M. Mark Miller, Author

Category: Langford

  • “Shooting Jake Smith’s Hat” by N.P. Langford, 1877

    Reprise from 07/28/2010

    books
    N.P. Langford

    One of the members of the famous Washburn Expedition that explored  the uppper Yellowstone in 1870, a jocular man named Jake Smith, was always ready to gamble. Unfortunately, he lost all his money in a card game the night before the trip started. But Jake came up with a way to replenish his stake. N.P. Langford tells the story.

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    Jake Smith

    Descending the range to the east, we reached Trail creek, a tributary of the Yellowstone about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, where we are now camped for the night. We are now fairly launched upon our expedition without the possibility of obtaining outside assistance in case we need it. Our safety will depend upon our vigilance. We are all well armed with long range repeating rifles and needle guns, though there are but few of our party who are experts at off-hand shooting with a revolver.

    In the course of our discussion Jake Smith expressed his doubt whether any member of our party is sufficiently skilled in the use of the revolver to hit an Indian at even a close range. He offered to put the matter to a test by setting up his hat at a distance of twenty yards for the boys to shoot at with their revolvers, without a rest, at twenty-five cents a shot.

    Several members of our party blazed away with indifferent success—with the result that Jake was adding to his exchequer without damage to his hat. I could not resist the inclination to quietly drop out of sight behind a clump of bushes. From my place of concealment I sent from my breech-loading Ballard repeating rifle four bullets in rapid succession, through the hat—badly riddling it.

    Jake inquired, “Whose revolver is it that makes that loud report?” He did not discover the true state of the case, but removed the target with the ready acknowledgment that there were members of our party whose aim with a revolver was more accurate than he had thought.

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    • Excerpt from N.P. Langford, Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1879. You can read a condensed version in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.
    • N.P. Langford Photo from the book.  Jake Smith Photo,Yellowstone Digital Slide File.
    • You can read a condensed version of Langford’s The Discovery of Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.
    • To see more stories by this author, click on “Langford” under the “Categories” button to the left.
    • For more stories about the Washburn Expedition, click on “Washburn” under the “Categories” button to the left.

  • A Tale: Gathering a Specimen From a Boiling Spring— N.P. Langford, 1870

    When the famous Washburn Expedition of 1870 explored the area that later became Yellowstone National Park, they wanted to bring back specimens to prove that the geological wonders they reported weren’t just tall tales. Locating remarkable features like geysers, hot springs and paint pots wasn’t hard, but collecting tangible evidence could be dangerous.  Here’s Nathaniel P. Langford’s description of gathering a specimen.

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    gathering a specimen

    Entering the basin cautiously, we found the entire surface of the earth covered with the incrusted sinter thrown from the springs. Jets of hot vapor were expelled through a hundred natural orifices with which it was pierced, and through every fracture made by passing over it. The springs themselves were as diabolical in appearance as the witches’ caldron in Macbeth, and needed but the presence of Hecate and her weird band to realize that horrible creation of poetic fancy.

    They were all in a state of violent ebullition, throwing their liquid contents to the height of three or four feet. The largest had a basin twenty by forty feet in diameter. Its greenish-yellow water was covered with bubbles, which were constantly rising, bursting, and emitting sulphurous gas from various parts of its surface. The central spring seethed and bubbled like a boiling caldron. Fearful volumes of vapor were constantly escaping it.

    Near it was another, not so large, but more infernal in appearance. Its contents, of the consistency of paint, were in constant, noisy ebullition. A stick thrust into it, on being withdrawn, was coated with lead-colored slime a quarter of an inch in thickness. Nothing flows from this spring. Seemingly, it is boiling down.

    A fourth spring, which exhibited the same physical features, was partly covered by an overhanging ledge of rock. We tried to fathom it, but the bottom was beyond the reach of the longest pole we could find. Rocks cast into it increased the agitation of its waters. There were several other springs in the group, smaller in size, but presenting the same characteristics.

