saying her family was already represented there by her husband and that other women were equally deserving. Yet, she added …
“While I gladly accord my
husband every honor he is entitled to, and rejoice that he is so
honored and appreciated by his fellow-citizens, I remember that he
and I stood shoulder to shoulder through all the trials and hardships
of pioneer life, and I feel that I ought not stand wholly in the
light of reflected glory.”
Elizabeth “Libby” Minerva Sumner
Byers died at age 85 in San Diego, California, on January 6, 1920.
John "Jack" Sumner
John Colton Sumner
John “Jack” (“Captain
Jack”) Colton Sumner was born May 16, 1840, in Newtown, Fountain County,
Indiana. In this entry I will refer to him as "Jack" because from my investigation, most used that moniker for John during his lifetime.
By the time Jack was five, his family had
settled in Iowa – then the new American frontier. He was one of eight siblings who grew up on a farm in Muscatine
County, Iowa, along the Cedar and Mississippi rivers. John Colton.
John became an enthusiastic reader but was not interested in farming.
As it turned out, Jack Sumner was born
under a “wandering star.” Award-winning author, Don Lago says the
Sumner family story is “a quintessential story of the American
frontier, a story of moving on in search of adventure and opportunity
(both good and bad), a story of family bonds that repeatedly
stretched to keep up with the American Dream.”
Lago relates the early westward
movement of the Sumners to Iowa ...
“It (the move) was probably to
follow Lucas (Robert Lucas, the grandfather of Jack Sumner) that the
Sumner family moved to Iowa a few years after him. With his first
wife, Lucas had one daughter, Minerva. After his wife’s death,
Lucas married a woman named Friendly Sumner. Friendly had a youngest
brother named Horatio Nelson Sumner, and Minerva married him. Thus
Horatio Sumner was both the brother-inlaw and the son-in-law of
Governor Lucas. When Horatio and Minerva moved to Iowa, Horatio was
following his sister and Minerva was following her father ...
“They settled in the town of
West Liberty, which was only 15 miles from the state Capital of Iowa
City, where the Lucas family home, Plum Grove, is preserved today as
an Iowa State Historic Site ...
“There was probably another
reason why Horatio and Minerva Sumner moved to Iowa. Horatio had
gotten into deep financial and legal trouble back in Indiana. The
Sumners had left Ohio for Indiana around 1835, and this too may have
been encouraged by some financial misdeeds. Financial misdeeds became
a continuing theme of Sumner family history; decades later, Jack
(John Colton) Sumner would commit the same misdeed as his father, and
thus precipitate a family crisis.”
It became an annual event for the
Tippecanoe County court to issue a summons for Horatio Sumner to
appear, but he was long gone, and only in 1847 did the court declare
Sumner’s land forfeit. Into this turmoil Jack Sumner was born.
One Sumner family source says that the
Sumner family didn’t meet the Byers family until they were in Iowa.
Chauncey Thomas, who would marry Jack Sumner’s youngest sister
Flora and whose father worked with William Byers at his Denver
newspaper, said that shortly after Horatio Sumner settled in West
Liberty in 1841, “a covered wagon pulled up at his gate. The
occupant asked about the roads ahead and about land to settle, and
Horatio told him there were no good roads ahead and no bridges and he
might as well settle on the good land right next door to Horatio.”
And he did.
Mr. Byers, had a ten year old son named
William, and Horatio had a seven year old daughter named Elizabeth,
and thirteen years later they got married. Thus, Jack Sumner grew up
next door to William Byers, and it was Byers who would now pull the
Sumner family further west. Byers became a surveyor and worked his
way to Oregon and California. As we know, after his marriage Byers
settled in Omaha, serving in the first Nebraska state legislature.
When Byers heard the call of Colorado, he bought some wagons and
horses, one of which was named “Jack” in honor of Jack Sumner.
Jack Sumner’s brothers Ed and Robert would drive the teams to
Colorado.
