Monumental Surveyors Surveyors in Monumental Carvings, And Surveyors Working on Them ©2013 Donald L. Teter

Presented by Don Teter

A native of West Virginia, Don Teter graduated from Davis and Elkins College in 1973 with a B.A. in History and Political Science. In 1977, he published Goin’ Up Gandy, a History of the Dry Fork Region of Randolph and Tucker Counties, West Virginia which has recently been reprinted in a Second Edition. He has done considerable local history research and writing, and has been a consultant and surveying contractor for several years for the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation and for Historic Beverly Preservation. His other history-themed seminar presentations include Drawing Fire; Surveying and Mapmaking in the American Civil War. Don is a past-President of the West Virginia Society of Professional Surveyors, and was Editor of the quarterly West Virginia Surveyor for ten years. He served for ten years as a member of the Board of the national Surveyors Historical Society, and is an Assistant Professor of Surveying at Fairmont State University.

George Washington surveying on Lord Fairfax’s Statue of George Washington the surveyor, lands; From Old Times in the Colonies, Charles Winchester, Virginia Carleton Coffin(New York, Harper & Brothers, 1880)

Four Surveyors and One Other Guy

Rushmore By Curt Sumner, ©2006

Surveyors like to talk about Now some may ask you to recount Three men, who they adore Who is that other man Three of those whose faces Why is he, up on the Mount Are carved on Mount Rushmore With our surveying friends

We like to tell the stories of What did he do, that was so great Their exploits, bold and wise That honored spot to fill Three surveyors on the Mount Among other things, he led the charge With some other guy To capture San Juan Hill

One led his country to freedom Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln His fame stretched far and wide Their eyes look toward the sky Another sent out Lewis and Clark Sitting there on Mount Rushmore Across the Great Divide Beside that other guy

One led his country, through a war But he revered those hardy men To preserve it, as a nation With the compass and the chain He made sure all men were free Who mapped the boundaries of the land Proclaimed their emancipation From the mountains to the plain

Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln He knew of George, and Tom, and Abe Perched there, way up high And Boone, the surveyor, too Sitting there on Mount Rushmore He’d often talk, of how they were brave Beside that other guy He had respect for what we do He’s with Washington, Jefferson, and Washington left a legacy Lincoln With maps of his creation Now you know, just like I Jefferson left a footprint Though he was never just like us The plan for a new nation Teddy, was a really good guy

Lincoln learned to survey land Yeah, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln To lay out towns and roads Perched there, way up high And through the help of his good friends Sitting there on Mount Rushmore Into politics he strode With another pretty good guy

Monumental Surveyors

I. Surveyors in monumental carvings – These men merit our attention because they became prominent enough to eventually be featured in the best known of the monumental carvings, Mount Rushmore.

George Washington (2/22/1732-12/14/1799)

Surveying education

Washington made notes on the mathematics and theory of surveying in his schoolbooks at the age of thirteen, and during the summer of 1747 at the age of fifteen began to seriously prepare to be a professional surveyor. Apparently under the tutelage of an experienced surveyor, likely a surveyor or assistant surveyor in one of the Northern Neck counties around George’s home at Ferry Farm, near Fredericksburg, he received extensive theoretical and field instruction in surveying. The lessons appear to have been based at least in part on John Love’s Geodaesia; or, The Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land Made Easie. (first published in England in 1688, with a thirteenth edition being published in 1796). “to teach surveying as it was practiced in mid- eighteenth-century Virginia, the instructor variously selected, abstracted, altered, and supplemented the lessons in Geodaesia.” Philander D. Chase, A Stake in the West: George Washington as Backcountry Surveyor and Landholder, George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, Edited by Warren R. Hofstra (Madison, Wisconsin, Madison House, 1998); pp. 162-63.

Surveying Lessons, “How to take an Inaccesfible distance at two Stations …” From George Washington’s Student Copy Book (Library of Congress) Included in the estate of George’s father Augustine, who died in 1743, were a curcumferentor (plain surveying compass) and a surveyor’s chain, and these may have been the instruments George learned with. He “soon became adept in the art of traverse surveying”, and the lessons in his surviving school notebooks include problems “determining the length of a line across an inaccessible area such as a creek or marsh, plotting an entire field from one or two stations,

3 of 58 Monumental Surveyors locating a place on a map by triangulation, surveying an irregular shoreline with a series of offsets, and dividing tracts in various complex ways.” Chase, pp. 164-65. According to Chase, by the winter of 1747-48, George Washington made three surveys of fields at Mount Vernon, his half-brother Lawrence’s estate. It has now been determined that his first survey was apparently at his birthplace, Pope’s Creek Plantation on the south bank of the Potomac River in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

George Washington’s first survey, October 1, 1747; 22 acres, 3 roods, 19 perches From George Washington’s Student Copy Book

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Survey of Lawrence Washington’s Turnip Field, Feb. 27, 1748 From George Washington’s Student Copy Book

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Surveying apprenticeship

Washington’s training was completed in spring, 1748, with an apprenticeship under Prince William County Surveyor, James Genn. Genn was laying off large tracts along the South Branch of the Potomac in the Fairfax lands. March 11, 1748, George and 24 year old George William Fairfax, the son of William Fairfax, set out for the Virginia backcountry. After meeting Genn at George Neville’s ordinary in present Fauquier County, they went across the Blue Ridge to the Shenandoah Valley. The surveys were drawn up and submitted to the proprietor’s office by Genn, but Washington kept a small notebook with an unofficial record of the bearings and distances of the lines he helped run. It is clear from the format of his notes that Washington was learning how to draw up and submit surveys to the proprietor, apparently in anticipation of doing future work for the Fairfaxes. In late March, they began eight days of work along the South Branch, and on the fourth one of the twenty lots surveyed, ranging from 238 acres to 680 acres, George noted “This Lot Survey’d myself.” Chase, p. 167.

Professional Surveying Career

A novice would usually have begun his career as an assistant county surveyor, but George apparently remained inactive professionally from April, 1748, until July 20, 1749, when the seventeen year old presented the justices a commission appointing him County Surveyor of newly formed Culpeper County. He was undoubtedly aided in getting such a position by the influence of the Fairfaxes. County Surveyors’ commissions were issued by the president and masters of the College of William and Mary, and “it has often been assumed that he studied at the college or stood an examination by its faculty. In truth he did neither. The college had been empowered to appoint county surveyors by its 1693 charter principally to provide it with a source of revenue, for the school was authorized to collect one-sixth of all surveyor’s fees in return for its commissions. In practice the college encountered great difficulties in obtaining its share of the fees, and in making appointments the school’s authorities regularly deferred to the wishes of powerful men within the colony.” July 22, 1749, Washington made his first professional survey of 400 acres on Flat Run in eastern Culpeper County, near today’s present Brandy Station. He is not known to have made any other surveys in Culpeper County, doing most of his work during the next 3 ¼ years in Frederick County, which then included all of the Northern Neck west of the Blue Ridge. There was not much unsettled land in Culpeper County, which was formed from the existing Orange County. It was easier to make money surveying the still ungranted lands on the Shenandoah and Cacapon rivers. Until August, 1750, his surveys in Frederick County had the initials S.C.C. (Surveyor of Culpeper County) after his signature, since only those having commissions as County Surveyor, Assistant County Surveyor, or Special Surveyor could legally make public surveys. Henry Lee became Culpeper County surveyor on November 3, 1750. It is unclear if Washington resigned because the office was not profitable, or was replaced for neglecting Culpeper County. It is uncertain if his work after that was as one of several assistants to Frederick County Surveyor James Wood, or as a special private surveyor to Lord Fairfax, but he continued to survey on the frontier until the fall of 1753. All of his known surveys in this period were for grants in Lord Fairfax’s proprietary. Chase, pp. 170-172.

Washington’s first set of warrants from the proprietary’s office sent him to the upper part of Cacapon River known as Lost River, where he started work on November 1, 1749. In spite of starting about two week later than would have been considered ideal, in eleven days he ran fifteen surveys, ranging from 330 to a little over 400 acres. Many of them joined each other, so one line would be useful for two surveys. Although surveyors often used locals as chainmen, John Lonem worked as his head chainman on about half of George’s surveys, since Lonem’s “accuracy and speed with a chain

6 of 58 Monumental Surveyors apparently justified taking him frequently from survey to survey.” The closing line of each survey was apparently calculated rather than run on the ground. George returned to the Cacapon Valley in the spring of 1750, beginning work on March 30. In a little over four weeks, he made 49 surveys, mostly on the Cacapon and its tributaries: Lost River, North River, David’s Run, and Trout Run; but some were on the Little Cacapon or on the Potomac near the mouths of Cacapon and Little Cacapon. Seven times he made three surveys in a day, and on one day he did four. During the last half of August, 1750, he ran 12 surveys in the Shenandoah Valley near what is now Charles Town, West Virginia. Seven of them were for his half brother Lawrence Washington (on or near Flowing Springs Run, Evitts Run, and Bullskin Run) and one at the head of Flowing Springs Run was made for his half-brother Augustine. The grants for all of the August, 1750, surveys were made by Lord Fairfax between October 13 and November 1, “an unusually short time after surveying, (which) suggests that the claimants were in a hurry to make good their titles, perhaps to forestall rivals.” George’s field book for 1749-1750 shows that several of those surveys were laid off in large tracts that were later divided on paper for the grants. George’s youngest brother Charles later inherited some of the land, including the site of Charles Town, from Lawrence, and Charles settled there during the Revolution. Chase, pp. 173-175, p. 191.

In the fall of 1750, George surveyed for almost seven weeks in the Shenandoah Valley, making 30 surveys between Craig Run near Berryville and Flowing Springs Run near Charles Town. Two of those surveys he made for himself. On November 24, 1750, about five miles west of Charles Town, he surveyed the 453 acre Dutch George’s tract near the head of Evitts Run, which he had bought from Thomas Rutherford. On November 30 and December 3, he surveyed 456 acres on the South Fork of Bullskin Run, about five miles southwest of Charles Town near today’s Summit Point, West Virginia. He had bought that tract from James McCraken. At about the same time he surveyed about 93 acres of unclaimed land adjoining the McCraken tract, and his grant from Lord Fairfax was for 550 acres including both tracts. At the age of 18, George owned 1,003 acres in the Shenandoah Valley. He surveyed another 760 acres of unclaimed land for himself on April 9, 1751, near the head of the South Fork of Bullskin Run, a little south of the McCraken tract, with Fairfax’s grant to George for that tract being made nearly two years later on March 17, 1752. Between March 18 and April 9, 1751, he ran twenty-seven surveys on Bullskin Run and other nearby tributaries of the Shenandoah. From April 12 to April 27 he made twenty-eight surveys in sixteen days on the Cacapon and Little Cacapon Rivers, then on April 30 and May 1 he surveyed on Long Marsh and Cattail runs in the Shenandoah Valley. In a little over six weeks in the spring of 1751, he made fifty-seven surveys. He didn’t do any surveying in the fall of 1751, having gone to Barbados in the West Indies with his terminally ill brother Lawrence. On February 26, 1752, he surveyed 861 acres adjoining Fredericksburg for his brother-in-law Fielding Lewis. His field book for 1752 has apparently been lost, but he worked for several days in mid-March in the Shenandoah Valley, and later in March and in April he worked in the Cacapon Valley. In March, 1752, George Johnston sold Washington 552 acres that George had surveyed for him on August 28, 1750. That tract joined the McCraken tract George bought in 1750 and a 760 acre tract he surveyed for a grant in 1751. Those tracts combined gave young George, at the age of twenty, 1,862 contiguous acres on the South Fork of Bullskin Creek, with his total holdings in the lower Shenandoah Valley being 2,315 acres. In comparison, his brother Lawrence’s Mount Vernon estate contained 2,298 acres in 1752. Chase, pp. 175-177, p. 191.

The money for the land purchases had come from his surveying fees. He apparently made about 400 pounds during his surveying career of a little over three years. Very few men in the colonies at that time made more than 100 pounds a year.

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In the fall of 1752, he apparently made only a 239 acre survey near his own land on the South Fork of Bullskin, then stopped surveying for profit, and on November 6 of that year he began the first stint of his varied military career, eleven days after his last professional survey. Chase, pp. 177-179.

According to Edward J. Redmond, Cartographic Reference Specialist with the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, George Washington made 199 surveys during his professional career. (speaking during a seminar at the Surveyors Rendezvous in September, 2007.)

Survey of 225 acres for John Lindsey, Nov. 17, 1750, near Berryville, Virginia (George Washington Atlas, [Washington, D.C., George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1932] Plate 20.)

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Survey of 168 acres for Enoch Enoch, Apr. 24, 1751, near Paw Paw, (West) Virginia (George Washington Atlas, Plate 21).

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Surveying Activities During the Rest of George’s Life

Washington did not completely give up surveying after his professional career ended. During the 1754 Fort Necessity campaign, he lamented the loss of “a very valuable, and uncommon Circumferentor calculated not only for Superficial Measure, but for taking of Altitudes …”, which he had taken along to help lay out encampments and fortifications. According to Philander D. Chase: “If Washington’s poorly conceived and executed works at Fort Necessity are any indication, his abilities in the military use of surveying instruments was inferior to his civilian employment of them, not a surprising conclusion since military engineering was a more exact science than frontier surveying. Washington apparently never attained much proficiency in the science of military engineering, for during the Revolutionary War he relied on experienced American and foreign engineers. His familiarity with surveying, nevertheless, gave him an advantage over many other officers in planning fortifications and consulting with engineers.” Chase, p. 180.

Washington continued to use his surveying talents during his years as a planter. He repeatedly surveyed the Mount Vernon boundaries in attempts to settle disputes, and often laid off fields and tenements or surveyed new land purchases. In November 1799, he and another surveyor spent three days on Difficult Run in northern Fairfax County running lines, and it was only his death five weeks later that finally ended his surveying work. Chase, pp. 180-181.

It has been said that George Washington’s experience as a surveyor laid the foundations for much of his approach to other tasks. As biographer Douglas Southall Freeman said: “Every task was performed as if it were a land survey – step by step, with the closest possible approach to absolute precision.” He continued to acquire western lands, receiving grants in 1753 from Lord Fairfax for two lots in Winchester and 240 acres on the Potomac River, about twelve miles up the river from today’s Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. He patented another 183 acres near his Bullskin Run lands in 1760, and bought 571 acres on Craig Run, southeast of Berryville, in December, 1774. Between 1768 and 1784, he was granted or bought from other grantees 33,085 acres on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, 4,691 ½ acres in southwestern Pennsylvania, and a half interest in 6,071 acres on the Mohawk River in New York. He bought 5,000 acres on the Rough River in western Kentucky from Light-Horse Harry Lee in 1788, and in 1780 he used military land warrants purchased from other veterans to claim 3,051 acres on the little Miami River near Cincinnati. His holdings in the west totaled about 52,000 acres by the time he was 58 years old. He managed to make money by renting out the Shenandoah Valley lands, but made very little on his holdings further to the west. He wrote in 1794 that his experience had taught him “that landed property at a distance from the Proprietor, is attended with more plague than profit.” Chase, pp. 181-182.

“If he was often discomfited by defects in his formal education, Washington took pride in his ability to read a tract of land with his practiced surveyor’s eye as expertly as a Latin scholar perusing a page of Cicero or Tacitus.” Chase, p. 184.

Another Viewpoint

Excerpted from Guest Editorial: A George Washington Survey John L. Failla, PLS, Professional Surveyor Magazine, May 2007

F. Scott Fitzgerald writes, "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." George Washington was a hero. Yet I find no tragedy or flaws of character in Washington's life, unless you consider his desire for social standing, marriage without issue, lust for money and land, exaggerations, and basic human greed. Initially, my research about Washington was directed to finding why one of Washington's original surveys is an identical replica of a survey performed for the George Carter estate in the late 1740s by a Virginia Crown Surveyor

10 of 58 Monumental Surveyors named George Hume. Researching George Washington over the past four years, however, has led to questions concerning his younger years as a surveyor that seem unanswerable. The difference between this article, which deals with those written facts and figures about Washington while he was a surveyor in the Northern Neck of Virginia, and the thousands of published volumes on George Washington is that Washington's surveys dealt with numbers, so there's no room for conjecture or supposition. The idea that Washington was able to ride a horse at break-neck speed for seven hours straight cannot be verified, and whether Washington were able to throw a stone over Natural Bridge in Virginia higher than 215 feet is also unwarrantable. Survey numbers, however, cannot be erased, changed, or embellished with time. As I looked deeply into Washington's surveys and their computations, I found many errors that reveal an elementary skill and talent in the field of mathematics. These errors and omissions are not constant with surveyors of today nor should they have been consistent with surveyors of yesteryear. Washington's ability to survey several tracts of land in a given day exceeding a thousand acres is beyond the realm of possibility for surveyors today with modern equipment, let alone the antiquated compass and two-pole chain (33 foot length) of that period. Washington's legal descriptions and the drawing of the plats for each surveyed tract would seem to take longer than the field survey itself. The drawing or plat is secondary to the primary correctness of the field work from which the computations for closure and acreage are derived. The reader will also note that Washington's method for computing acreage was by breaking down his field survey into triangles. This method is the most elementary and simplest course to find acreage by computing the area of each triangle. If the triangle wasn't a right triangle, Washington seems to struggle with results, suggesting a basic deficiency in his ability to accurately compute for closure and area. Most surveyors at that time were employing the DMD method. Computing surveyed boundaries for accuracy, closure, and acreage today should have been no different than in Washington's time of employment. Math hasn't changed; the only change is the equipment in gathering and processing that same information. It's easily extrapolated from Washington's diaries, survey computations, and other memoirs that his knack in the profession of surveying was somewhat average; however, we should be thankful for that fact because had he been a better surveyor he'd not have been the leader of this country's revolution and been known as the Father of His Country.