    The approach to them was unsafe, the incrustation surrounding them bending in many places beneath our weight—and from the fractures thus created would ooze a sulphury slime of the consistency of mucilage.

    It was with great difficulty that we obtained specimens from the natural apertures with which the crust is filled—a feat which was accomplished by one only of our party, who extended himself at full length upon that portion of the incrustation which yielded the least, but which was not sufficiently strong to bear his weight while in an upright position, and at imminent risk of sinking into the infernal mixture, rolled over and over to the edge of the opening, and with the crust slowly bending and sinking beneath him, hurriedly secured the coveted prize.

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    — Excerpt and illustration from Nathaniel P. Langford, “The Wonders of the Yellowstone,” Scribner’s Monthly 2(1):1-27 (May 1871).

    — To see other stories by this author, click “Langford” under the Categories button.

    — An abridged version of Langford’s 1905 book, The Discovery of Yellowstone Park—Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870, is available in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.

  • Moran’s Legacy: Tower Fall — Text by N.P. Langford

    Tower Falls, Thomas Moran, 1875

    Thomas Moran began conjuring images of the upper Yellowstone before he even saw the place. Moran was an illustrator for Scribner’s Monthly and provided drawings for N.P. Langford’s article about the famous Washburn expedition of 1870.

    While learning to paint, Moran sought inspiration from literary works such as Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” so it wasn’t hard for him to base his illustrations entirely on Langford’s words. The results were interesting (if sometimes inaccurate). Below is what Langford said about Tower Fall and how Moran pictured it.

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    Tower Falls Illustration from Scribner’s

    Tower Creek is a mountain torrent flowing through a gorge about forty yards wide. Just below our camp, it falls perpendicularly over an even ledge 112 feet, forming one of the most beautiful cataracts in the world. For some distance above the fall, the stream is broken into a great number of channels each of which has worked a torturous course through a compact body of shale to the verge of the precipice where they re-united and form the fall.

    The countless shapes into which the shale has been wrought by the action of the angry waters, add a feature of great interest to the scene. Spires of solid shale, capped with slate, beautifully rounded and polished, faultless in symmetry, raise their tapering forms to the height of from 80 to 150 feet, all over the plateau above the cataract. Some resemble towers, others spires of churches, and others still shoot up as lithe and slender as the minarets of a mosque.

    Some of the loftiest of these formations, standing like sentinels upon the very brink of the fall, are accessible to an expert and adventurous climber. The position attain on one of their narrow summits, amid the uproar at a height of 250 feet above the boiling chasm, as the writer can affirm, requires a steady hand and strong nerves; yet the view which rewards the temerity of the exploit is full of compensations.

    Below the fall the stream descends in numerous rapids, with frightful velocity, through a gloomy gorge, to its unions with the Yellowstone. Its bed is filled with enormous boulders, against which the rushing waters break with great fury. Many of the capricious formations wrought from the shale excite merriment as well as wonder. Of this kind especially was a huge mass sixty feet in height, which, from its supposed resemblance to the proverbial foot of his Satanic Majesty, we called the ‘Devil’s Hoof.’

    The scenery of mountain, rock, and forest surrounding the falls is very beautiful. Here too, the hunter and fisherman can indulge their tastes with the certainty of ample reward. As a halfway resort to the greater wonders still farther up the marvelous river, the visitor of future years will find no more delightful resting place. No account of this beautiful fall has ever been given by any of the former visitors to this region. The name of “Tower Falls,” which we  gave it, was suggested by some of the most conspicuous features of the scenery.”

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    Moran’s 1871 field sketch of Tower Falls.

    Moran actually got to see Tower Fall in 1871 when he accompanied the government explorer, F.V. Hayden there. During the two days Moran spent at Tower Fall, he must have worked diligently making sketches from various vantage points in ink and watercolor. He used these en plain air studies later to produce several paintings in his studio.

    Tower Fall, Thomas Moran, 1872.