Robert expressed doubt that Byers could
succeed with the paper. Lago reports Robert's doubts …
“He (Byers) will wish he had of had
nothing to do with it. My opinion is it will not pay, it will be a
fizzle because half of the best papers in the states have failed with
four times as many subscribers as he will be able to raise in the
mining region.”
Jack Sumner was feeling left out of a
great adventure; even his younger brother Charlie had gone with Ed
and Robert to Omaha, although Charlie would stay there for school.
Two weeks earlier, Charlie had written home about their arrival in
Omaha, how the view from the Missouri River bluff was “the finest
view that we ever saw before in our lives.”
Charlie went to work for Byers, riding
newspapers to the mountain towns for $30 a week. This must have
finally proven too much for Jack Sumner, for now he too headed west.
He arranged to meet up with his brother Ed, who was working as a
clerk for Byers, for a trapping expedition.
However, it is not exactly known where
Jack was on his first western adventure. Yet back in 1861, at the age
of 21, Jack Sumner was already living a mountain man’s life,
dealing with trapping and Indians. We can guess that Jack Sumner soon
found his way to Denver in the wake of a family tragedy. After only a
month of hauling newspapers into the mountains, Charlie was stricken
with Mountain Fever. A doctor gave him a prescription for quinine,
but by mistake he got a bottle of morphine, and Charlie, with his
great affection towards Jack, became violently sick and died
Then, at the age of 22, Jack answered
the call of duty from his country and enlisted in E Company, 32nd
Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment serving with the unit until the
war’s end in 1865. During the Civil War, Jack became a corporal and
sharpshooter in the 32nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry, fighting for the
Union at Vicksburg and Nashville.
When fighting in the Battle of Pleasant
Hill in 1864, both of Sumner's legs were broken and both of his hips
were dislocated by an exploding shell, and a shell fragment hit his
head. Although he recovered, he was left with recurrent headaches.
Lago relates how Elizabeth Byers
managed to get Jack to Colorado …
“William and Elizabeth Byers
went back to Iowa at the end of 1865, and Elizabeth and her children
stayed until spring. It was then that she took charge of getting Jack
out to Colorado. It is a likely sign of Jack’s continuing
precarious health that Elizabeth purchased an ambulance and team of
horses to carry him across Iowa to Omaha. Elizabeth drew upon Byers’
old connections with the Union Pacific Railroad, which was based in
Omaha, and arranged for a special train to carry just their family
out to Fort Kearney, the end of the line at that moment.
“At Fort Kearney, they joined a
wagon train heavy with supplies bound for Montana, and after a
hundred miles they broke off and headed for Denver on their own.
There were plenty of Indian troubles on the plains that spring, so
Elizabeth was quite aware of the risk they were taking, but this was
her seventh trek across the plains, so she also had the confidence of
a tough pioneer woman.”
John Wesley Powell met Jack Sumner a
year later. At that time, Powell was meeting a man who embodied the
toughness and experience of an entire family of important Colorado
pioneers.
Yet, unfortunately, shortly before
1880, Jack Sumner signed a note worth a considerable amount of money
to a man named “Martin.” Later, Jack would claim that his old
trapper friend had forged his name to this note, but the court issued
its judgment against Sumner. To make the proverbial long story short,
the whole ordeal that followed was a mess in which Minerva Sumner
died, and her husband became executor of the estate, and Byers needed
Jack's signature to sell their lots, and Jack wondered if Martin
could lay claim to the estate, on and on. Finally Byers threatened to
sue Jack Sumner to force the court to annul the Catch-22 “on
grounds of error or misinterest.”
The whole ordeal must have left bad
feelings, for Jack Sumner would not return to Denver and visit his
siblings for fifteen years.
"Men On Boats" -- play about the exploration
Jack, The Celebrated Guide
When he was 26, Jack established a trading post consisting of a
two-room log cabin overlooking what was then called the “Grand
River” and is now the Colorado River. There, he catered to trappers
and Ute people.