Schooling or Connections? It is quite apparent in my research (which will be shown) that Washington may have had limited talent or schooling in many of his endeavors, starting without the aid of a mentor in surveying to leaving that profession and entering the military as an officer without an hour of military drill. What appears to have catapulted Washington to the degree of honor, respect, and admiration, for which he is now known and renowned, was his knowledge that success and title were based on whom you knew. The more things change the more things stay the same. George Washington's appointment in 1749 as the Crown Surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia was a minor stepping stone through life that he used as a precursor for the integrity, wealth, and social standing he needed and so much desired. According to The College Of William And Mary, "Culpeper County 20 July 1749: George Washington, gent. produced a commission from the President and Masters of William and Mary College, appointing him Surveyor of this County, which was read, and thereupon he took the usual oaths to His Majesty's person and government, and took and subscribed the abjuration oath and test, and then took the oath of surveyor according to law." Washington's original printed (commission) certificate was destroyed in a fire at the college in 1859. Any evidence that George Washington stepped foot in the halls of William and Mary is nonexistent. Where Washington ever tested for the Crown Surveyorship of Culpeper County is nonexistent. Where Washington ever posted a bond or compensated The College of William and Mary the one-sixth stipend, which was required and stipulated before the appointment, cannot be found. A letter dated May 6, 1752 from Governor Dinwiddie to Thomas Lord Fairfax addressed Washington's failure to comply… no answer was given nor were any monies forwarded. How did Washington secure a Crown Surveyorship in July of 1749, without examination or experience, and why did he spend only two and one half years in one the most lucrative positions the colonies had to offer? Washington's elevation to Crown Surveyor, without experience, seems no different than that of his handed-to military rank of adjutant before he reached the age of 21. The rank of adjutancy was likely based on Washington believing he should inherit his brother Lawrence's rank after his death. Washington was given the rank of adjutant on November 6, 1752 at a pay of 100 pounds per year. In one of Washington's more profitable months, as a crown surveyor in the Northern Neck area, he was compensated 140 pounds. And, in a letter to another friend, "a Dubbleloon is my constant gain every day that the weather will permit my going out, and sometimes six pistols" (at that time six pistols amounted to between 4 and 6 pounds). On April 2, 1750 Washington surveyed four separate tracts equaling 1,085 acres and the following day surveyed two tracts totaling 880 acres. I believe that many other days Washington surveyed tracts of land that we, current surveyors with modern equipment, couldn't complete because there wouldn't be enough light in the day. Even though this was most likely an exceptional month (April 1750) in the number of surveys Washington performed and the

11 of 58 Monumental Surveyors compensation attached thereto, why then would he place himself in the dangerous task of military duty, primarily the French and Indian war, at a pay scale of about 1/10 that of a surveyor?

The George Carter Estate Thomas, the sixth Lord Fairfax, and the family of Robert "King" Carter were frequently the only two names needed to tip a hat in Washington's direction. George Carter was the 15th child of Robert "King" Carter. Washington was appointed as part of the second set of administrators for the George Carter (deceased) Estate in 1766. The Carter family was, and most likely could still be considered, the blue blood of blue bloods that the colony of Virginia was privileged to have within their grasp. If America ever had a king it would have been Robert "King" Carter. On any given Sunday the parishioners of Christ's Church would await the family's arrival in their gold gilded carriage pulled by six white horses; the congregation would then follow behind the family and be seated after the Carter family was in place. Robert "King" Carter died the year George Washington was born. … George Carter was born into wealth at the Robert "King" Carter plantation and died relatively early at 24. He expired in Middle Temple (London) England in 1742. His will was written on January 4, 1741 and specifically, as outlined in Henings Vol. 5 Chap. 43, bequeaths all his inherited land to his brother John Carter or his latter heirs. John Carter died shortly after his brother George, which left the George Carter Estate in the name of his nephew Charles Carter. The trustees or administrators, appointed by an act of the Virginia Assembly in 1746, were: Charles Carter, Peter Hedgeman, Thomas Turner, Benjamin Robinson, George Braxton, and William Waller. Any two of the six trustees could act in the conveyance of all, or any part, of the George Carter Estate. It appears that within two to three years after George Carter's death, Hume was commissioned to survey part of his estate. It also appears that Hume very possibly employed George Washington as one of his assistants in the 1748 survey of the George Carter property. In November 1766 the original six trustees resigned or were forced to surrender their position from the Estate for, most likely, lack of enthusiasm or health-related reasons, as only a portion came from their exercise in sales or leases within the 7,323 acre tract. A new set of trustees or administrators were then introduced by the General Assembly of Virginia (Hening, 8:215): George Washington, Fielding Lewis (Washington's brother-in-law), and Robert Burwell. They were to do what the original six administrators couldn't: sell the remaining lands of the George Carter Estate.

The Hume Survey The main tract of land that I scrutinized is a parcel consisting of approximately 7,323 acres, which was surveyed by George Hume between 1746 and 1748. The location, all situated within Frederick County at the time, was approximately three and one-half miles by four miles and located south and east of Winchester, Virginia, with Boyce, Virginia, being near the most northeasterly boundary corner. The northeasterly boundary line, platted as North 55 and one-half degrees West and 1,016 poles, runs from just east of Boyce, on what was Highway No. 50 and now referred to as Highway 726, northwesterly along the highway to just before the Opequon Creek. The Opequon Creek, which is now the Frederick/Clarke County line, temporarily meandered the northwesterly boundary line, platted as South 34 and one-half degrees West and 1,170 poles to what was then referred to as "Armel" and still called-out today as "Carter's Line." The southerly line ran then southeasterly, platted as Southeast (no bearing) 480 poles, to an angle point just south and west of White Post, then dog-legged left for an additional platted 544 poles and a platted bearing of South 60 degrees East. About half the distance on this course is along a road named "Carter's Line." The final segment then proceeded to the point of beginning and scribed as North 34 and one-half degrees East and 1150 poles. This little corner of Virginia is what I consider America's cradle of democracy where many important colonists walked, from Washington to Daniel Morgan, the Fairfaxes, Carters, and Lord Fairfax himself. The date of Hume's survey is uncertain; however, biographers indicate that George Hume spelled his name "Home" from his arrival in the colonies in 1721 until around 1746 to 1747. His part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, where he and his father were sentenced to death, could be why the spelling changed to Hume after a period of lost or disguised time. The original, undated, survey is signed "Ghome." George Washington also surveyed this same tract around 1766, when Washington's survey reflects the acreage to be 8,365. Washington's undated and unsigned survey is captioned atop: "Geo. Carter Esq. Land on Opeckon, 8365 acres." Washington most likely added the acreage wrong as simple addition and/or computations would reflect his acreage too much by about 1,000 acres; however, credence is given and reference is made to this total sum (8,365) by previous legal descriptions written if one were to divide this particular "King" Carter tract of 50,212 acres by six, giving each heir within a few acres of 8,365. This 7,323 acre tract was evidently surveyed and separated for George Carter's share of a 50,212 acre tract, which was just one of the patriarch, Robert "King" Carter's, land holdings. At the time of Robert "King" Carter's death he had amassed approximately 330,000 acres, which, in area, would have represented around six percent of Thomas "the Sixth" Lord Fairfax, The Lord Proprietor's holdings. The Fairfax grant contained about 5,500,000 acres which represents about 22% of the entire state of Virginia or nearly all of the state of Maryland.

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Washington's Account So why is George Washington's survey plat of the George Carter Estate, that's housed in The Pennsylvania Historical Society's "Gratz Collection" and is considered one of their prized possessions, an identical replica of the original George Hume survey completed years earlier? The Pennsylvania Historical Society has Washington's survey dated around 1753. It is more likely that George Washington's replicated survey is from the middle 1760s. Washington's personal accounting register, in his own hand and dated November 1767 states: "Estate of Geo. Carter Esq. dec. To my expenses in going to and attending the sale of his lands… 1 pound and five shillings. To pilots for shewing the lands… Fifteen shillings. To copying a deed from the proprietors office for his tract of 5088 acres… three shillings." This 5088-acre tract was one of two George Carter tracts that Washington acted as trustee. Continued on the same page as May of 1769: "To cash paid Col. Field. Lewis by Mr. Gibson 196 pounds and by myself in Nov. 1768, one hundred pounds… 296 pounds. To ditto paid myself….2 pounds and sixteen shillings. To my commission on the lands sold…14 pounds." According to a consensus written on fees for surveys during that period and also printed in The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series One, Page 16, is the following: "The Virginia Assembly established the fee of one pound, eleven shillings for a survey of a thousand acres or less in what was considered a 'frontier county' such as Frederick. A little more for tracts exceeding one thousand acres." Washington's fee, for a thousand acre survey, usually amounted to two pounds and three shillings. Within Washington's personal account register there seems to be enough room for his survey fee for the George Carter Estate exceeding the average amount he would have charged for a survey of 7,323 acres. Would Washington charge a fee for surveying the exact same piece as George Hume surveyed some 20 years earlier, a traced survey representing an original George Washington survey? No survey made by Washington regarding the George Carter Estate is extant other than Washington's 8,365-acre survey housed in the Pennsylvania Historical Society and Hume's original survey housed in my collection. A survey of Carter's other tract consisting of 5,088 acres is non-existent in Washington or Hume's inventory. It's evident that Washington paid himself only three shillings for copying the 5,088-acre tract per his own hand. Other entries indicate that he must have performed a larger service than just the copying of the 7,323 tract and paid himself and others rather handsomely for other unknown services as trustees for the Estate. Why were the huge fees paid to Fielding Lewis (Washington's brother-in-law) an integral part of the administration of the George Carter Estate? The actual documented line-by-line expenses regarding the George Carter Estate have yet to be located, which would definitively describe what Washington and his colleagues charged for their services. It's clear to me that Washington had to have a copy of Hume's original boundary survey, or for that matter possibly even Hume's original survey notes, as all of Washington's exterior, peripheral bearings and distances are identical to Hume's. Furthermore, the location of the Opequon Creek is shown in exact likeness on both surveys. Is it possible that Washington worked with Hume on the original Carter survey (circa 1748) and claimed it for his work after Hume's death in 1760? George Washington was a hero. Yet, although his strength, endurance, horsemanship, and his role as an Indian fighter in the French and Indian war can never be verified, what is known is that he was far from the best when it came to measuring land and computing whether it was for closure or acreage. His ability to survey more than a thousand acres per day, on more than one occasion, is reason enough to question his role as a surveyor and maybe more, as much is written and little is verified. About the Author John L. Failla has been a registered land surveyor in eight states since the early 1970s. His business is mainly with boundaries and boundary disputes, and he acts as an expert witness as well as a court-appointed third party in boundary problems. He periodically offers seminars through the State Bar of Georgia for attorneys in fulfilling continuing education hours. End Credits My hat goes off to the land surveying firm of Marsh & Legge of Winchester, Virginia. Registered land surveyors Doug Legge and Tom Stark took the time to GPS and compute the necessary information that shows the difference between the two found corners.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power. -- Robert Frost

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Thomas Jefferson (4/13/1743-7/4/1826)

Peter Jefferson, Surveyor, Thomas Jefferson’s Father

William Mayo (1684-1744) was Goochland County Surveyor from 1728-1744 and he “played an important role in training surveyors of the middle Piedmont and for establishing the prototype of the larger scale ranging frontier office.” Peter Jefferson, then a young speculator and land developer of the back country, who had moved to Goochland County for the express purpose of developing the region, became one of Mayo's new neighbors. Jefferson was a late arrival in Goochland and soon discovered that one of his neighbors was then recognized as the foremost Virginia surveyor of his time. Mayo and Jefferson soon became acquainted, a friendship developed, and Mayo invited Jefferson to accompany him on some of his later field trips. It is believed that Peter Jefferson learned the rudiments of surveying from Mayo. Silvio A. Bedini; With Compass and Chain; (Frederick, Maryland; Professional Surveyors Publishing Company, Inc., 2001); pp. 589-97

When Albemarle County was formed from Goochland in 1745, "Joshua Fry, Gentleman" became the first presiding justice of the county, justice of the court of chancery, as well as county surveyor. Most of the surveys were for small tracts of land, rarely consisting of more than 400 acres. During the ten years that Fry held the office of surveyor, 1,165 different tracts were surveyed. Of these Fry personally surveyed not more than 36, covering a total of 11,842 acres. The remainder of the surveys were made by his assistants, including Thomas Turpin, William Cabell and, from 1752, Peter Jefferson, who frequently accompanied Fry on expeditions that often kept them away from home for long periods. In 1745 Fry was also appointed county lieutenant, a position formerly designated Commander of the Plantations, and one of considerable honor and responsibility. In 1746, Fry was appointed one of three commissioners for the Crown to resolve a long-standing land dispute between Lord Fairfax and the Crown. Fairfax had been granted lands known as the Northern Neck Proprietary, lying between the headsprings of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. Before setting out for the headspring of the Potomac, the surveying party was to determine the "true" head of the Rappahannock, which was the cause of the problem. Although a survey had been made in 1736, a decree was not entered until April 1745, which adjudged the Conway, a branch of the Rapidan River, to be the true head. To end litigation, Governor Gooch and the Council ordered the back line to be surveyed by the three commissioners already named, and Lord Fairfax reappointed those who had served in 1736. The commissioners for the Crown deputized Peter Jefferson and young Robert Brooke as surveyors for the Crown, and Benjamin Winslow and Thomas Lewis as surveyors on behalf of Lord Fairfax. Using the map drawn in 1736, the surveying party proceeded at once to the headwaters of the Conway. They worked during the next seven weeks until the onslaught of winter forced them to abandon the field. The combination of a terrain that often proved to be impassable, and the variability of the weather made the work extremely difficult. Not the least of their problems was the frequent lack of food and water supplies. Several of their horses were also killed in accidents. The surveying party returned to continue their work when weather improved, and brought the survey to completion in February 1747. The total cost for provisions, horses and the hiring of woodsmen was slightly more than £309, of which approximately £42 was recovered from the sale of horses and utensils. The commissioners were each paid £250 "for their extraordinary Hazard Trouble and Charge in that difficult Service that few cared to adventure on and which they so carefully and exactly performed." Bedini; With Compass and Chain; pp. 599-600.

In the autumn of 1747, Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson undertook the continuation of the Virginia and North Carolina boundary, a line that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Peter's Creek. Because settlement in both colonies had spilled over beyond that point, it was imperative to have

14 of 58 Monumental Surveyors the line extended. The Virginia governor appointed Fry and Jefferson as surveyors for Virginia and two others were appointed for North Carolina. After meeting in October 1747, they ran the line another 90 miles westward, continuing due west to Steep Rock Creek on the latitude of 36° 30'. The expedition proved to be the most grueling of their lives. They frequently had to defend themselves against wild animals, and at night they sought uneasy shelter in hollow trees. After their provisions had been exhausted, they were forced to kill one of the mules to feed the men. When they finally finished and returned home, Fry and Jefferson’s report was very favorably received by the Council, and each was awarded a bonus of £300 sterling in addition to expenses. Bedini, With Compass and Chain; p. 600.

Title block and the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, French edition of the 1755 Fry-Jefferson Map of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson’s Surveying Education

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Because of his father’s work, Thomas Jefferson was familiar with surveying from his youth. Peter Jefferson’s work with Joshua Fry “required long absences from home and family, and the exciting tales of adventure and danger that they told on their return intrigued Jefferson,” who learned surveying from his father and inherited his father’s instruments. Thomas Jefferson was interested in many kinds of scientific instruments, and purchased various surveying instruments during his lifetime. Silvio Bedini, Jefferson and Science; ( Monticello, Virginia; Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2002), pp. 17-18.