    A year after the Washburn Expedition, Moran produced the full color rendition seen below. This piece reflects the Romantic Hudson River School that dominated American art at the time. It is characterized by aerial perspective, concealed brushstrokes and luminist techniques that made the landscapes seem to glow.

    In 1875, Moran offered the version of Tower Fall shown at the top of this post that is more impressionistic in that it juxtaposes elements in ways that can’t be seen from any actual viewpoint. Moran, who famously said, “I place no value upon literal transcripts from Nature,” was a Romantic who sought to reproduce the emotional rapture that some landscapes evoke.

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    — The magazine illustration and N. P. Langford’s description are from his article “The Wonders of the Yellowstone.” Scribner’s Monthly, 2(1) 1-16 (May, 1871)

    — Other images are from the Coppermine Gallery.

    — For more on Moran’s Legacy, click on “Thamas Moran” under the Categories button to the left.

    — You might also enjoy N.P. Langford’s humorous tale about the naming of Tower Fall.

  • A Tale: Sidford’s Fall on Grand Teton Mountain — Langford, 1872

    Sidford Hamp was just 17 in 1872 when his uncle William Blackmore, fulfilled his dreams by landing him a job on the second Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone Park. Lord Blackmore was wealthy and well connected so he was able to arrange for Sidford to dine with dignitaries in Washington D.C., meet the famous Sioux Chief Red Cloud, visit Niagara Falls, and travel across America on the new transcontinental railroad.

    Perhaps Sidford’s biggest adventure occurred on July 29 when he accompanied Hayden’s second in command, Captain James Stevenson, and Yellowstone first superintendent, N.P. Langford, as they mounted an effort to climb the 13,775-foot Grand Teton Peak in Wyoming. Some say Langford’s and Stevenson surmounted a side peak, not pinnacle of Grand Teton, but it was a grand adventure in any case. Here’s Langford’s description of what happen to Sidford that day.

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    Very soon after we commenced the ascent, we found ourselves clambering around projecting ledges of perpendicular rocks, inserting our fingers into crevices so far beyond us that we reached them with difficulty, and poising our weight upon shelves not exceeding two inches in width, jutting from the precipitous walls of gorges from fifty to three hundred feet in depth. This toilsome process, which severely tested our nerves, was occasionally interrupted by large banks of snow, which had lodged upon some of the projections or in the concavities of the mountain side—in passing over the yielding surface of which we obtained tolerable foothold, unless, as was often the case, there was a groundwork of ice beneath.

    When this occurred, we found the climbing difficult and hazardous. In many places, the water from the melting snow had trickled through it, and congealed the lower surface. This, melting in turn, had worn long openings between the ice and the mountainside, from two to four feet in width, down which we could look two hundred feet or more. Great care was necessary to avoid slipping into these crevices. An occasional spur of rock or ice, connecting the ice-wall with the mountain, was all that held these patches of snow in their places. In Europe, they would have been called glaciers.

    Distrustful as we all were of their permanency, we were taught, before our toil was ended, to wish there had been more of them. As a general thing, they were more easily surmounted than the bare rock precipices, though on one occasion they came near proving fatal to one of our party.

    Mr. Hamp, fresh from his home in England, knew little of the properties of snow and ice, and at one of the critical points in our ascent, trusting too much to their support, slipped and fell. For a moment, his destruction seemed inevitable, but with admirable dexterity, he threw himself astride the icy ridge projecting from the mountain.

    Impelled by this movement, with one leg dangling in the crevice next the mountain side, and the other sweeping the snow outside the glacier, he slid with fearful rapidity, at an angle of forty-five degrees, for the distance of fifty feet, falling headlong into a huge pile of soft snow, which prevented his descent of a thousand feet or more down the precipitous side of the mountain.

    I saw him fall, and supposed he would be dashed to pieces. A moment afterwards, he crawled from the friendly snow heap and rejoined us unharmed, and we all united in a round of laughter, as thankful as it was hearty.

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    — Excerpt from N. P. Langford, “The Ascent of Mount Hayden,” Scribners Monthly (June 1873) 6(3):129-157.