Jack had served as a guide for Bayard
Taylor’s adventure through Colorado that became Taylor's 1867 book,
Colorado: A Summer Trip. When Bayard Taylor toured Colorado,
he was a veteran travel writer; in the previous twenty years he had
visited western Europe, central Africa, California, Egypt, Asia
Minor, China, Japan, and Russia. Taylor considered himself a poet and
translator.
The next year, Jack would meet then
little-known Illinois Professor John Wesley Powell while traveling
down the Colorado. Powell enlisted him to participate in the
exploration of the Grand Canyon. And Jack served as guide on the
expedition.
Powell purchased four modified,
round-bottomed Whitehall rowboats for the expedition. The three
"freight boats" – the “Maid of the Cañon,” the
“Kitty Clyde's Sister,” and the “No Name” – were identical
in design: twenty-one feet long and four feet wide, built of sturdy
but heavy oak, with a decked-over bulkhead at each end for storage
space. The fourth boat, the “Emma Dean,” was smaller and lighter,
only sixteen feet long and built of pine. This was Powell's personal
boat, and was rigged with a strap that Powell could clutch with his
left hand to keep his balance while standing on deck. Each boat would
be rowed by two oarsmen, with only Powell and Oramel Howland, the
expedition's official mapmaker, excused from rowing duties.
All of the expedition members had
considerable wilderness knowledge, and seven were veterans of the
Civil War, all of whom had fought for the Union. None of them,
however, had any significant whitewater experience on the rivers of
the West. Only four of the men were paid for their participation;
three at a wage of $25 per man per month for making maps and using
scientific instruments, and Billy Hawkins at $1.50 per day for his
services as camp cook.
So, in 1869, In 1869, when Sumner was 29 years old, the expedition to
the Grand Canyon took place. Getting underway at 1 p.m. on May 24.
The expedition party consisted of a total of ten men, traveling along
the river in four wooden boats. Sumner kept a daily journal of the
historic trip.
On June 8, as the expedition was paddling along the Green River in
the Lodore Canyon, an accident occurred. The “No Name” hit a
series of rocks in a rapid and was destroyed, losing food supplies
and scientific instruments. No one was injured; however. in July, a
Nebraska newspaper printed an erroneous story that the entire
expedition had been drowned, with Sumner the sole survivor.
From the wreck, only two barometers and
a keg of whiskey were recovered. With good reason the men later named
this place "Disaster Falls."
Jack Sumner wrote this dramatic account
of the near disaster in his journal …
“June
8th. – We had proceeded about half a mile when the scouting boat
came to a place where we could see nothing but spray and foam. She
was pulled ashore on the east side and the freight boats instantly
signaled to land with us. The Maid and Kitty's Sister did so but the
No Name being too far out in the current and having shipped a
quantity of water in the rapid above, could not be landed, though her
crew did their best in trying to pull ashore at the head of the
rapid, she struck a rock and swung into the waves sideways and
instantly swamped.
“Her
crew held to her while she drifted down with the speed of the wind;
went perhaps 200 yards, when she struck another rock that stove her
bow in; swung around again and drifted toward a small island in the
middle of the river; here was a chance for her crew, though a very
slim one.
“Goodman
made a spring and disappeared ; Howland followed next, and made the
best leap I ever saw made by a two-legged animal, and landed in water
where he could touch the rocks on the bottom; a few vigorous strokes
carried him safe to the island. Seneca was the last rat to leave the
sinking ship, and made the leap for life barely in time; had he
stayed aboard another second we would have lost as good and true a
man as can be found in any place.
“Our
attention was now turned to Goodman, whose head we could see bobbing
up and down in a way that might have provoked a hearty laugh had he
been in a safe place. Howland got a pole that happened to be handy,
reached one end to him and hauled him on the isle. Had they drifted
thirty feet further down nothing could have saved them, as the river
was turned into a perfect hell of waters that nothing could enter and
live. The boat drifted into it and was instantly smashed to pieces.