One of Thomas Jefferson’s Theodolites, Courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello

Thomas Jefferson’s compass, courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello

Thomas Jefferson’s Professional Surveying Career

On June 6,1773, thirty year old Thomas Jefferson was appointed Albemarle County Surveyor. There is no evidence that he actually made any surveys while in office, with any field work apparently delegated to an assistant, and no surveys signed by him were filed. He allowed the appointment to lapse in the spring of 1774. He most likely was aware that most of the best land in the county had already been taken up, and the position did not hold the potential for substantial profit. He may also have been reluctant to commit himself to the long absences from home which were required of surveyors of that era.

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Bedini, With Compass and Chain, p. 312; and Bedini, Jefferson and Science, pp. 18-19.

At age 28, Jefferson had married 23 year old widow Martha Wayles Skelton, on January 1, 1772. She was said to have been a hazel-eyed beauty with auburn hair and a trim figure, and they appear to have been completely devoted to each other until her death on September 6, 1782. His recent marriage and his election to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769 may have contributed to his decision not to pursue surveying as a career. DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Fifth Edition). ( New York, Gramercy Books, 2001), pp. 37-53.

Jefferson did make another sojourn into professional surveying in 1777, when he apparently surveyed the entire boundary of Albemarle County, to establish the area to be cut out for newly created Fluvanna County. His map of the survey defined the proposed division between the old and new counties. Bedini, Jefferson and Science, pp. 19-20.

Other Surveying Activities and His Influence on the Profession

Like many who have dabbled in it during their early years, Thomas Jefferson could never really give up surveying. He made surveys of his own lands at Monticello and Poplar Forest, and did some surveying for his neighbors. Bedini, Jefferson and Science, p. 20.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition “On Jan. 18,1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress requesting $2,500 ‘for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the U.S.’ Though the amount was small, its approval marked the realization of Jefferson's long-sought dream of western exploration and launched one of the great heroic adventures in American history - the voyage of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery.” Gaye Wilson; Jefferson and the West: A Chronology; Monticello Newsletter, Vo.. 11, No. 2, Winter 2001 (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Inc.)

The American Prime Meridian “In 1803 Nicholas King completed a major survey map of the city of Washington, and a year later he was commissioned by the War Department to produce a map of the state of Ohio, another of part of the Tombigbee River in Alabama, and later of a large scale map to be based upon William Dunbar's journal of his survey of 1804, titled ‘Map of the Washita River in Louisiana from the Hot Springs, to the Confluence of the Red River with the Misissippi....’ King also produced a series of other maps for the War Department that he compiled from manuscript notes and rough field maps made by members of exploring parties that had been sent out by President Jefferson to explore the vast regions of the Mississippi River following the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. Among the most important of these was a blank map that had been commissioned in November 1801 by special instruction from Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. The purpose of this map was to provide a base for producing a composite map of the West, compiled from contemporary maps that had been made by French and English explorers and cartographers. It was to calculate the area and compile a map of the ‘Lands of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio’ that was: . . . to extend from 88° to 126° West longitude from Greenwich and from 30° to 55° north latitude, which will give us the whole course of the Mississippi and the whole coast of the Pacific ocean within the same latitudes together with a sufficient space to the North to include all the head waters of the Port Nelson River. This map was designed to be used by the Department of the Treasury and the Congress. It became a valuable resource of information for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who studied it before embarking upon their expedition. King experienced considerable difficulty in determining the physical location of several physical features for this map, and it is quite possible that it was as a consequence of this problem that President Jefferson conceived of the establishment of a national meridian of the United States. Until that time, when mapping a new region, it was the practice of cartographers to select an important permanent landmark within the region to be mapped, such as a prominent building, to serve as the prime meridian from which latitude and longitude for the region would be determined. In view of Jefferson's plan

17 of 58 Monumental Surveyors to have the western lands explored by means of several separate Corps of Discovery, like the Lewis and Clark expedition, there would be need [of] a single national meridian upon which all of the resulting individual maps would be based. Accordingly, three years later, in 1804, President Jefferson decided to establish such a national prime meridian in the national capital. He assigned the task to establish such a point to the surveyor Isaac Briggs, and asked King to assist him.” Bedini, With Compass and Chain, pp. 577-78.

“Briggs determined that the ‘true meridian line’ was to pass in a north-south direction through the center of the President’s House, the line to be perpetuated to the point of intersection with a line due west that had been drawn from the center of the Capitol building. The point of intersection was to be identified by means of a permanent monument in an area south of the President’s House that provided a magnificent view of the Potomac River. The meridian marker became identified as the ‘Jefferson Stone’ and was supplemented by two other markers. The nearby ‘Capitol Stone’ indicated the intersection of the north-south line though the President’s House with the east-west line through the southern end of the Capitol building. The ‘Meridian Stone’ had been erected on the meridian line north of the President’s House on Peter’s Hill, now Meridian Park. Upon completion of the work, Briggs prepared a written detailed account of the survey, which was submitted to President Jefferson and subsequently filed. No further action was taken by the president to establish a national prime meridian, presumably due to precedence of other priorities in government.” Bedini, Jefferson and Science, p. 69.

The Survey of the Coast “A governmental-sponsored coastal survey was first proposed by Thomas Jefferson and supported by members of the American Philosophical Society among others. This resulted in an act of Congress in 1807 which authorized a systematic survey to be conducted of all American coasts and to be administered by the Department of the Treasury.” Bedini, With Compass and Chain, p. 149.

“After signing the bill, President Jefferson moved immediately to solicit ideas for the coastal survey. As usual, he turned to men of science. Most were friends and colleagues who had provided counsel on previous explorations, including the Lewis and Clark expedition. He received advice on the survey along with recommendations that he consider employing Ferdinand R. Hassler, a recent immigrant from Switzerland who was gifted and well-trained in mathematics and surveying. Hassler's proposal for a trigonometric survey was ultimately selected. However, his plan required very sophisticated scientific instruments that were not available in the United States, and the start of work was delayed. Jefferson, in fact, had already left the presidency and retired to Monticello before Hassler left for England in 1811 to oversee the design and manufacture of these needed instruments. Before he could return, prolonged tension between the United States and England escalated into declared war. Hassler remained in England throughout the War of 1812 and did not return until after peace was negotiated in 1815. It took another year and additional appropriations by Congress before the Survey of the Coast finally got under way. Though the survey was delayed into his retirement, Jefferson kept up with its progress. In 1816 he assured Virginia's governor, Wilson C. Nicholas, that the work of the national government would soon supply an accurate chart of the coast of Virginia. He knew of Hassler's return from England and seemed especially proud that the United States now possessed a set of scientific instruments, ‘as never before crossed the Atlantic, and is scarcely possessed by any nation on the continent of Europe.’ The Survey of the Coast was born of the spirit and the necessities of 1807 and grew as the nation grew. With added responsibilities, it became the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878, and in 1965 it became a component of the Environmental Sciences Services Administration. Then in 1970, it was reorganized as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). No doubt it would have been a point of pride with Jefferson to have played a part in the establishment of what is considered today the oldest scientific agency in the U.S. government.” Gaye Wilson; Jefferson Authorizes the Survey of the Coast; Monticello Newsletter, Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 2007 (Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.)

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Measuring the Peaks of Otter

Illustration from: David Hunter Strother. Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon and His Cousins. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1857. Barrett Library.

“In 1833, the Washington National Monument Association had begun enlisting subscribers to pay the cost of erecting a tribute to the nation's founding father. Congress approved the site, and construction started in 1848. It was to be a giant obelisk, 555 feet tall, designed by Robert Mills. Each state was invited to supply a rock to be incorporated into the structure. In 1851, Paschal Buford, 60, led the effort of selecting and delivering a chunk of granite to be Virginia's contribution. He and his men selected a large boulder that, according to legend, had come crashing down from Sharp Top in the 1820's after youths had dislodged it from Buzzard's Roost. Buford's team split the giant boulder into manageable pieces, and oxen brought them to the courthouse yard at Liberty in August. One chunk went to Buford's home, Locust Level, one was to go for a state monument in Richmond, and one was to stay at the courthouse for a planned "Battle of Pt. Pleasant" monument. The Washington Monument stone was engraved with words composed by the niece of one of the ‘inscription committee’ members, Joseph Wilson: From the summit of Otter, Virginia's loftiest peak, To crown the monument To Virginia's noble son. It then traveled on train and boat, eventually being installed on the monument's twelfth stair landing.” Peter Viemeister, The Peaks of Otter; Life and Times; (Bedford, Virginia; Hamilton’s, 1992); pp. 81-82.

“Sharp Top mountain, once called the South Peak of Otter, is the most dramatic of the Peaks of Otter because of its pointed summit. However, with a height of 3,875 feet, it is a junior partner to the massive, blunted Flat Top which is 4,001 feet tall. Jefferson, standing four miles from the Peaks on low grounds of the Otter river, used a theodolite sighting instrument in 1815 to find that ‘the flat N. peak’ was higher than ‘the sharp or S. peak.’ Viemeister, p. 15.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about the Peaks of Otter in his Notes on the State of Virginia, written in 1781-82, and published in 1787:

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“The mountains of the Blue ridge, and of these the Peaks of Otter, are thought to be of a greater height, measured from their base, than any others in our country, and perhaps in North America. From data, which may found a tolerable conjecture, we suppose the highest peak to be about 4000 feet perpendicular … “ Jefferson, Notes … , p. 20.

His insatiable curiosity led him in later life to try determining their elevation with more precision than his earlier speculations. Jefferson described his method of determining the heights of what was then thought to be Virginia’s highest mountain, in a letter to Alden Partridge dated January 2, 1816. He thanked Partridge for supplying a table of meteorological observations, and information on Colonel Williams’ data on the altitudes of the mountains of Virginia. Jefferson thanked Alden for providing an extract discussing the use of a barometer to determine elevations, then commented on the process and its accuracy relative to trigonometric measurements: “The precision of the calculations, and soundness of the principles on which they are founded furnish, I am satisfied, a great approximation towards truth, and raise that method of estimating heights to a considerable degree of rivalship with the trigonometrical. The last is not without some sources of inaccuracy, as you have truly stated. The admeasurement of the base is liable to errors which can be rendered insensible only by such degrees of care as have been exhibited by the Mathematicians who have been employed in measuring degrees on the surface of the earth. The measure of the angles, by the wonderful perfection to which the graduation of instruments has been brought by a Bird, a Ramsden, a Troughton removes nearly all distrust from that operation; and we may add that the effect of refraction, rarely worth notice in short distances, admits of correction by well established laws. These sources of error once reduced to be insensible, their geometrical employment is certainty itself. No two men can differ on a principle of trigonometry. Not so, as to the theories of Barometrical mensuration.” Jefferson goes on to discuss the different values for various increments of the measurements of the mercury in a barometer as theorized by Dr. Halley, Derham, Marota, Scheuchzer, Nettleton, Bouquer, DeLuc, and Sir Isaac Newton. Although Jefferson agrees that barometrical measurements can be useful, he concludes that: “ … the first character of a common measure of things being that of invariability, I can never suppose that a substance so heterogeneous and variable as the atmospheric fluid, changing daily and hourly it's weight and dimensions to the amount sometimes of one tenth of the whole, can be applied as a standard of measure to any thing with as much Mathematical exactness as a trigonometrical process. It is still however a resource of great value for these purposes, because it's use is so easy, in comparison with the other, and especially where the grounds are unfavorable for a base; and it's results are so near the truth as to answer all the common purposes of information. Indeed I should in all cases prefer the use of both, to warn us against gross error, and to put us, when that is suspected, on a repetition of our process.” Following that discussion, Thomas Jefferson went on to report his measurements of the Peaks of Otter: “When lately measuring trigonometrically the height of the peaks of Otter … I very much wished for a barometer, to try the height by that also. But it was too far and too hazardous to carry my own, and there was not one in that neighborhood. On the subject of that admeasurement, I must promise that my object was only to gratify a common curiosity as to the height of those mountains, which we deem our highest, and to furnish an à peu près, sufficient to satisfy us in a comparison of them with the other mountains of our own, or of other countries. I therefore neither provided such instruments, nor aimed at such extraordinary accuracy in the measures of my base, as abler operators would have employed in the more important object of measuring a degree, or of ascertaining the relative position of different places for astronomical or geographical purposes. My instrument was a theodolite by Ramsden, whose horisontal and vertical circles were of 3 1/2 I. radius it's graduation subdivided by Noniuses to 3. Admitting however by it's intervals, a further subdivision by the eye to a single minute, with two telescopes, the one fixed, the other moveable, and a Gunter's chain of 4. poles, accurately adjusted in it's length, and carefully attended on it's application to the base line. The Sharp, or Southern peak was first measured by a base of 2806.32 f. in the vertical plane of the axis of the mountain. A base then nearly parallel with the two mountains of 6589 f. was measured, and observations taken, at each end, of the altitudes and horizontal angles of each apex, and such other auxiliary observations made as to the stations, inclination of the base &c. as a good degree of correctness in the result would require. The ground of our bases was favorable, being an open plain of close grazed meadow, on both sides of the Otter river, declining so uniformly with the descent of the river as to give no other trouble than an observation of it's angle of

20 of 58 Monumental Surveyors inclination, in order to reduce the base to the plane of the horizon. From the summit of the sharp peak I took also the angle of altitude of the flat or Northern one above it, my other observations sufficing to give their distance from one another. The result was, the mean height of the Sharp peak above the surface of (?) or (?) 2946.5 f of the flat peak 3103.5 the distance between the two summits 9507.73 their rhumb N. 33°-50' E. The distance of the stations of observation from the points in the bases of the mountains vertically under their summits was, the shortest 19002.2 f. the longest 24523.3 f. These mountains are computed to be visible to 15. counties of the state, without the advantage of counter- elevations, and to several more with that advantage. I must add that I have gone over my calculations but once, and nothing is more possible than the mistake of a figure, now and then, in calculating so many triangles, which may occasion some variation in the result. I mean therefore, when I have leisure, to go again over the whole. The ridge of mountains of which Monticello is one, is generally low. There is one in it however, called Peter's mountain, considerably higher than the general ridge. This being within a dozen miles of me North-Eastwardly, I think, in the spring of the year, to measure it by both processes, which may serve as another trial of the Logarithmic theory. Should I do this you shall know the result. In the mean time accept assurances of my great respect and esteem.” From the archival collections of the Jefferson Library, courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.

Thomas Jefferson reports the difference in elevation between Sharp Top and Flat Top of the Peaks of Otter as being 157 feet, while Viemiester’s more modern information indicates a difference of 126 feet. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (Columbia University Press, 2007), indicated an elevation of 3875 for Sharp Top and 4004 for Flat Top, making the difference between the two 129 feet. The USGS topo maps indicate Sharp Top is at 3862 feet, and Flat Top is at 3994 feet, for a difference of 132 feet.

Jesse Ramsden Theodolite, purchased by Thomas Jefferson c. 1778; this is apparently the instrument Jefferson used in his 1815 observations at the Peaks of Otter; Photo courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello

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Surveying the University of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson began making plans for the establishment of the University of Virginia as early as 1779. When the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill establishing a state university in 1816, Jefferson was named chairman. From then until the end of his life much of his attention was focused on the new school. He designed the University, then became Rector: “a position that enabled him to supervise the construction, choose the faculty, select the contents of its library, and prescribe the courses of study. He became, in effect, the self-appointed architect of the university at every level. He not only chose the site on which it was to be built, but also prepared the deed for the land, and he personally laid out the grounds.” Bedini, Jefferson and Science, pp. 100-101.