    — Illustration from the the Scribner’s article.

    — You also might enjoy:

    — To see more stories by this author, click on “Langford” under the “Categories” button to the left.

    — You can read a  condensed version of N. P. Langford’s book, The Discovery of Yellowstone Park, in my book. Adventures in Yellowstone.

  • A Tale: Teaching Greenhorns About Snipe Driving — Langford, 1872

    When I was a little boy my father told me the way to catch a bird was to put salt on its tail. If you do that, he assured me, you can reach right out and pick it up. I looked to my mother for confirmation, and she said something like, “I suppose that’s true.”

    They armed me with a salt shaker and I spent the afternoon trying to get close enough to a bird to salt its tail. Not until my brothers came home from school and started laughing at me did I get the joke.

    The tradition of playing tricks on the naive runs deep in the history of the northern Rockies. The famous Yellowstone explorer, N.P. Langford, told this story in his account of  traveling with the second Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone Park in 1872.

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    Among our own hunters was a trapper named Shep Medary—a lively, roystering mountaineer, who liked nothing better than to get a joke upon any unfortunate “pilgrim” or ” tender foot ” who was verdant enough to confide in his stories of mountain life.

    “What a night!” said Shep, as the moon rose broad and clear—”what a glorious night for drivin’ snipe!”

    Here was something new. Two of our young men were eager to learn all about the mystery.

    “Driving snipe! what’s that, Shep? Tell us about it.”

    “Did ye never hear?” replied Shep, with a face expressive of wonder at their ignorance. “Why, it’s as old as the mountains, I guess; we always choose such weather as this for drivin’ snipe. The snipe are fat now, and they drive better, and they’re better eatin’ too. I tell you, a breakfast of snipe, broiled on the buffalo chips, is not bad to take, is it, Dick?”

    Beaver Dick, who had just arrived in camp, thus appealed to, growled an assent to the proposition contained in Shep’s question; and the boys, more anxious than ever, pressed Shep for an explanation.

    “Maybe,” said one of them, “maybe we can drive the snipe tonight and get a mess for breakfast: what have we got to do, Shep?”

    “Oh well,” responded Shep, “if you’re so plaguey ignorant, I’m afeard you won’t do. Howsomever, you can try. You boys get a couple of them gunny-sacks and candles, and we’ll go out and start ’em up.”

    Elated with the idea of having a mess of snipe for breakfast, the two young men, under Shep’s direction, each equipped with a gunnysack and candle, followed him out upon the plain, half a mile from camp, accompanied by some half-dozen members of our party. The spot was chosen because of its proximity to a marsh which was supposed to be filled with snipe. In reality it was the swarming place for mosquitoes.

    “Now,” said Shep, stationing the boys about ten feet apart, “open your sacks, be sure and keep the mouths of ’em wide open, and after we leave you, light your candles and hold ’em well into the sack, so that the snipe can see, and the rest of us will drive ’em up. It may take a little spell to get ’em started, but if you wait patiently they’ll come.”

    With this assurance the snipe-drivers left them and returned immediately to camp.

    “I’ve got a couple of green ‘uns out there,” said Shep with a sly wink. “They’ll wait some time for the snipe to come up, I reckon.”

    The boys followed directions—the sacks were held wide open, the candles kept in place. There they stood, the easy prey of the remorseless mosquitoes. An hour passed away, and yet from the ridge above the camp the light of the candles could be seen across the plain. Shep now stole quietly out of camp, and, making a long circuit, came up behind the victims and, raising a war-whoop, fired his pistol in the air.

    The boys dropped their sacks and started on a two-forty pace for camp, coming in amid the laughter and shouts of their companions.

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    — Excerpt from N. P. Langford, “The Ascent of Mount Hayden,” Scribner’s Monthly (June 1873) 6(3)129-157.

    — Illustration from the article.

    — You can read a condensed version of Langford’s The Discovery of Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.

    — To see more stories by this author, click on “Langford” under the “Categories” button to the left.