“In
half a second there was nothing but a dense foam, with a cloud of
spray above it, to mark the spot. The small boat was then unloaded
and let down with ropes opposite the wrecked men on the island. The
trapper crossed over and brought them safely to shore to the east
side. She was then let down about a half a mile further, where we
could see part of the stern cuddy of the wrecked boat on a rocky
shoal in the middle of the river. Two of the boys proposed to take
the small boat over and see how much of the lost notes could be
recovered. The Professor looked ruefully across the foaming river,
but forbade the attempt. All hands returned to the head of the
rapids, feeling glad enough that there were no lives lost, a little
sore at the loss of the boat and cargo of 2,000 pounds of provisions
and ammunition, all the personal outfit of the crew, three rifles,
one revolver, all the maps and most of the notes and many of the
instruments.”
Of the recovered whiskey, Powell later
wrote …
"… they had taken it on
board unknown to me, and I am glad they did, for they think it does
them good – as they are drenched every day by the melted snow that
runs down this river from the summit of the Rocky Mountains – and
that is a positive good itself."
Here
are a few memorable entries from Jack Sumner's journal …
“June
5th. — This morning we were all awakened by the wild birds singing
in the old tree above our heads. The sweet songs of birds, the
fragrant odor of wild roses, the camp was in Little Hole which is cut
by Little Davenport Creek … Low, sweet rippling of the ever
murmuring river at sunrise in the wilderness, made everything as
lovely as a poet's dream. I was just wandering into paradise; could
see the dim shadow of the dark-eyed houris, when I was startled by
the cry, 'Roll out; bulls in the corral; chain up the gaps' – our
usual call to breakfast. The hour is vanished, and I rolled out to
fried fish and hot coffee. The Professor and Dunn climbed the hill
south of camp, two miles from the river – height, 2200 feet;
Howland spent the day dressing up his maps; Bradley, Seneca and Hall
crossed to eastside and measured off a geological section. The
remainder of the party spent the day as best suited them. Measured
the old tree; circumference, 5 feet from the ground, 23/ 2 feet.”
“June
27th. — Off again at seven, down a river that cannot be surpassed
for wild beauty of scenery, sweeping in great curves through
magnificent groves of cottonwood. It has an average width of two
hundred yards and depth enough to float a New Orleans packet. Our
easy stroke of eight miles an hour conveys us just fast enough to
enjoy the scenery, as the view changes with kaleidoscopic rapidity.
Made sixty three miles today, and camped on the west side, at the
mouth of a small, dirty creek. Killed eight wild geese on the way ...
"'Ashley,
1825' – mark scratched evidently by some trapper's knife; all
aboard, and off we go down the river; beautiful river, that increases
its speed as we leave the fall, till it gets a perfect rapid all the
way, but clear of sunken rocks; so we run through the waves at
express speed; made seventeen miles through Red Stone canyon in less
than an hour running time, the boats bounding through the waves like
a school of porpoise. The Emma being very light is tossed about in a
way that threatens to shake her to pieces, and is nearly as hard to
ride as a Mexican pony. We plunge along singing, yelling, like
drunken sailors, all feeling that such rides do not come every day.
It was like sparking a black-eyed girl — just dangerous enough to
be exciting.”
Frank Goodman left the expedition on
July 6 during the resupply at the Uinta River Indian Agency, claiming
he’d had more than enough adventure. He walked away and lived for
some years with the Paiutes of eastern Utah.
On August 28, another mishap occurred,
that would haunt Sumner for the rest of his life. As the rapids were
becoming increasingly difficult to navigate and food rations were
running out, Dunn and the brothers, Oramel and Seneca Howland,
decided to leave the expedition, climb the canyon, and walk to a
Mormon settlement.
Powell writes of the decision in his
journal …
“August 28 – At last daylight
comes, 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 with the party, failing in which, he decides to
go on with his brother.”