Jefferson began surveying the site on July 18, 1817, using the Ramsden theodolite now in the possession of Monticello. He picked up locust shingles in Charlottesville to make survey stakes, then began to work. His crew consisted of his Monticello overseer, Edmund Bacon, and carpenter James Dinsmore, who were his rodmen and chainmen. On September 22, 2007, a sculpture commemorating this event (created by the Daub Firmin Hendrickson Sculpture Group, LLC) was dedicated on the University campus. The 9 foot high exquisitely detailed bronze sculpture depicts Jefferson, map in hand, with his Ramsden theodolite standing nearby. Rob Firmin, Thomas Jefferson’s Survey of the University of Virginia, Turning the Horizon, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2007 (National Museum of Surveying-Museum of Surveying of Lansing, Michigan)

Statue of Thomas Jefferson surveying the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business, UVA, Charlottesville, Virginia

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Abraham Lincoln (2/12/1809-4/15/1865)

Lincoln Surveyor statue, dedicated October 4, 2003, Lincoln’s New Salem State Historical Site, Illinois; photo from IPLSA website

Introduction to Surveying

In 1832, John Calhoun was County Surveyor of Sangamon County, Illinois, and was overwhelmed with work. After Abraham Lincoln had lost his bid for election to the state legislature, Calhoun offered him a position as one of his deputies. Lincoln was already a “country lawyer, rail splitter, grocery storekeeper in New Salem and local postmaster,” but was not making much money at any of those. Lincoln agreed to take the surveying job, so long as it did not involve political obligations or restrict his right to his own political opinions. Although he knew nothing of surveying, Abe set out to educate himself, using borrowed copies of Abel Flint’s A System of Geometry and Trigonometry with a Treatise on Surveying (Hartford, 1804) and Robert Gibson’s The Theory and Practice of Surveying (New York, 1814). He bought a used Rittenhouse brass vernier compass, a Jacob staff, and a well-worn 66 foot chain, and six weeks after being offered the position reported for work. Lincoln’s surveying equipment went through a succession of owners, eventually being acquired by the Lincoln Monument Association, which disbanded in 1895 and transferred them to the Illinois State Historical Society, and they are now displayed at Lincoln’s New Salem Park. Bedini, With Compass and Chain, pp. 704-705, 708.

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A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so; it gives a relish and facility for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. – A. Lincoln

Lincoln’s equipment on display at New Salem, photos from The Virtual Museum of Surveying

Surveying Work Abe Lincoln made numerous property surveys, and also was hired by the County Commissioners on occasion to lay out public roads. He generally made $3 a day, good money for the time, and more than he had made in any of his other occupations. He continued to operate his store, which eventually failed and left him $1100 in debt. He was sued by one of his creditors, and his belongings including his surveying equipment were sold at auction. Prosperous farmer James Short bought the horse and instruments for $120 and returned them to Lincoln, who paid off that debt gradually. He was always grateful to Short, and during his presidency he helped Short out of financial difficulties by commissioning him as an Indian agent. Bedini, With Compass and Chain, pp. 706-708.

Records have survived of numerous surveys made by Abraham Lincoln between 1834 and 1837, including private lands, public roads, and new towns. Adin Baber, A. Lincoln With Compass and Chain, annotated by Robert E. Church; (Rochester, Illinois; Illinois Professional Land Surveyors Association; 2002 [1967]).

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real loser – in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of becoming a good man. There will also be enough business. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife and put money in his pocket? -- A. Lincoln

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The Reason Shipley Survey, January 6, 1834; from A. Lincoln With Compass and Chain, p. 32; where it was used courtesy of the Lincoln Museum, Fort Wayne, IN.

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Survey of Huron, Illinois, May 21, 1836; from A. Lincoln With Compass and Chain, p. 112.

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The Watkin’s Mill Road survey, June 1-2, 1836; from A. Lincoln With Compass and Chain, p. 114.

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Theodore Roosevelt (10/27/1858-1/6/1919)

Why TR is on the Mountain at Rushmore

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum “liked Roosevelt and all that Roosevelt stood for.” Gutzon had been a worker for TR in the 1912 presidential campaign, when Roosevelt carried the banner of the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party in an unsuccessful contest against Woodrow Wilson. As Stamford, Connecticut, chairman of the party, Borglum stumped the state and made numerous speeches in support of Roosevelt. Borglum’s parents were Danish immigrants, and their son was fiercely proud to be an American. Rex Alan Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore; New York, Abbeville Press, 1985, pp. 46-47, 57.

It is likely that Gutzon Borglum was in agreement with the ideas on immigration expressed by Teddy Roosevelt, as found in TR’s writings: “More than a third of the people of the Northern States are of foreign birth or parentage. An immense number of them have become completely Americanized, and these stand on exactly the same plane as the descendants of any Puritan, Cavalier, or Knickerbocker among us, and do their full and honorable share of the nation’s work. But where immigrants or the sons of immigrants do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can get no good from it themselves.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, in Fourteen Volumes; (New York, P.F. Collier & Son, c. 1900 [1897, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]); American Ideals, Chapter Two, True Americanism; p. 44.

It is also very likely that Borglum was impressed with Teddy’s opinions about dealing with adversity: “It is sheer unmanliness and cowardice to shrink from the contest because at first there is failure, or because the work is difficult or repulsive. No man who is worth his salt has any right to abandon the effort to better our politics merely because he does not find it pleasant, merely because it entails associations which to him happen to be disagreeable. Let him keep right on, taking the buffets he gets good-humoredly, and repaying them with heartiness when the chance arises. Let him make up his mind that he will have to face the violent opposition of the spoils politician, and also, too often, the unfair and ungenerous criticism of those who ought to know better. Let him be careful not to show himself so thin-skinned as to mind either; let him fight his way forward, paying only so much regard to both as is necessary to enable him to win in spite of them. He may not, and indeed probably will not, accomplish nearly as much as he would like to, or as he thinks he ought to: but he will certainly accomplish something …” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals, Chap. Three, The Manly Virtues and Practical Politics; p. 60.

Other Presidents With Surveying and Engineering Connections

Ulysses Grant (4/27/1822-7/23/1885) The 18th president was actually named Hiram Ulysses Grant, but he didn’t want the initials H.U.G. on his trunk at West Point. His appointment mistakenly used the name Ulysses Simpson Grant, and he went with it. He was known thereafter to friends as Sam. His son Jesse Root Grant (1858-1934) was an engineer, who studied at Cornell University. In the 1890’s he was an early developer of Tia Juana, Mexico, as a gambling resort. President Grant’s grandson Ulysses S. Grant, III, (1881-1968) served in the engineering corps from 1903 until his retirement in 1945, reaching the rank of Major General. DeGregorio, William A., The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Fifth Edition). (New York, Gramercy Books, 2001), pp. 259-275.

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James A. Garfield (11/19/1831-9/19/1881) The 20th president, was shot July 2, 1881 by disappointed office-seeker Charles J. Guiteau, having only been in office since March 4, 1881. His son Abram Garfield (1872-1958) was an architect. He worked from offices in the James A. Garfield Building in Cleveland. He was Chairman of the Cleveland Planning Commission from 1929-1942 and was active in the American Institute of Architects. DeGregorio, pp. 293-304.

Benjamin Harrison (8/20/1833-3/13/1901) The 23d president. His son Russell Benjamin Harrison (1854-1936), graduated in 1877 from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked briefly for an Indianapolis gas company. He then became an assistant assayer at the U.S. Mint in New Orleans and assayer at Helena, Montana Territory. His many other jobs included being president of a streetcar company, an officer in the Spanish-American War, and a lawyer. DeGregorio, pp. 331-342.

Herbert Hoover (8/10 or 11/1874 – 10/20/1964) The 31st president, was an average student in almost everything but math and majored in geology in Stanford. In the summer between his freshman and sophomore years he worked as an assistant on the Geological Survey of Arkansas, mapping on the north side of the Ozarks, then spent the next two summers working for the U.S. Geological Survey in California and Nevada. Graduating with an A.B. in geology in May 1895, he became a mining engineer. At first he unsuccessfully looked for work as a surveyor, so he pushed gold ore carts 70 hours a week near Nevada City, California. He soon moved up and became a successful mining engineer, and worked in Australia and China, in zinc, gold, and coal mines. He became rich and formed his own engineering firm in 1908, and even helped find oil deposits in Russia. His son Herbert Hoover, Jr. (1903-1969) graduated from Stanford in 1925 and worked a few years as an aircraft engineer. Eventually he founded the United Geophysical Company in 1935 and developed new electronic instruments to search for oil. President Hoover’s son Allan Hoover (1907-1993) graduated from Stanford in 1931, then went into banking and ranching, but eventually also became a mining engineer. DeGregorio, pp. 463-477.

Jimmy Carter (10/1/1924- ) The 39th president, James Earl Carter, Jr., graduated from Annapolis in 1946 and served in the Navy until 1953. He was an electronics instructor, then an engineering officer aboard the nuclear sub Sea Wolf. Jimmy Carter’s son Donnell Jeffrey Carter (1952- ) studied city planning and urban geography at Georgia State, and graduated with honors from George Washington University with a degree in geography, specializing in computer cartography. He and a partner founded Computer Mapping Consultants in 1978. DeGregorio, pp. 617-631.

Ronald Reagan (2/6/1911-6/5/2004) The 40th president, completed his freshman year at Eureka College (in Illinois) in 1929, and was nearly broke. In his autobiography An American Life he recalled “I had a high school chum who worked as rodman for a local surveyor … When the local surveyor heard I was interested in the job, he not only gave it to me but offered to get me a college scholarship the following year.” During World War Two, Ronald Reagan’s work as an actor led to him narrating training films for pilots, using a mock up map of Tokyo to train them for bombing raids. John Palatiello, Executive Director of MAPPS, Tribute to Ronald Reagan, The American Surveyor, July/August, 2004, p. 13.

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II. Another man on another mountain – Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse: Native-American icon; Man, Myth and Mystery

Crazy Horse is honored by another carving just fifteen miles away from Mount Rushmore. Many of the details of his life are somewhat sketchy, including the date of his birth, reported by the Encyclopedia Britannica as being about 1842, but by PBS as being in 1849. Britannica reports his Indian name as Ta-sunko-witco, while PBS spells it Tashunca-uitco. Both sources agree that his death came in September 1877, when he was apparently bayoneted in a scuffle with soldiers trying to put him in a guardhouse. Crazy Horse reportedly participated at a young age in the massacre of Captain William J. Fetterman and his 80 troopers at Fort Phil Kearny in 1866 in the Wyoming Territory. He was involved in numerous other battles with the U.S. Army, including the victory over Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in June, 1876. Crazy Horse also was reported to have participated in an attack on a surveying party sent into the Black Hills by Custer in 1873. (See www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026801; and www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/craxyhorse.htm)

Crazy Horse was also known as Curly, His Horses Looking, or Our Strange Man, and was revered by his people for much more than his skill at warfare. Larry McMurtry reports Crazy Horse’s birth as being in 1840 or 1841, by the Belle Fourche River near Bear Butte, South Dakota, and says: “What Should be stressed at the outset is that Crazy Horse was loved and valued by his people as much for his charity as for his courage.” “For most of his life he not only avoided white people, he avoided people, spending many days alone on the prairies, dreaming, drifting, hunting.” Larry McMurtry, Crazy Horse (New York, Penguin, 1999), pp. 2, 4, 7, 15.

McMurtry also quotes historian George E. Hyde: “They depict Crazy Horse as a kind of being never seen on earth: a genius at war yet a lover of peace; a statesman who apparently never thought of the interest of any human being outside his own camp; a dreamer, a mystic, and a kind of Sioux Christ, who was betrayed in the end by his own disciples …” McMurtry, p. 3

During the early 1870’s, many Sioux were fighting the white man’s takeover of the Black Hills. Although the tribes were guaranteed in the Treaty of 1868 that “No white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the territory, or without the consent of the Indians to pass through the same,” this promise was widely ignored by 1869. Dee Brown relates that many young native men opposing the whites were drawn to the examples of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse “neither of whom had ever lived on a reservation or taken the white man’s handouts.” Dee Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee; An Indian History of the American West (1970, New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston), p. 278.

Larry McMurtry relates one version of an encounter between Crazy Horse and surveyors: “Though the financial panic of 1873 slowed the progress of the Northern Pacific somewhat, its surveyors were nonetheless pushing relentlessly west, well protected by a force that in the popular mind was commanded by George Armstrong Custer. In fact the commander was a modest officer named Stanley. It was while this large force proceeded along the Yellowstone, obviously now what was supposed to be Sioux country, that Crazy Horse encountered Custer for the first time. The Sioux and the Cheyenne caught Custer and his small detachment napping – literally, in the case of Custer himself – but the Sioux initially intended no big fight. They tried to run off the army’s horse herd, and when that plan was thwarted, tried a decoy maneuver … Custer didn’t go for it; but then the Cheyenne noticed Custer’s hair, … and remembered the massacre on the Washita … The Cheyennes attacked, but Custer drove them off. Custer then turned back, and the Indians disengaged. There was little loss of life.” McMurtry, pp. 76-77.

Crazy Horse’s attitude toward the outcomes when surveyors began to appear is hinted at in a quote attributed to him by Dee Brown:

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“One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.” Brown, p. 273.

Crazy Horse was reportedly taunted by a white trader before his death in 1877: “Asked what had become of his lands, he replied: ‘My lands are where my dead lie buried.’ “ The monument now being carved is supposed to represent the chief’s gesture while making that statement. Tony Perrottet, Crazy Horse Rides Again, Smithsonian, May 2006, p. 82.

Crazy Horse was captured (or allowed himself to be taken seeking refuge for the winter) in early September 1877. One of the Spotted Tail Agency policemen was Little Big Man, now working for the whites in spite of not too long before having been so opposed to them that he threatened to kill the first chief who talked of selling the Black Hills. On September 5, 1877, as related by Dee Brown: “As Crazy Horse walked between them, letting the soldier chief and Little Big Man lead him to wherever they were taking him, he must have tried to dream himself into the real world, to escape the darkness of the shadow world in which all was madness. They walked past a soldier with a bayoneted rifle on his shoulder, and then they were standing in the doorway of a building. The windows were barred with iron, and he could see men behind the bars with chains on their legs. It was a trap for an animal, and Crazy Horse lunged away like a trapped animal, with Little Big Man holding on to his arm. The scuffling went on for only a few seconds. Someone shouted a command, and then the soldier guard, Private William Gentles, thrust his bayonet deep into Crazy Horse's abdomen. Crazy Horse died that night, September 5, 1877, at the age of thirty-five.” Brown, p. 312.

Crazy Horse never allowed himself to be photographed. Amos Bad Heart Bull made this pictograph of his stabbing at Fort Robinson. Picture reproduced in Dee Brown, Bury My Heart … , p. 311, from The Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux (University of Nebraska Press, 1967)

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Other Documented Encounters between Surveyors and Native Americans

Written records of Crazy Horse’s thoughts are apparently scarce, but he would likely have shared the opinion held by earlier natives of colonial surveyors, as reported by historian J. Frederick Fausz: “Indians were very suspicious of English surveyors, and some even referred to a compass as a ‘land stealer.’ “Engaged in Enterprises Pregnant with Terror”: George Washington’s Formative Years Among the Indians; George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, Madison House, Madison, WI, 1998; p. 148, footnote 19.

Facts are scarce concerning the encounters between Crazy Horse and surveyors, but there are some records of difficulties between other native-Americans and surveyors, with a few related below.

In Bexar County, Texas, Assistant County Surveyor John James had an encounter: “In the spring of 1839, while surveying along the Frio River, he and his survey party were attacked by a band of Indians, and five of his party were killed. As a result of this unfortunate incident, subsequent survey parties were usually accompanied by two or three Texas Rangers whose sole function was to protect them from attack.” James B. Gillis, John James, Texas Land Surveyor, 1819 to 1877, The Texas Surveyor, March 2008.

Historian Stephen E. Ambrose discussed the dangers of surveying for the Transcontinental Railroad in the fall of 1865: “At Fort Kearney, on the south bank of the Platte, there were some four hundred troops in quarters, both infantry and cavalry. At this point four men from the surveyors’ party said they were damned if they would go on, for it was here that the Indian danger became acute and would remain so until the Rocky Mountains. Here too the party received its military escort, a sixty-man company of the Twelfth Missouri Cavalry … ‘The soldiers were very much dissatisfied at this action,’ [surveyor Arthur] Ferguson recorded, ‘… They said that they had enlisted for the war to fight rebels and not to go out into the western wilderness to fight Indians.’ But when the party set out again the following day, half the Twelfth Missouri stayed with the surveyors while the other half stayed with the main party on the river. … On May 18 [1867], Ferguson saw an Indian war party sweep by as it ‘pulled up one mile of Railroad stakes in sight of the party,’ stakes he had helped place. The Indians cantered away without loss. … Two days later … Sioux … hit a survey team, killing a soldier and a surveyor. … [Grenville] Dodge’s standing orders to ’every surveying corps, grading, bridging, and tie outfit was never to run when attacked.’ … On June 2, Ferguson recorded: ‘This morning, shortly after sunrise the camp was aroused by the cry of here they come! Here they come boys!’ He and his tent mates grabbed their rifles and rushed out, ‘and there we saw the Indians charging down upon us from the northern bluffs.’ The white men fired and the Indians pulled back, then retreated. ‘One of the engineers captured from the Indians a white woman’s scalp, which was quite green having been killed but a few days.’ … The Indian guerilla war continued. Two of Dodge’s surveyors, L.L. Hills in the mountains and Percy Browne west of the Rockies, were killed. They had been caught unaware. They should have been looking out for themselves, but there was something in the nature of these surveyors that made them careless of danger. Both men and their parties were entranced by the country around them. … On June 18, Hills wandered away from his party and was caught by a band of Arapahos. He was riddled with arrows. One of his young helpers, nineteen-year-old J.M. Eddy, rallied the men and drove off the Indians. … Hills had evidently ignored, or forgotten, Dodge’s orders, which were that ‘the chief of the party must absolutely command it, and at all times be ready to fight.’ Another was ‘the importance of never slacking their vigilance no matter where they were, never being off their guard.’ According to Dodge, those who followed his orders ‘generally took their parties through.’ A month after Hills’s death, Browne was looking for the Continental Divide, west of Nebraska, but he found that he was in a great basin five hundred feet lower than the surrounding country. He and his party set off across it in search of water flowing west. The Sioux caught them. A long skirmish followed. Browne was hit by a ball in the abdomen. He staggered a few hundred feet before falling. He begged his assistant to ‘Shoot me first,’ before riding off. But his men would not abandon him. They let the horses go, hoping the Sioux would follow. They did, and Browne’s men improvised a litter by

32 of 58 Monumental Surveyors lashing their carbines together. They trudged down a ridge. Browne never groaned or complained. A half- hour after reaching a stage station, he died. … Ferguson’s diary contains numerous references to their war parties.” Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863- 1869, (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000), pp. 141, 214-16, 264.

Native-Americans would have had little difficulty in making the connection between the appearance of surveyors and the eventual loss of their land. I remember once hearing Walt Robillard say to a seminar audience: “The accuracy of early surveys was sometimes in inverse proportion to the density of the native population.” By the very nature of what surveyors did on the frontier – whether staking the route for trans- Continental and other railroads or sectioning off the land for occupation by homesteaders – surveyors were destined to come into conflict with the aboriginal occupants of the land, who would see them as the vanguard of those who would usurp their territory.

Numerous conflicts are discussed in Indian Battles and Skirmishes on the American Frontier, 1790-1898 (introduction and appendix by Joseph P. Peters, New York, Argonaut Press, 1966). In his introduction (p. 6), Joseph Peters relates that: “During the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Government attempted to solve the Indian problem by moving the eastern tribes to the plains west of the 95th meridian, a land for the moment unwanted by the white men and virtually unknown to him, except for a handful of mountain men and military surveyors.”

Included in the work compiled by Peters was a document entitled Record Of Engagements With Hostile Indians Within The Military Division Of The Missouri From 1868 To 1882, credited to Lieutenant-General P.H. Sheridan, and compiled at the HQ of the Military Division of the Missouri “from official records.” Sheridan’s Record of Engagements was originally published in 1882 by the Government Printing Office. Although it was published over his name, the report was clearly compiled by one or more subordinates.

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Among the incidents related in Sheridan’s Record was a report from June 19, 1869, when: “… near Sheridan, Kans., a surveying party, escorted by a detachment of the Seventh Cavalry were attached; the escort had two men wounded, but repulsed the Indians with a loss of four killed and twelve wounded.” (p. 21)

On page 27 we find that on June 6, 1870: “… near Fort Selden, N.Mex., the chief engineer officer, District of New Mexico, whilst surveying near that post, was attacked and two mules captured. Troops from the post pursued the Indians, who, however, escaped.”

Sheridan’s Record (p. 34) says no widespread Indian war occurred in 1872, even though settlements were steadily advancing in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Dakota, pushing natives out of areas they had freely roamed only a few years earlier. According to the Record: “The Northern Pacific Railroad had reached the Missouri River about the close of the year, the actual surveys and locations for the roadway being made as far west as the mouth of the Powder River, two hundred miles beyond the Missouri. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway was extended as far west as Fort Dodge, Kans., in its progress up the valley of the Arkansas, while surveying parties for the Southern Pacific Railway were engaged in locating the line of that road in both directions from the vicinity of El Paso. For the protection of the surveyors and the construction parties upon all these lines, a considerable force of troops was necessary as escorts, and minor engagements between Indians and these small detachments were of repeated occurrence.”

Conflict continued through 1873: “During the year 1873, the depredations of raiding parties of Mexican thieves, Indians, and half-breeds in the vicinity of the Rio Grande continued, as did also the attacks by Indians upon the military posts and field escort detachments guarding the surveying and construction parties engaged upon the lines of railway. … So bold and frequent had been the Indian attacks upon the military posts and the escorts to working parties on the railroads, in the Department of Dakota, that an additional regiment of cavalry, the Seventh, was transferred to that department from the Military Division of the South, for the purpose of following and punishing these Indians if they continued their attacks. An expedition was organized under Col. D. S. Stanley, Twenty-second Infantry, and a supply depot established near Glendive Creek where it empties into the Yellowstone, the point at which it was expected the surveying parties of the Northern Pacific Railway would run their line across the river. The troops comprising the "Yellowstone expedition" left Forts Rice and A. Lincoln, about the middle of June, returning to their stations in September after accomplishing the purposes intended, having had several engagements with the hostiles during this period.” Sheridan’s Record, pp. 35-36.

Although he is not mentioned by name, this was apparently the campaign during which Crazy Horse was reputedly involved in an attack against surveyors. From mid-1873 through 1877, the soldiers reportedly engaged in innumerable raids, ambushes and other offensive actions against various native groups, with the Army’s record of overall success marred only by the unfortunate events which befell Custer’s men at Little Big Horn in late June, 1876. However, by the fall of 1877 the tactical and territorial advantages gained by the soldiers through increased use of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Kansas Pacific Railway, with the surveying long done and the tracks in operation, led to such success that many of the natives in the Black Hills and Yellowstone country had given up and come into the agencies. Still, scattered conflicts continued into the early 1880’s. Sheridan’s Record, pp. 36-102.

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III. What the Rushmore Presidents thought of each other.

Washington’s thoughts about Thomas Jefferson

George Washington’s opinions about Thomas Jefferson were discussed in a memorandum written by William Plumer on March 16, 1806. Plumer expressed respect for Jefferson, but also had reservations about his faults, but went on to say:

“Permit me to mention that no one circumstance tended so much to his elevation as the great confidence General Washington reposed in him. Washington did this with a full & perfect knowledge of him. They were both Virginians. His conduct during & after the Revolution was known to Washington. And although Jefferson was publicly opposed to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States yet Genl. Washington when called to administer the government gave to Mr. Jefferson the most important confidential office under him, that of Secretary of State. This office Mr. Jefferson held as long as he wished. Mr. Washington did not withdraw his confidence from him while in office. The approbation of Washington, under these circumstances, is honorable. I do not myself so implicitly yield to the opinion of Mr. Washington as some men do. Still I think his approbation is worthy of great notice. It renders popular, the man on whom it has been conferred, to a certain extent … “ John P. Kaminski; The Quotable Jefferson; (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2006); pp. 474-476.

Jefferson on Washington

Thomas Jefferson expressed respect for George Washington while Washington was living, as stated in a letter to William Branch Giles, December 31, 1795:

“[The President] errs as other men do, but errs with integrity.” Kaminski; p. 434.

Jefferson summarized his thoughts about the late President Washington in a letter to Walter Jones, January 2, 1814: “I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character it should be in terms like these. His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, tho' not so acute as that of a Newton, …; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, … but sure in conclusion. ... He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, … refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, … no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, & a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high toned; but reflection & resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever however it broke its bonds he was most tremendous in his wrath. … His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. … Al-tho' in the circle of his friends … he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy & correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. … On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, ... For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully thro' an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence, of conducting its councils thro' the birth of a government, new in its forms & principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example. ... I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that ‘verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.’ " Kaminski; pp. 434-438.

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Lincoln’s thoughts about his predecessors

Abe on George Washington

“We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth – long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on.” Alex Ayres, Editor; The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln; New York, Meridian Books, 1992; p. 191 (From a speech in Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842).

Abe on Thomas Jefferson

“All honor to Jefferson – to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and sagacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.” Ayres, pp. 106-107 (Letter to Henry Pierce and others, April 6, 1859).

Teddy’s opinions about the Surveyor Presidents

TR on George Washington “It is impossible to estimate too highly the devoted patriotism and statesmanship of the founders of our national life; and however high we rank Washington, I am confident that we err, if anything, in not ranking him high enough, for on the whole the world has never seen a man deserving to be placed above him …” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, in Fourteen Volumes (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, c. 1900 [1889, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]); The Winning of the West, Vol. Two, The War in the Northwest; Appendix C – To Chapter VI; p. 395.

“Without Washington we should probably never have won our independence of the British crown, and we should almost certainly have failed to become a great nation, remaining instead a cluster of jangling little communities, drifting toward the type of government prevalent in Spanish America.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, (New York, P.F. Collier & Son, c. 1900 [1897, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]); American Ideals, Chapter One, American Ideals; pp. 17-18.

TR on Thomas Jefferson “The anti-Federalist party was on the whole the party of weakness and disorder, the party that was clamorous and unruly, but ineffective in carrying out a sustained policy, whether of offence or of defence, in foreign affairs. The … Jeffersonian Republicans … were not dangerous foes to any foreign government which did not fear words. … But the Jeffersonians were separatists and States rights men. They believed in a government so weak as to be ineffective, and showed a folly literally astounding in their unwillingness to provide for the wars which they were ready to provoke. They resolutely refused to provide an army or a navy, or to give the Central Government the power necessary for waging war. They were quite right in their feeling of hostility to England, and one of the fundamental and fatal weaknesses of the Federalists was the Federalist willingness to submit to England’s aggressions without retaliation; but the Jeffersonians had no gift for government, and were singularly deficient in masterful statesmen of the kind imperatively needed by any nation which wishes to hold an honorable place among other nations. They showed their governmental inaptitude clearly enough later on when they came into power, for they at once stopped building the fleet which the Federalists had begun, and allowed the military forces of the nation to fall into utter disorganization, with, as a consequence, the shameful humiliations of the War of 1812. This war was in itself eminently necessary and proper, and was excellent in its results, but it was attended by incidents of shame and disgrace to America for which Jefferson and Madison and their political friends and supporters among the politicians and the people have never received a sufficiently severe condemnation.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chap. Two; pp. 228-30

“… on the vital question of the West, and its territorial expansion, the Jeffersonian party was, on the whole, emphatically right, and it opponents, the Federalists, emphatically wrong. The Jeffersonians

36 of 58 Monumental Surveyors believed in the acquisition of territory in the West, and the Federalists did not. The Jeffersonians believed that the Westerners should be allowed to govern themselves precisely as other citizens of the United States did, and should be given their full share in the management of national affairs. Too many Federalists failed to see that these positions were the only proper ones to take. In consequence, notwithstanding all their manifold shortcomings, the Jeffersonians, and not the Federalists, were those to whom the West owed most. … the Jeffersonians, with all their unwisdom and demagogy, were nevertheless the Western champions”. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chapter Three, The Men of the Western Waters, 1798-1802; pp. 251-3

“Jefferson … played in our political life a part of immense importance. But the country has never had statesmen less capable of upholding the honor and dignity of the nation, or even of preserving its material well-being, when menaced by foreign foes. … Jefferson was the least warlike of presidents, and he loved the French with a servile devotion. … the pressure of public opinion was too strong for Jefferson to think of resisting it. The South and the West were a unit in demanding that France should not be allowed to establish herself on the lower Mississippi. Jefferson was forced to tell his French friends that if their nation persisted in its purpose America would be obliged to marry itself to the navy and army of England. Even he could see that for the French to take Louisiana meant war with the United States sooner or later; and as above all things else he wished peace, he made every effort to secure the coveted territory by purchase.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chapter Four, The Purchase of Louisiana; And Burr’s Conspiracy, 1803-1807; pp. 306-7.

“Jefferson had led his party into power as the special champion of State rights and the special opponent of national sovereignty. He and they rendered a very great service to the nation by acquiring Louisiana; but it was at the cost of violating every precept which they had professed to hold dear, and of showing that their warfare on the Federalists had been waged on behalf of principles which they were obliged to confess were shams the moment they were put to the test. … These Jeffersonian Republicans did indeed by their performance give the lie to their past promise, and thereby emphasize the unworthiness of their conduct in years gone by; nevertheless, at this juncture they were right, which was far more important than being logical or consistent. … It proved that the Federalists were rightly distrusted by the West; and it proved that at this crisis the Jeffersonian Republicans, in spite of their follies, weaknesses, and crimes, were the safest guardians of the country, because they believed in its future, and strove to make it greater.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chapter Four, The Purchase of Louisiana; And Burr’s Conspiracy, 1803-1807; pp. 317-18.

“The [Lewis and Clark] expedition was planned by Jefferson himself … Jefferson was fond of science, and in appreciation of the desirability of non-remunerative scientific observation and investigation he stood honorably distinguished among the public men of the day. To him justly belongs the credit of originating this first exploring expedition ever undertaken by the United States Government.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chapter Five, The Explorers of the Far West, 1804-1807; p. 346.

TR on Lincoln “Without Lincoln we might perhaps have failed to keep the political unity we had won; and even if, as is possible, we had kept it, both the struggle by which it was kept and the results of this struggle would have been so different that the effect upon our national history could not have failed to be profound.” “…every American is richer by the heritage of the noble deeds and noble words of Washington and of Lincoln. Each of us who reads the Gettysburg speech or the second inaugural address of the greatest American of the nineteenth century, or who studies the long campaigns and lofty statesmanship of that other American who was even greater, can not but feel within him that lift toward things higher and nobler which can never be bestowed by the enjoyment of mere material prosperity.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, ( New York, P.F. Collier & Son, c. 1900 [1897, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]); American Ideals, Chapter One, American Ideals; p. 18.

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How TR Saw Himself

Teddy’s Thoughts About Surveyors “The hunters were the pioneers; but close behind them came another set of explorers quite as hardy and resolute. These were the surveyors. The men of chain and compass played a part in the exploration of the West scarcely inferior to that of the heroes of axe and rifle. Often, indeed, the parts were combined; Boone himself was a surveyor. Vast tracts of Western land were continually being allotted either to actual settlers or as bounties to soldiers who had served against the French and Indians. These had to be explored and mapped and as there was much risk as well as reward in the task, it naturally proved attractive to all adventurous young men who had some education, a good deal of ambition, and not too much fortune. A great number of young men of good families, like Washington and Clark, went into the business. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, ( New York, P.F. Collier & Son, c. 1902 [1889]); The Winning of the West, Volume One, The Spread of the English-Speaking Peoples; Chapter VI, Boone And the Long Hunters; And their Hunting in No-Man’s-Land, 1769-1774; pp. 180-191.

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IV. The Presidents and Native Americans

George Washington and Native Americans

George’s great-grandfather John Washington arrived in Westmoreland County in 1657, and “in the summer of 1675, Washington and fellow planters from both sides of the Potomac River brought their so-called Indian problem to an opportunistic and fatal conclusion.” He was a colonel in the Westmoreland County militia which was part of a 750 man force which besieged a fortress “occupied by friendly Susqeuhannock Indians along Maryland’s Piscataway Creek.” The Indians had long been friends of the English and were perplexed, but five unarmed chiefs who came out under flag of truce to parley were bound and murdered. John Washington was apparently involved in the decision to do so, and the Indians soon began to call him “Caunotaucarius” which is Iroquoian for “devourer of villages.” In 1754 in Western Pennsylvania, George Washington adopted this same name in his dealings with Indian allies in the conflicts with the French. “Engaged in Enterprises Pregnant with Terror: George Washington’s Formative Years Among the Indians”, by J. Frederick Fausz, in George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry; pp. 117-118, 128-129.

“John Washington's legacy of advancing frontiers by double-crossing Indian allies was magnified and expanded into national policy by his great-grandson. As commander in chief of the Continental army, George Washington finally achieved the broad powers and extensive forces necessary for his long-denied pursuit of Indian affairs. During the Revolutionary War, the Senecas and Mohawks—enraged that the Iroquois had never received the Ohio Country as promised by the 1758 Easton Treaty—supported the British against the colonists. In 1779 Washington ordered Maj. Gen. John Sullivan to attack the traditional Seneca homeland of his former comrade in arms, Tanacharison, and ‘lay waste all the settlements around ... that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed.’ ‘You will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of the settlements is effected,’ Washington instructed Sullivan. ‘Our future security will be in their inability to injure us ... and in the terror with which the severity of the chastizement they receive will inspire them.’ The emotional wounds of that devastating, scorched-earth campaign lasted long after the land had healed, as Chief Cornplanter personally explained to President Washington a decade later: ‘When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you Town Destroyer; and to this day when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers.’ Washington's experiences in the backcountry had taught him that ‘no troops in the universe can guard against the cunning and wiles of Indians’ as guerrilla fighters. But he also learned that by aggressively ‘carrying ... war into their country,’ a large invading army could neutralize even the strongest tribe, provided it had ‘malice enough’ to destroy crops, devastate villages, demoralize dependents, and deplete warrior populations in an exhausting war of attrition.” Fausz, pp. 136-38.