They hiked out of the canyon and
historians still dispute their fate. Some claim they were never seen
again. It is often proposed that they were killed by local Shivwits
Indians in a case of mistaken identity. Another story suggests that
they were executed by Mormons who mistook them for "spies"
and hostile Federal agents. Jack Sumner was deeply upset that he had
not dissuaded them from leaving the expedition and striking out on
their own.
Of the ten men that started out from
Green River Station, six completed the entire journey. On August 30,
Powell and the five others reached safety at the Mormon settlement of
St. Thomas near the mouth of the Virgin River.
After the Expedition
Jack Sumner had trouble getting enough money to travel home to settle
in Grand Junction, Colorado. After arriving, he supported himself as
a trapper and prospector, but accumulated debts that eventually made
it difficult for him and his siblings to inherit the family farm.
Jack would return to Iowa in 1870 and
in 1873 me married Alcinda Jane Norris. They would return to the
Colorado frontier and remain on the frontier until the American
frontier no longer excited. His wife divorced him in 1884 because of
his heavy drinking, only to remarry him eighteen months later.
Most of Jack’s life after the running
the Canyon was spent on the rivers and in the hills looking for gold
and other minerals. In 1890, Jack and his partner found gold in
Utah’s Henry Mountains.
Jack Sumner became a lost man in the
modern world of technological and legal complexities. Sumner was
forgotten, while John Wesley Powell, who became a Washington
bureaucrat, remained a hero of the frontier myth. Sumner felt that a
promise to him had been broken, and he attached that sense of
betrayal wholly upon Powell.
Sumner and Powell became estranged.
Powell rapidly became famous and celebrated, while Sumner found
himself with little money or recognition. Sumner resented what he saw
as insufficient compensation and credit for the success of the trip,
and he believed that Powell exaggerated his own contributions to the
expedition while failing to publicly acknowledge Sumner and other
members of the crew. Sumner continued to agonize over the killing of
the three men from the expedition.
When Powell died in 1902, Sumner sent a letter to The Denver Post,
criticizing what he felt were mistakes made by Powell during the trip
and Powell's dishonesty in subsequent accounts of what happened.
Wallace Stegner has written that many of the accusations in the
letter were inaccurate.
In May 1902, Sumner traveled back to
the Grand Canyon, along the Green River. He was in a terrible state
of despondency. American historian and author, John Ross, attributes
Sumner's state to his guilt over the deaths of the three men, while
Don Lago attributes it primarily to his unhappiness about his
overshadowing by Powell. Hanson later wrote Sumner was experiencing
“a time of supposed temporay insanity.”
Sumner survived his depression, but
died broke and alone five years later. John “Jack” Colton Sumner
died on July 5, 1907, in Vernal, Uintah County, Utah. He is buried
next to his mother, father, younger brother, and his youngest sister
in the Sumner family plot at Riverside Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
Sources
AJames M. Alton. (1994). John Wesley
Powell. Boise State University.
Jacklyn
Backhaus. “Men on Boats.” Play.
Edward Dolnick. (2002).Down the
Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and
Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon. United States of America:
Harper Perennial.
Willam Culp Darrah; Chamberlin, Ralph V.; Kelly, Charles (2009).The
Exploration of the Colorado River in 1869 and 1871–1872 (Summary).
University of Utah Press.
Verne
Huser, ed. (2005). "The Lost Journal of John Colton
Sumner". River Reflections: A Collection of River
Writings. University of New Mexico Press.
Don Lago. (2004). "The Westering
Star of Jack Sumner" (PDF). The Ol' Pioneer: The Quarterly
Magazine of the Grand Canyon Historical Society. 15 (2).
Don Lago. (2017). The Madness of
Jack Sumner. The Powell Expedition: New Discoveries About John
Wesley Powell's 1869 River Journey. University of Nevada Press.
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1 comment:
Great article, really wonderful information. Can you tell me the reference where you found the information about Byers family living on the farm next door to Elizabeth's family in Iowa? Thanks! Julie
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