“… How unremarkable it was, how typically American it would turn out to be, that John Washington's descendant became Great Knife—America's highest-ranking and most revered Indian fighter. Only through the assistance of Indians was Washington able to see the Ohio Country, to survive his experiences there, to build a reputation as a military commander, … But a few years of joint Anglo-Indian campaigning could not erase two centuries of cultural prejudice, and every cruelty of combat, even if committed on Britain's behalf, solidified the English fear of ‘Savage Fury.’ Washington was proud of his frontier experiences and wrote that ‘few Persons ... have had better oppertunity's to become acquainted’ with the ‘Tempers . . . Customs and dispositions’ of Indians in the backcountry. But he also ‘acknowledge [d] my incompetency’ in Indian affairs, admitting in 1757 that ‘we are strangers to the only proper method of managing... them.’ … Washington spent his formative years ‘engaged in enterprises pregnant with terror’ and became much admired by his common countrymen for surviving so many close calls in his western adventures. But his early exposure to the expansive landscapes of a potential new empire only strengthened his resolve to secure it for his race and culture from temporary Indian allies, whom policymakers and profit motives would never allow to become permanent friends. Washington … attained later military power and political prominence by engaging in terrible and terroristic ‘chastizements’ against the Indians who threatened or at least inconvenienced his white constituents. ‘No man ever intended better,’ young Washington wrote in 1756, ‘nor studied the Interests of his Country with more affectionate zeal than I have

39 of 58 Monumental Surveyors done.’ How symbolically fitting it is, then, that Mount Rushmore features the larger-than-life image of this reviled town destroyer and revered nation builder, casting a long shadow over the sacred but conquered lands of Indians.” Fausz, pp. 142-43.

“Washington's opinions about Indians should be understood in the context of contemporary planter values, which had long condoned the permanent enslavement of Africans and blatantly discriminated against persons considered inferior by race, culture, or class. Washington's journals are filled with pejorative remarks about such inferiors. He complained about the ‘parcel of Barbarian's and an uncooth set of People’ he encountered on his long journeys, describing some German settlers ‘as Ignorant a Set of People as the Indians.’ When the constant discomfort of sleeping outdoors or on dirty cabin floors overwhelmed him, he lamented that ‘I have never had my Cloths of[f] but lay and sleep in them like a Negro.’ Washington repeated his era's common prejudices about native savagery and treachery, ignorance and inferiority, and he truly respected Indian warriors, as he would wild and dangerous beasts, only to the extent that they represented a threat to his survival. He differentiated between Indians and ‘men’ in his writings, with the latter term being reserved for white soldiers, and like other prominent contemporaries, he generally denigrated even friendly Indians—who ‘come when we send for them, ... go when they are bid, and ... do whatever is desired of them.’ “ Fausz, p. 123.

Other scholars have expressed a similar but slightly different view of Washington’s opinions about native Americans. “Although he retained his suspicion of frontiersmen for the rest of his life, Washington soon lost the patronizing tone of his early diary entries regarding Indians as he gained experience with them and developed skill in Indian diplomacy. A lasting legacy that Washington brought with him from his frontier service to his Revolutionary and presidential career was an understanding, unusual for his time, of Indians and ways of dealing with them. He quickly realized the importance of Indian allies, repeatedly pointing out that the Indians were a strong asset to frontier defense. ‘Those Indians who are now coming, should be shewed all possible respect, and the greatest care taken of them, as upon them much depends. . . . they are very humoursome, and their assistance very necessary. One false step might not only lose us that, but even turn them against us.’ As early as 1756 he issued orders for all ‘Soldiers & Towns people to use the Indians civilly and kindly; to avoid giving them liquor; and to be cautious what they speak before them: as all of them understand english and ought not to be affronted.’ Washington sought ways of attaching the Indians to the colonies and later to the new national government and strongly advocated integrity in dealing with them. In general, he maintained that Indian problems were as much the fault of recalcitrant frontiersmen as of the tribes. As he wrote Edmund Pendleton in 1795, the Indians ‘are not without serious causes of complaint, from the encroachments which are made on their lands by our people; who are not to be restrained by any law now in being, or likely to be enacted. They, poor wretches, have no Press thro' which their grievances are related.’ During his presidency he constantly harangued Congress to ‘make fair treaties with the Savage tribes (by this I mean that they shall perfectly understand every article and clause of them . . . that these treaties shall be held sacred, and the infractors on either side punished exemplarily.’ And he retained from his Virginia days a deep and abiding suspicion of frontiersmen and frontier lawlessness as the cause of Indian troubles. What hope existed of living in ‘tranquillity’ with the Indians, ‘so long as a spirit of land jobbing prevails, and our frontier Settlers entertain the opinion that there is not the same crime (or indeed no crime at all) in killing an Indian as in killing a white man.’ “ The Making of George Washington, by Dorothy Twohig, in George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry; pp. 16-17

Thomas Jefferson and Native Americans

“While he was growing up as a boy at the edge of the Virginia frontier, Jefferson became personally acquainted with Indians whom his father had befriended when they stopped on their way to Williamsburg. Later, during the years that he was a student at the College of William and Mary, he visited the camps of Indians who came to the Virginia capital. While he was governor of Virginia and then president of the United States, Jefferson frequently received visits from the Indians, during which he sought to encourage them to agricultural pursuits.”

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Quoting Jefferson: “In the early part of my life, I was very familiar [with the Indians] and acquired impressions of attachment and commiseration for them which have never been obliterated.” (Jefferson to John Adams, June 11, 1812). Bedini, Jefferson and Science, p. 51.

Jefferson’s scientific curiosity led him to excavate an Indian mound near Monticello, with methodology so systematic that it is now considered to be the model for later archeological work. He also worked extensively on compiling vocabularies for the study of native languages, but unfortunately much of that work was lost when a thief scattered the papers which were being shipped up the river to Monticello after his retirement from the presidency. He also had a fascination with native artifacts, which can still be seen today in the collections on display at Monticello. Bedini, Jefferson and Science, pp. 51-56.

Thomas Jefferson apparently held a fairly benign opinion about natives, but clearly believed that whites were entitled to obtain their lands, and that it was desirable for natives to become more like white men. His views are effectively summed up in passages found in: John P. Kaminski; The Quotable Jefferson; (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2006); pp. 242- 245.:

“The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice & fear. Af- ter the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us, which leaves us no alternative but that of fear to keep them from attacking us. But justice is what we should never lose sight of, & in time it may recover their esteem.” To Benjamin Hawkins, Paris, August 13, 1786

“It has become questionable whether the condition of our aboriginal neighbors, who live without laws or magistrates, be not preferable to that of the great mass of the nations of the earth who feel their laws & magistrates but in the weight of their burdens.” Petition to the Virginia Assembly, November [2 or 3], 1798

“In keeping agents among the Indians, two objects are principally kept in view: 1. The preservation of peace; 2. The obtaining lands. Towards effecting the latter object we consider the leading the Indians to agriculture as the principal means from which we can expect much effect in future. When they shall cultivate small spots of earth, & see how useless their extensive forests are, they will sell from time to time to help out their personal labor in stocking their farms, & procuring clothes & comforts from our trading houses. Towards the attainment of our two objects of peace & lands, it is essential that our agents acquire that sort of influence over the Indians which rests on confidence.” To James Jackson, Washington, February 16, 1803

“In truth, the ultimate point of rest & happiness for them is to let our settlements and theirs meet and blend together, to intermix and become one people, incorporating themselves with us as citizens of the U.S. This is what the natural progress of things will of course bring on, and it will be better to promote than to retard it. Surely it will be better for them to be identified with us, and preserved in the occupation of their lands, than be exposed to the many casualties which may endanger them while a separate people.” To Benjamin Hawkins, Washington, February 18, 1803

“Commerce is the great engine by which we are to coerce them, & not war.” To Meriwether Lewis, Monticello, August 21, 1808

“The plan of civilizing the Indians is undoubtedly a great improvement on the ancient & totally ineffectual one of beginning with religious missionaries. Our experience has shown that this must be the last step of the process. The following is what has been successful. 1. To raise cattle etc. & thereby acquire a knowledge of the value of property. 2. Arithmetic to calculate that value. 3. Writing, to keep accounts and here they begin to enclose farms, & the men to labor, the women to spin & weave. 4. To read. Aesop's fables & Robinson Crusoe are their first delight. The Creeks & Cherokees are advanced thus far, & the Cherokees are now instituting a regular government.” To James Jay, Monticello, April 7, 1809

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Abe Lincoln and Native Americans

In 1854, when Abraham Lincoln was campaigning in his unsuccessful bid for the Illinois Senate seat, he was endorsed by the Know-Nothings, who thought only white native-born Americans should have political rights. Declining their endorsement, Lincoln said in defense of immigrants: “Who are the native Americans: Do they not wear the breechcloth and carry the tomahawk: We pushed them from their homes, and now turn upon others not fortunate enough to come over as early as our forefathers. Gentlemen, your party is wrong in principle.” Alex Ayres, Editor, The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, New York, Meridian Books, 1992, p. 7.

Abe’s paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham Lincoln, was a Virginia militia captain during the American Revolution. His friend Daniel Boone often spoke of good, cheap land in Kentucky, so he moved to Jefferson County (east of Louisville) in 1782. While working in his fields four years later, he was shot and killed by an Indian. Lincoln saw military service during the Black Hawk War, in 1832. “Responding to the governor's call for volunteers in this conflict … Lincoln enlisted in April 1832 and was promptly elected captain of a company of volunteers, an honor he was to cherish more than being nominated for president. Captain Lincoln marched his company to the mouth of the Rock River and joined a force of regulars under Colonel Zachary Taylor. Lincoln was reprimanded twice during his service, once for failing to restrain his men from stealing army liquor and getting drunk and a second time for discharging a weapon in camp. At the end of his 30-day hitch, Lincoln reenlisted for 20 days as a private in a company of the mounted Independent Rangers under Captain Elijah Iles. When this duty ran out, he re-upped again, this time for 30 days as a private in the Independent Spy Corps under Captain Jacob M. Early. During this service he attempted without success to track down Chief Black Hawk in the wilderness of what is now southern Wisconsin. Lincoln was mustered out in July, having seen no action. He later joked that the only blood he lost in defense of his country was to mosquitoes. He was paid $125 for his wartime service. DeGregorio, pp. 225-244.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was criticized for pardoning too many soldiers who had been sentenced to death for various offenses, but he approved some executions and ordered the mass hanging of 38 Sioux Indians on December 26, 1862. The Sioux had been starving and upset about broken government promises, so they attacked several small towns in Minnesota which had been left unprotected because many of the men were fighting in the War. The Sioux seized control of an area 50 miles wide and 250 miles long, and in the worst attack at least 800 settlers were reportedly killed. General John Pope’s troops put down the uprising, and slapped hundreds of Sioux into military stockades. After hasty military trials, 307 warriors were sentenced to death. Commander in chief Lincoln reviewed each of the 307 cases, then ordering the execution of 38 that he felt were obviously guilty of murdering unarmed citizens. He commuted the death sentences of the other 269. A 24 foot square scaffold was built in Mankato, Minnesota, and 4000 spectators cheered the mass hanging. “The ordering of this execution was one of Lincoln’s least glorious achievements, and one that historians often whitewash, but it illustrates the hard decisions he had to make daily as president during the Civil War.” Ayres, pp. 36-37.

Lincoln was reportedly admired by some native Americans. “In the year 1867 on the Tongas Island off the coast of Alaska, the Raven clan of the Tlingit Indians raised up a totem pole fifty feet high, topped by a carved figure of Abraham Lincoln. Slavery had been common among the Tlingit Indians, particularly among the wealthy Eagle clan of the tribe. The Eagles would go on forays as far south as California and take prisoners from neighboring Indian tribes, whom they would keep or trade as slaves. Hostility developed between the Raven clan and the wealthy, slave-trafficking Eagles. When a United States revenue cutter came to the little island in 1867 with the news of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Thirteenth Amendment of 1865, the Ravens were inspired by the story and decided to build a totem pole to honor the Great Emancipator—and to shame the Eagles. Their artists carved Lincoln

42 of 58 Monumental Surveyors complete with his stovepipe hat. The tale of Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves was adopted as one of the permanent legends of the Raven clan, recited at tribal festivals. Later in the year 1867 the Tlingit Indians came under the jurisdiction of the United States, as part of the provision of the Alaska Purchase. Thus all the Eagles' slaves were in fact freed by Lincoln's famous proclamation. Today three Lincoln totem poles are still in existence. The original totem pole from Tongas was placed in a museum at Juneau. A copy was erected at Saxman, Alaska, in 1940, and another is preserved in the Illinois State Museum in Springfield.” Ayres, pp. 121-122.

Teddy Roosevelt and Native Americans

Theodore Roosevelt respected the skills of Native American warriors and the ability of the tribes to withstand hardships, but he expressed disapproval of their culture and personalities.

“By the time the English had consolidated the Atlantic colonies under their rule, the Indians had become what they have remained ever since, the most formidable savage foes ever encountered by colonists of European stock. ” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. One, Chapter One, The Spread of the English- Speaking Peoples.

“(Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery) Pike records (in 1806) with the utmost interest how he saw a band of Pawnees … slaughter a great gang of elk, and he dwells with admiration on the training of the horses, the wonderful horsemanship of the naked warrior, and their skill in the use of bow and spear. It was a wild hunting scene, such as belonged properly to times primeval. It was at once terrible and picturesque, and yet mean in its squalor and laziness. From the Blackfeet in the North to the Comanches in the South they were all alike; grim lords of war and the chase; warriors, hunters, gamblers, idlers; fearless, ferocious, treacherous, inconceivably cruel; revengeful and fickle; foul and unclean in life and thought; disdaining work, but capable at times of undergoing unheard-of toil and hardship, and of braving every danger; doomed to live with ever before their eyes death in the form of famine or frost, battle or torture, and schooled to meet it, in whatever shape it came, with fierce and mutterless fortitude.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. Four, Chapter Five, The Explorers of the Far West, 1804-1807; pp. 371-372.

Roosevelt was convinced that it was not just the right of whites to take the land, but he apparently felt that it was actually their duty. He did apparently believe that Native Americans who chose to assimilate should be given the same opportunities as other citizens.

“During the past century a good deal of sentimental nonsense has been talked about our taking the Indians’ land. Now, I do not mean to say for a moment that gross wrong has not been done the Indians, both by Government and individuals, again and again. The Government makes promises impossible to perform, and then fails to do even what it might toward their fulfillment; and where brutal and reckless frontiersmen are brought into contact with a set of treacherous, revengeful, and fiendishly cruel savages a long series of outrages by both sides is sure to follow. But as regards taking the land, at least from the Western Indians, the simple truth is that the latter never had any real ownership in it at all. Where the game was plentiful, there they hunted; they followed it when it moved away to new hunting-grounds, unless they were prevented by stronger rivals; and to most of the land on which we found them they had no stronger claim than that of having a few years previously butchered the original occupants. When my cattle came to the Little Missouri the region was only inhabited by a score or so of white hunters; their title to it was quite as good as that of most Indian tribes to the lands they claim; yet nobody dreamed of saying that these hunters owned the country. Each could eventually have kept his own claim of 160 acres, and no more. The Indians should be treated in just the same way that we treat the white settler. Give each his little claim; if, as would generally happen, he declined this, why then let him share the fate of the thousands of white hunters and trappers who have lived on the game that the settlement of the country has exterminated, and let him, like these whites, who will not work, perish from the face of the earth which he cumbers. The doctrine seems merciless, and so it is; but it is just and rational for all that. It does not do to be merciful to a few, at the cost of justice to the many. The cattlemen at least keep herds and build houses on

43 of 58 Monumental Surveyors the land; yet I would not for a moment debar settlers from the right of entry to the cattle country, though their coming in means in the end the destruction of us and our industry.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (c. 1902 [1885, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]); Hunting Trips of a Ranchman; Chapter One, Ranching in the Bad Lands, pp. 23-24.

Roosevelt did admit that many wrongs were committed against Native Americans, but rationalized that the injustices were impossible to correct, and in many cases were justified.

“As for the whites themselves, they, too, have many and grievous sins against their red neighbors for which to answer. They can not be severely blamed for trespassing upon what was called the Indian’s land; for let sentimentalists say what they will, the man who puts the soil to use must of right dispossess the man who does not, or the world will come to a standstill; but for many of their other deeds there can be no pardon. On the border each man was a law unto himself, and good and bad alike were left in perfect freedom to follow out to the uttermost limits their own desires …” “The excesses so often committed by the whites, when, after many checks and failures, they at last grasped victory, are causes for shame and regret; yet it is only fair to keep in mind the terrible provocations they had endured. Mercy, pity, magnanimity to the fallen, could not be expected from the frontiersmen gathered together to war against an Indian tribe. Almost every man of such a band had bitter personal wrongs to avenge. He was not taking part in a war against a civilized foe; he was fighting in a contest where women and children suffered the fate of the strong men, and instead of enthusiasm for his country’s flag and a general national animosity toward his enemies, he was actuated by a furious flame of hot anger, and was goaded on by memories of which merely to think was madness. His friends had been treacherously slain while on messages of peace; his house had been burned , his cattle driven off, and all he had in the world destroyed before he knew that war existed and when he felt quite guiltless of all offence; his sweetheart or wife had been carried off, ravished, and was at the moment the slave and concubine of some dirty and brutal Indian warrior; his son, the stay of his house, had been burned at the stake with torments too horrible to mention; his sister, when ransomed and returned to him, had told of the weary journey through the woods, when she carried around her neck as a horrible necklace the bloody scalps of her husband and children; seared into his eyeballs, into his very brain, he bore ever with him, waking or sleeping, the sight of the skinned, mutilated, hideous body of the baby who had just grown old enough to recognize him and to crow and laugh when taken in his arms. … Too often the squaws and papooses fell victims of the vengeance that should have come only on the warriors; for the whites regarded their foes as beasts rather than men, and knew that the squaws were more cruel than others in torturing the prisoners, and that the very children took their full part therein, being held up by their fathers to tomahawk the dying victims at the stake.” The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. One, Chapter Four, The Algonquins of the Northwest, 1769-1774; pp. 112-117.

“… A number of instances, such as the conduct of the Georgians to the Cherokees in the early part of the present century, or the whole treatment of Chief Joseph and his Nez Perçés, might be mentioned, which are indelible blots on our fair fame; and yet, in describing our dealings with the red men as a whole, historians do us much less than justice. It was wholly impossible to avoid conflicts with the weaker race, unless we were willing to see the American continent fall into the hands of some other strong power; and even had we adopted such a ludicrous policy, the Indians themselves would have made war upon us. It can not be too often insisted that they did not own the land; or, at least, that their ownership was merely such as that claimed often by our own white hunters. If the Indians really owned Kentucky in 1775, then in 1776 it was the property of Boone and his associates; and to dispossess one party was as great a wrong as to dispossess the other. To recognize the Indian ownership of the limitless prairies and forests of this continent – that is , to consider the dozen squalid savages who hunted at long intervals over a territory of a thousand square miles as owning it outright – necessarily implies a similar recognition of the claims of every white hunter, squatter, horse-thief, or wandering cattleman. Take as an example the country round the Little Missouri. When the cattlemen, the first actual settlers, came into this land in 1882, it was already scantily peopled by a few white hunters and trappers. The latter were extremely jealous of intrusion; they had held their own in spite of the Indians, and like the Indians, the inrush of settlers and the consequent destruction of the game meant their own undoing; also, again like the Indians, they felt that their having hunted over the soil gave them a vague prescriptive right to its sole occupation, and they did their best to keep actual settlers out. In some

44 of 58 Monumental Surveyors cases, to avoid difficulty, their nominal claims were bought up; generally, and rightly, they were disregarded. Yet they certainly had as good a right to the Little Missouri country as the Sioux have to most of the land on their present reservations. In fact, the mere statement of the case is sufficient to show the absurdity of asserting that the land really belonged to the Indians. The different tribes have always been utterly unable to define their own boundaries. Thus the Delawares and Wyandots, in 1785, though entirely separate nations, claimed and, in a certain sense, occupied almost exactly the same territory. Moreover, it was wholly impossible for our policy to be always consistent. Nowadays we undoubtedly ought to break up the great Indian reservations, disregard the tribal governments, allot the land in severalty (with, however, only a limited power of alienation), and treat the Indians as we do other citizens, with certain exceptions, for their sakes as well as ours. But this policy, which it would be wise to follow now, would have been wholly impracticable a century since. Our central government was then too weak either effectively to control its own members or adequately to punish aggressions made upon them; and even if it had been strong, it would probably have proved impossible to keep entire order over such a vast, sparsely peopled frontier, with such turbulent elements on both sides. The Indians could not be treated as individuals at that time. There was no possible alternative, therefore, to treating their tribes as nations, exactly as the French and English had done before us. Our difficulties were partly inherited from these, our predecessors, were partly caused by our own misdeeds, but were mainly the inevitable result of the conditions under which the problem had to be solved; no human wisdom or virtue could have worked out a peaceable solution. As a nation, our Indian policy is to be blamed, because of the weakness it displayed, because of its shortsightedness, and its occasional leaning to the policy of the sentimental humanitarians; and we have often promised what was impossible to perform; but there has been little willful wrong-doing. Our government almost always tries to act fairly by the tribes; the government agents (some of whom have been dishonest, and others foolish, but who, as a class, have been greatly traduced), in their reports, are far more apt to be unjust to the whites than to the reds; and the Federal authorities, though unable to prevent much of the injustice, still did check and control the white borderers very much more effectually than the Indian sachems and war-chiefs controlled their young braves. The tribes were warlike and blood-thirsty, jealous of each other and of the whites; they claimed the land for their hunting grounds, but their claims all conflicted with one another; their knowledge of their own boundaries was so indefinite that they were always willing, for inadequate compensation, to sell land to which they had merely the vaguest title; and yet, when once they had received the goods, were generally reluctant to make over even what they could; they coveted the goods and scalps of the whites, and the young warriors were always on the alert to commit outrages when they could do it with impunity. On the other hand, the evil-disposed whites regarded the Indians as fair game for robbery and violence of any kind; and the far larger number of well-disposed men, who would not willingly wrong any Indian, were themselves maddened by the memories of hideous injuries received. They bitterly resented the action of the government, which, in their eyes, failed to properly protect them, and yet sought to keep them out of waste, uncultivated lands which they did not regard as being any more the property of the Indians than of their own hunters. With the best intentions, it was wholly impossible for any government to evolve order out of such a chaos without resort to the ultimate arbitrator – the sword.

… Every good man or woman should do whatever is possible to make the government treat the Indians of the present time in the fairest and most generous spirit, and to provide against any repetition of such outrages as were inflicted upon the Nez Perçés and upon part of the Cheyennes, or the wrongs with which the civilized nations of the Indian Territory are sometimes threatened. … The Works of Theodore Roosevelt; The Winning of the West, Vol. One, Chapter Four, Appendix A; pp. 247-253.

V. Measuring and guiding the carving

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Planning for this project originally sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy had begun before World War One, but work was not begun until 1922. In many ways, Gutzon Borglum’s eventually unsuccessful efforts there were a dress rehearsal for his later triumphs at Mount Rushmore. Rex Alan Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore), pp. 64-76.

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Borglum’s first move had been to take into account the effect of light on the carving and its position on the mountain.

From Gutzon Borglum, “Engineering Problems To Be Met In Mountain Sculpture,” The Black Hills Engineer, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Rapid City: South Dakota School of Mines, November, 1930), pp. 309-10.

The projection system

Initially Borglum tried to paint the figures on Stone Mountain in preparation for carving. “My first thought now was to draw my designs upon the mountain. To accomplish this I secured paint and brush. The stone being a dark, brownish gray, I used white paint. … I climbed into a leather swing seat I had adopted, similar to children's swing seats, made of heavy leather—a steel leather-covered seat, to which was attached four hundred feet of flexible cable, and ordered the man at the winch to lower me over the side of the mountain. For two to three hours I hung there like a human plumb bob, my feet in rubber sneakers, my knees padded with hemp sacks, paint brush in hand, a small copy of my design to scale in my

46 of 58 Monumental Surveyors pocket. I had previously to this laid out the first 200 square feet, the center of my composition into 50 foot squares and applied this in scale to my design. I drew on the mountain side in this manner the head and shoulders of Lee and the upper curve of the neck of his horse; the horse's head, then down over the shoulder, down his chest to his fore leg, on to his knee. This knee was as large as a Ford car. I could not reach the outer lines without shifting my position. At this point my cable caught on a small nubbin of granite two hundred feet up, then slipped. As I dropped to take up the slack in the cable my foot slipped. I spun around in my seat, struck my head, spilled my paint. I was through. From below it was said I looked like a horse fly making a tail spin. I recovered my position and called to be drawn up. Tired, exhausted, mad, I descended to the valley below, where we view the work and judge of what we have done. I could hardly find it, but worse than that, it was unsatisfactory. I was frankly in despair. I saw how imperative it was that, by some process, I must increase my own efficiency. I must be able to place my design on the mountain, without the frightful physical and nervous exhaustion I had experienced in two hours or I would perish before I had even properly drawn the work. There was no known way; the problems involved here had never been considered.” Gutzon Borglum, “Engineering Problems … , pp. 315-316.

Borglum hit upon the idea of projecting an image on the mountain side, but he was told by exerts at Eastman Kodak and other companies that it was impossible. They believed the brightness required to project the image onto the mountain would take such a powerful lamp that it would melt any slide placed in front of it, and assured him the idea was ridiculous. However, he went to work with E.S. Porter of the Precision Machine Company of New York to build a machine in which the lamp assembly weighed a ton. Smith, p. 66.

Borglum described his frustration with the experts and the success of his experiments: “With the determination in mind to find some means by which I could project a design on a mountain wall and change it at will, I turned to the lantern and the camera; to the lens makers and addressed the foremost in these branches of advanced mechanics and explained at length that I wanted a powerful lens that would carry a design at least a thousand feet; that I wanted slides that would stand the heat. Of the lamp makers I asked a ray powerful enough to carry so far. All, without exception, wrote me at length ‘the feat was impossible.’ ‘Up to date no lens would stand the heat, much less a slide’ and no image or design could be projected more than 250 to 270 feet, with sufficient sharpness in design to be read! Again I set aside precedent and began personal experiments. Finally in my home in Stamford, after months of experiment, projecting against a snow covered hill, I succeeded by aid of an amateurish collection of assembled lamp, high power lens and stereoptican. I was directing my ray at a 40 foot canvas at 700 feet, when suddenly my little six year old daughter exclaimed and told me to look at the horses and soldiers on the snow on the hill beyond, over 1500 feet away, so distinct I could have redrawn them on the snow. The experiment had been perfected; the causes of success determined, tried and re-tried, arrangement of lens fixed, measured and found 100 per cent successful. In consequence I ordered necessary parts, built lamp complete and within sixty days I showed an equestrian on Stone Mountain at 10 o'clock at night, so brilliant my young son snapped the perfected picture with a kodak camera and it was reproduced and printed in the morning press in Atlanta. This picture was projected from a two and a half inch slide about eleven hundred feet and covered an area 200 feet square -- one acre on edge.” Gutzon Borglum, “Engineering Problems …” , pp. 318-320.

After drawing outlines on the slides so his workmen could tell what to mark on the stone, Borglum’s crew managed to sketch the heads of Lee and Jackson on the mountain side, but then another problem became evident. Borglum described the difficulties of distortion: “In the morning we examined our work. I had expected distortion, but on going back twenty-five hundred feet from the mountain, it would be difficult to express my amazement to find the problem of distortion our drawing showed … The bottom of the picture seemed fairly accurate but two hundred feet higher Lee’s head and his body began to lengthen; his face was longer and the top of the soft hat was much taller than the old fashioned silk or stove-pipe hat. … the distortion increases in an exaggerated degree as we near the top of the ray, owing to the back curvature of the mountain. Finally it crossed my mind – frankly only after many days’ quandary – that if I could tip the mountain over so as to place its surface at right angles to the center of the lens I would get approximately a true picture, or if I built a tower four hundred feet high I could project a fairly accurate

47 of 58 Monumental Surveyors picture. Each was impossible. My problem seemed hopeless, when at once the thought of tipping the mountain suggested the idea of tipping the model and tipping it as much further toward the camera as the mountain receded the other way. … These thoughts then suggested another, which was to make a new true picture of the model, center it carefully and photograph it from a calculated distance above the center of the lens, tip the photo forward and down and so produce a reversely distorted picture. This worked and is the most perfect way of overcoming that particular distortion in the design, but for our purpose, which proved simply for general location, another thought came to me, to make the slide holder on hinges and tip the slide. I did this and this became our working method.” Borglum, “Engineering Problems …”, pp. 321-323.

Borglum’s sketch of how he solved the distortion problem, from the above cited article.

Borglum Loses Stone Mountain

Borglum managed to complete the head of Robert E. Lee at Stone Mountain, and it was unveiled on Lee’s 117th birthday, January 19, 1924. However, money problems and disagreements over how to proceed soon arose, and by early in 1925 Borglum was off the project. Another sculptor took over, and eventually butchered Borglum’s carving of Lee so thoroughly that it was completely blasted off the mountain, and by 1928 the project was dead. It was finally revived after World War Two. Smith, pp. 68-76

“No sign of Borglum’s work remains at Stone Mountain. However, he made a vital contribution. It is doubtful if any other artist would have had the imagination to visualize such a stupendous monument in such an inaccessible place, or have had the nerve to start carving it.” Augustus Lukeman took over the project in 1925, and made a new design, but only: “ … blocked out the figures of Lee and Davis and finished their faces and also roughly outlined Lee’s horse, Traveler before the deadline of March 20, 1928. It was evident that he was capable of completing the monument. … On May 20, 1928, the Venables reclaimed their property, ending the UDC’s chance to complete the memorial. In 1958 the Georgia Legislature finally got around to developing the state’s greatest tourist attraction. it named a Stone Mountain memorial Association, with authority to purchase the mountain and surrounding land, 3,200 acres in all, for a state park, and to complete a satisfactory Confederate monument.” … The Association approved a suggestion by Walker Kirtland Hancock for making Lukeman’s uncompleted design appear intentional by carrying the carving to a point that would be aesthetically satisfying …

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Mr. Hancock was engaged in 1963, and charged with responsibility for finishing the design according to his plan, for serving as a direct consultant for the carving, and for developing the memorial area. The Association employed George Weiblen, whose family had operated the quarry at Stone Mountain, to assemble a crew and get the mountain ready. … The foreman of the working crew, Roy Faulkner … experimented with the new carving tool to be used, and discovered he had a knack for it. Although the foreman had never had an art lesson … he was assigned some smoothing tasks by sculptor Hancock while the search continued for an experienced carver. Soon the search was forgotten. Roy Faulkner stayed on the face of the mountain for more than six years … the new tool was the thermo-jet torch, developed for use in granite quarries. One hose carried kerosene, another oxygen, and the third water to be sprayed through the jet nozzle to keep it cool. The operator could adjust the flame to any temperature up to 4,000 degrees. … [it] could remove several tons of stone in a day, more than 48 men could do in a week with drills and wedges. Carving with it was a one-man job. Two men trying to work in the same area would have bombarded each other with hot rocks. … Exploding flakes popped out in many directions, sometimes straight back, or ricochetting off the mountain or steel cables … the roar of the torch … was the dominant sound in the north end of the Park for six years. The torch acted like a miniature jet engine, developing about as much backward thrust as an automatic shotgun. The carver had to keep his body braced against this force as long as the flame was lit. … Fine carving was done with a tool half as large. With the flame adjusted as thin as an acetylene torch’s, it could cut along a pencil mark. … In explaining how he carved, Faulkner said that mostly he measured. If he was to start a new feature, like the knuckle of General Lee’s first finger, he measured the distance to it from his center line on the master model. Then he checked to get the distance to the knuckle from Lee’s ear, his nose, Davis’ eye, the ear tips of the horses, and other spots. Interpolating inches on the model to feet for the mountainside, he measured from corresponding points on the carving. When all the measurements came out at the same place, he drilled a hole there to the exact depth corresponding to the distance from the knuckle to the plumb line at the front of the model. To insure against cutting away too much of the adjoining stone, he measured and drilled depth holes for all of the features nearby. … There were special models of the heads of men and horses, on a scale of four-to-one. When working on a head Faulkner took the corresponding model up on the scaffold for ready and frequent references. … Faulkner declared … ‘For six years I worried that I might make a mistake. After coming down in the evenings I checked the day’s figures in the studio to make sure they were right. Then I drove home with them in my head, ate with them, and often slept with them. The worst dream I ever had was the time I saw General Lee’s head lying in the ditch at the base of the mountain.” Willard Neal, Georgia’s Stone Mountain undated, available for sale at Stone Mountain.

The carved figures are 90 feet tall and 190 feet wide, standing 11 ½ feet out from the mountain, 400 feet above the ground, and in a frame 360 feet square (nearly 3 acres). Fifty-five years passed from the time it was first conceived to completion in 1970. No work was done for 36 years, from 1928 to 1964.

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Borglum at Mount Rushmore

Finding a New Way to Guide the Carving

Solving the problems of guiding the carving at Stone Mountain had been good experience for Gutzon Borglum, but the difficulties he faced when work began in 1927 at Mount Rushmore were entirely different. “The challenge of Stone Mountain had been great, but it had been as nothing compared to this challenge at Rushmore. There, Borglum had been carving shallow bas-relief figures on stone that was rela- tively smooth and unflawed. Here, he would be carving much larger figures, deep and in-the-round, on a fissured crag containing heaven only knew what kinds of defects. … The safest way to tackle these problems, of course, would have been for Borglum to peel off the entire surface of the area he intended to carve, remove whatever unsound rock he might find, and then reshape the cliff to fit his models. It would have been a sensible thing to do and likely that which most sculptors would have done. His artistic integrity would not permit it … He chose to carve one head at a time, and not to locate the next one until he could see how it would blend with the previous work as well as with the mountain itself … Having decided to make Washington the monument’s dominant figure, Borglum decided to begin with the Washington head and to place it on the highest and front-most dome of the cliff’s irregular crest. Next, he had to solve the problem of transferring his design from the model to the mountain. Borglum had said publicly that he would do this as he had done it at Stone Mountain … But even while saying it he had to have known it could not be done that way. Projection would work for flat figures but not for those to be carved in-the-round. Besides, Rushmore’s face was too lumpy for accurate projection. It would have been like trying to project a picture onto the side of a sack of potatoes. Rushmore demanded an entirely different approach, so naturally the ingenious Borglum invented one.” Smith, pp. 157-159.

What Borglum came up with was the “Pointing Machine”, and he described its use: “My plans for carrying on the work of sculpture are these and if my men do not follow them they have got to have better ways or good reasons or they take a holiday. I explore the stone from the swing, locate approximately, as at Rushmore, our central mass— that means the center of the stone intended for the four heads. … Then, I established a north and south meridian or line which I call my master line No. 1. Then I crossed that line at what I called the top and center of Washington's head. This cross was at right angles; from this point in the line, all measurements are made— along the line to the south, along the line to the north, along the line to the east or to the west. On this center point, I established an upright steel cylindrical shaft, resting on a base of steel—a plate about four feet across its flat surface. On this, we had cut one-half of the degrees of a circle and bolted the plate to the mountain; on this the upright shaft rests. This is held in place by guy cables, stiffened by turn buckles. To this upright shaft, we connected a beam thirty odd feet long—a steel beam. This is also made with such accuracy that in turning it, the mercury loaded plumb bob it carries, will point accurately in line with the degrees cut in the plate. If this instrument is accurately made, which ours on Mount Rushmore in the beginning was not, you cannot only measure the various points desired from the point where the lines cross, or master point No. 1, but by putting inches and feet on the tape (steel carrying our plumb bob), you can measure the distance from the point. This machine is called a pointing machine and works quickly and with accuracy. A similar machine is made for the working model on the head of Washington and the scale adjusting the dimension of one to the other established. This done, the workman or assistant to the sculptor is ready for work. For convenience, the master model is as near the work as practical. Accurate measurements are now taken. Rough points are determined. An approximation of the mass necessary for the head to he carved is drilled off by workmen in swings. This done and a great egg-shaped mass is formed. When this has been done, the work then is halted for two reasons— the mass is an oval egg- shape—the contour from three to six feet larger than the final head. We halt further cutting because I want to observe over a longer period the light and shade, that is, the probable sunlight, in this case, on Washington's head. This, I finally establish by dropping a line at various points down over the nose, using the line as the center of the nose. These experiments turned the head of Washington about twenty degrees further toward the south than originally intended. This permitted the sun to fall on the north side of his face

50 of 58 Monumental Surveyors as late as one o'clock. I would have preferred to have turned it further but the stone left in place for the hair on his left side would not permit further turning. With the establishment of the center line of the face, down over the forehead beginning at the point of the wig and down midway between his eyebrows, down over the center of his nose, mouth, and chin, we were ready to map the stone for accurate drilling and careful blasting. The first step in accurate pointing a head is to locate in the stone the point of the nose. This because it is the extreme projection on the face. To do this, we went to our master model, dropped our plumb bob down until it reached and touched the extreme point of the nose—there we set a small brass point. Then we took the recorded measurements, increased them and returned to feet and inches and fractions of an inch. This first point, remember, was on the mark of 90 degrees, one-half of our semi-circle. When we had located approximately the end of the nose, let us say, we found six feet and some inches too much stone. We made a red dot, drew a circle around the dot and painted on the side of the circle point No. 1, 6 feet. A line had already been painted from the wig to chin, establishing the center of the face. The next points to be taken were one on each of the frontal bones. Now the great boom had to be swung to right and to the left. Now, it will be seen that great perfection in the mechanism of the boom was necessary or imperfection in the work would result. The enemies to the boom were, first, lack of intelligent vigilance in its management, careless adjustment of points of measurement, carelessness regarding wind, which was a constant menace. Then, there occurred a slight twist or bend in the boom, which eventually appeared in the great mass of stone left for the nose. I had observed this but paid little attention to it until I saw the fault appearing in the nose, giving the great mass a slight twist— not important at this moment as we had ample stone, but important in the final measurement. This fault was, of course, corrected. … The working models of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln are done on an inch to a foot dimensions and are united in a common group in the mountain studio, scaled to the work proceding on the mountain and fitted to the ample stone in place.” Borglum, “Engineering Problems …” ; pp. 328-29, 332-33.

Lincoln Borglum measuring points on the model of Jefferson. (Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, p. 250)

Operating the pointing machine, Chief Pointer Jim LaRue on left, Lincoln Borglum on right. (Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, p. 159)

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“Call-boy” Jimmy Payne, on Washington’s forehead beneath the pointing boom. (Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, p. 24)

Pointer transferring measurements to Washington’s head, fall 1927. (Smith, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, p. 162)

The Men Who Did the Measuring Further research may reveal more about the individuals who did the pointing work, but details are readily available about a few. The Chief pointers included William “Bill” Tallman, who studied art in NYC, then worked for Borglum in Connecticut, and came to Rushmore as chief pointer in 1929, and became construction superintendent in 1930. Smith, p. 190, etc.

Borglum himself praised Tallman’s skills: [The work] “requires skill in the man in general charge, skill in handling men, skill and experience in the practical use of tools and materials. These two qualities are not very difficult to secure, but more is required—a refinement of judgment built up by some definite knowledge of form, design, sculpture, in fact, so that one has ever present among the driller finishers one who appreciates the need of constant vigilance. We have such a man in Wm. Tallman. With considerable training in art, much experience in studio work,

52 of 58 Monumental Surveyors he brings to his position as superintendent of the work, an even temper, the gift of patience and sanity in judgment and appreciation of men.” Borglum, Engineering Practice … ; p. 333.

Jim Larue also worked as a chief pointer. Smith, p. 159, etc.

Some of the assistant pointers are also known, including Matthew (“Matt” or “Matty”) Riley, whose father was a friend who had worked for Borglum in Connecticut. Matt knew Borglum most of his life and went to Rushmore as assistant pointer in 1929. Lincoln Borglum, the sculptor’s son, began unpaid work as a pointer in 1933, and he eventually supervised completion of the work after his father’s death in 1941. Smith, numerous pages.

Korczak Ziolkowski and Crazy Horse

The Crazy Horse carving is on a scale that overwhelms the imagination. Instead of half- round figures like at Rushmore, it will be a sculpture in the round formed from a solid granite ridge. Korczak Ziolkowski had worked for Gutzon Borglum at Mount Rushmore, but got fired after beating up the sculptor’s son Lincoln. He was recruited by Lakota chief Henry Standing Bear and others to create the Crazy Horse monument, with the first dynamite charge blasting rock off the mountain on June 3, 1948. The finished carving is intended to be 563 feet high and 641 feet long, large enough to fit all four of the Rushmore presidential heads in Crazy Horse’s head and flowing hair.

Model of the finished sculpture, with the mountain a mile away in the background, October 2005.

The Pointing System

A pointing system very similar to that used at Rushmore was utilized on the head of Crazy Horse. Rather than the 1/12 scale used at Mount Rushmore, the measurements were transferred from a model at 1/34 scale. The chief’s face is nine stories high, and was unveiled and dedicated on June 3, 1998, 50 years after the work had begun. Although the sculptor died in 1982, his wife and children continue the work today.

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From photos displayed in the Crazy Horse Visitor’s Center. (Left) In April, 1989, Mrs. Korczak (Ruth) Ziolkowski and her son Casimir demonstrate how the pointing system is used to transfer measurements using a plaster cast of the face from the 1/34 scale model. (Right) Kevin Hachmeister surveying blast holes on October 16, 2000, with a Topcon 312 Total Station on permanent loan from Topcon.

Although the pointer system worked well enough on the face, it became apparent that different surveying methods needed to be used for other parts of the project. Additional details about the use of the pointing system are found in an article by Antonio Barbados in the November, 2007, issue of Point of Beginning magazine. (To read the complete article, visit POBonline.com and search Crazy Horse; quotes and photos from that article are used here courtesy of POB.) “Starting in 1987, the 1:34 scale model face was manually digitized and the coordinates transferred to the mountain by using a pointing system derived from the ancient Greeks. With pointing devices--each using east and west degrees, deflection and a plumb bob--on both the model and the mountain, thousands of measurements were taken of the plaster cast of the face, which was divided into 1-inch by 3-inch quadrants. There were more than 10,000 points on the face, 2,000 of them on the nose alone--all transferred to corresponding quadrants on the mountain, each measuring 3-feet by 6½ feet, to guide the carving of the face.”

Other Surveying on the Mountain

Well aware that he would not live to see the project anywhere near to completion, during the years before his 1982 death Korczak Ziolkowski and his wife Ruth prepared three volumes of detailed plans to be used in conjunction with his models. Those plans are still referred to by surveyors working on the mountain, but modern technology has made measuring less difficult.

“It wasn’t until 1975 that a topographic map of the mountain and nearby land was developed by two local firms. Using aerial photography as well as theodolites and electronic distance meters (EDMs), the topo map was used to design sewer systems and additional roads for the growing project.” Barbados, A Mountain of Data, Point of Beginning, November 2007, p. 30.

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Laser Scanning the Mountain

As technology has advanced, precise modeling of the mountain project has become feasible. By the late 1990’s CAD models were being used, and some laser scanning work was completed in 2002 by Lamp, Rynearson & Associates, Inc. (See the company’s website for details.)

Antonio Barbados’ POB article (pp. 28-32) reports that the latest scanning was done in October 2006, when two Trimble surveyors (Sunnyvale, California) spent a day and a half gathering a staggering amount of data. “Each using a Trimble 3D scanner, the two surveyors collected 14 million data points, which, after off-site post processing, became an invaluable tool for moving the project forward. ’For the first time in our history, we’ve been able to scan 95 percent of the mountain,’ says Rich Barry, engineer with the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. ‘We’ve been collecting data and acquiring the tools to perform the tasks before us as the opportunities arise.’ … It’s ‘a project of Biblical proportions,’ says Trimble surveyor Bruce Hook, part of the team that worked on the rock face in October. Conventional data collection techniques cannot adequately provide the volume of data required to drive the ever-more-refined blasting and shaping process in a project this huge.’ … ‘Due to the magnitude of the mountain, you wouldn’t dream of surveying it today with only conventional equipment while maintaining the speed and accuracies you need to cover the range and size of the carving in a timely manner,’ Hook says. ‘It would take years to cover the entire mountain using conventional survey equipment. With scanning, we can pinpoint a crack in the rock at a micro level and on the macro level a full model of the huge mountain as well--all in a matter of days.’ … Because of its speed and volume of data collection, 3D scanning is ideal for a colossal job like Crazy Horse, covering an entire mountain-in-the-round in intricate detail. The October scanning project used a portable Trimble GX 3D scanner, which allowed users like Hook to access points in shadow. Hook, carrying the unit and tripod up the face of a cliff, did this more than once at the Crazy Horse site… Hook used a combination of standard station setup routines over known marks and resected station setup routines, enabling him to both tie into existing control and establish new ground marks. The Trimble GX scanner enables surveyors to use conventional survey techniques such as known point station setups, resections and traverses while conducting routine survey checks to ensure the quality of their measurements in the field. As the mountain’s face is ever-changing, there were only a few permanent marks on which to set up. In performing the resections, Hook was able to set up on new marks to maximize visibility into difficult areas, which ranged from sheer rock faces, to tunnels, to intricate carved features and shadowed areas. He selected the new marks and sighted two known marks in order to establish an orientation and typically used backsight distances around 300 feet or so depending on the conditions on the mountain. When confronted with challenging atmospheric conditions caused by fog and dust, Hook used the scanner’s video zoom capability to sight to the backsight targets. By adopting this resection technique, there were very few limitations to areas the scanner could reach. After an orientation was gained, the scans were performed, producing valuable information from areas where there was high interest in the surface data. For the majority of points, four measurements were taken to every point (points averaging) to lower the standard deviation of the distance measurement. This ensures quality data with minimal noise, while also maximizing the amount of data captured. This points-averaging technique was also vital as setups often required data to be captured at very narrow angles of incidence. These included narrow incidence angles within the vertical field of view for shots taken to the sheer rock walls and down into shaded regions or when inspecting tunnels--as well as horizontally along rock faces and flat portions of the mountain. It was not always possible to set up the scanner with an ideal perpendicular view of a surface. But by increasing the number of shots taken, Hook was able to increase the amount of data collected while minimizing the amount of setups required. Scanner coverage was increased while making the most efficient use of the available field time. … To aid in data post processing and to increase the data richness, Hook and his partner also took digital snapshots with the scanner. These can automatically be draped over points and surfaces (meshes, for example) in the office to gain a better understanding of surface conditions. Post processing with Trimble Real-works Survey software allows the team to easily handle and

55 of 58 Monumental Surveyors analyze massive data sets to efficiently create desired outputs to the design team to guide the carving of the mountain. For example, the rich scan data revealed fissures in the rock face, necessitating fine adjustments to Ziolkowski’s scale model. That 60-year-old model, fashioned by hand, now lives digitally inside the rocks and can be continually fine-tuned; the software provides a 3D model of the mountain so accurate that it facilitates the model’s steady refinement in response to changing geology exposed by ongoing blasting. As geologists, engineers and blasters continue their work, the model is refined, then scaled back up to the mountain face for more finely tuned blasting of the image. With the help of advanced surveying technology, the mountain is better adjusted to the model--and the model to the mountain. All the while, the imposing image of Crazy Horse continues to emerge in the sacred hills.

Bruce Hook monitors the progress of a scan. Three-dimensional scanning is ideal for (POB) such a colossal job. (POB)

Crazy Horse engineer Kevin Hachmeister and Trimble surveyor Bruce Hook gather information on the steep rock faces. (POB)

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The mountain, October 2005.

Laser Scanning at Mount Rushmore

Laser scanning has now also been used to advantage at Mount Rushmore, with the latest project being reported in Point of Beginning, (Scanning the Trends, Dec. 2010, p. 10). At the Leica Geosystems HDS Worldwide User Conference, in San Ramon, California, in October 2010, several scanning success stories were shared: “Chief among these was the 3D digital preservation of Mt. Rushmore, a project undertaken in May 2010 by the nonprofit organization CyArk in partnership with the Scottish Ministry of Culture, Historic Scotland, Glasgow School of Art and the U.S. National Parks Service as the first in the Scottish 10, a series of 10 heritage sites that will be digitally preserved with laser scanning technology through an international partnership. … the team encountered numerous challenges throughout the project, not the least of which was the rough terrain and inclement weather, which included heavy snow, rain, lightning, high winds and fog. Despite these hurdles, the team captured billions of data points over the course of two weeks that are being used to generate a comprehensive 3D record of the monument.”

Scanning the faces of Mount Rushmore captured millions of data points to create a highly accurate digital record. Photo courtesy of Mount Rushmore National Monument.

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