6. William H. Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire: The
Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West
(New York, 1966), p. 541; John Wesley Powell, Exploration of the Colorado River
of the West and its Tributaries: Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872,
Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
(Washington, 1875), p. xi.
Prior to the 1869 exploration, Henry had arranged for the Smithsonian to loan Powell
expensive scientific equipment for an expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1867.
Fresh from the success of this trip, Powell conceived a plan
to conduct a survey of the Colorado River in 1868. He traveled to
Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1868 to obtain permission from the U.S. Army
to draw rations from western outposts. But this required passage of legislation
in Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to grant the permission.
When the proposed legislation met with opposition, Henry wrote a four-page letter of
introduction for Powell to then congressman James A. Garfield. Henry explained that Powell
was seeking no personal gain, but rather was attempting to conduct a scientific survey
of "one of the most interesting regions of our continent."
William Culp Darrah, Powell of the Colorado (Princeton, N.J., 1951), pp. 78-82, 89;
Joseph Henry to James A. Garfield, April 20, 1868, Outgoing Correspondence, Office of the
Secretary, Record Unit 33, Smithsonian Archives.
Garfield proved to be an influential advocate for Powell's plan, and Congress
voted to provide supplies for up to twenty-five persons.
Henry saw to it that the Smithsonian furnished Powell with instruments, such as
barometers, chronometers, and a sextant. Powell's party of
scientists, students, and eager amateurs spent the summer and winter of 1868 determining
the altitude and structures of mountains; recording the vocabularies of Ute Indians
(this was Henry's suggestion, according to Powell's biographer); and surveying
various routes to ascertain the best approach to the Colorado River.
After thoroughly studying the topography of the Colorado region,
Powell returned to Washington in hopes of securing additional financing.
He was unsuccessful in doing so, but Congress again approved the use
of army supplies, and Powell was encouraged after meeting with Henry about the
forthcoming trip. Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, pp. 534-536; Darrah,
Powell, pp. 93-95, 99, 105-107, 112, 259.
After Powell returned from the 1869 expedition a national hero, Congress became more
generous and, prodded by Garfield and Salmon P. Chase (both
Smithsonian regents), provided funds for follow-up expeditions in 1870, 1871, and 1872.
The Smithsonian was put in charge of directing the expenditures.
Powell returned to Washington in 1873, this time to take up residence. He was given a small
room in the Smithsonian Building to work in, and consulted with Henry and naturalist
Spencer Baird, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian, on the progress
of his monograph on the Colorado explorations. In June 1874, Powell personally delivered
his manuscript to Henry. Its publication would establish his scientific reputation.
Darrah, Powell, pp. 152, 205, 215; Annual Report of the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution...for the Year 1871 (Washington, 1873), p. 26;
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution...for
the Year 1875 (Washington, 1876), p. 17.
The date Powell named the Henry Mountains is uncertain. G. K. Gilbert's
Report on the Geology of the Henry Mountains, a work submitted to Powell
for review prior to publication, states flatly that on Powell's descent of the Colorado
River in 1869 he gave the mountains their name as his boat passed near their foot.
Presumably Gilbert obtained this information from Powell himself. G. K. Gilbert's
Report on the Geology of the Henry Mountains (Washington, 1877), p. 1.
[Return to text.]
7. "Charles Francis Hall," American National Biography (New York, 1999);
Trevor H. Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century of Exploration,
1818-1918 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 248-253; Annual Report of the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution ... for the Year 1873 (Washington, 1874), pp. 37-38;
quotation from Markham, The Great-Frozen Sea, p. 127;
G. S. Nares, Narrative of a Voyage to the Polar Sea During 1875-6 (London, 1878), vol. 1, pp. 130, 169,
252-253, 301-302, 326; Henry to Dawes, March 12, 1870, Office of the Secretary, Outgoing Correspondence,
Record Unit 33, Smithsonian Archives; March 11 and 18, 1870, Henry Desk Diary, Henry Papers,
Smithsonian Archives; Chauncey C. Loomis, Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis
Hall, Explorer (New York, 1971), pp. 251-254, 279-281, 337-354.
I have not been able to locate a primary source confirming
positively that Hall named Cape Joseph Henry. The name first surfaces, as far as I
can tell, on a map of Hall's expedition prepared by Emil Bessels in his Scientific Results of
the United States Arctic Expedition: Steamer Polaris, C. F. Hall Commanding
(Washington, 1876). The map is titled "Chart of the Regions of Smith Sound and Baffin Bay,
Showing the Tracks and Discoveries of the U.S.S. Polaris, C.F. Hall, Commanding:
Newly Projected from Revised Materials," and was completed sometime prior to March
1, 1875, the date on which Bessels summitted his book to Henry for publication.
It is possible that a crew member of the Polaris named the cape after Henry,
perhaps in accordance with Hall's wishes. Personal Communication, November 10, 1999,
from Randolph Freeman, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Another possibility
is that Bessels himself named the cape after Henry. To further confuse matters, among Henry's
manuscripts is a letter dated December 6, 1876, congratulating him "that
Cape Joseph Henry has been added to the domain of
geography." The writer, an official with the American Geographical Society, found the honor "especially gratifying as coming from the
countrymen of the founder of the Smithsonian," thus implying members of the British expedition
of 1875-76 led by George S. Nares. Charles P. Daley, December 6, 1876, Record Unit 26, Office
of the Secretary, Incoming Correspondence, Smithsonian Archives. Nares's expedition was,
in fact, the first to set foot on the cape and his narrative of the expedition
makes numerous references to it (see citation to Nares in previous paragraph). Bessels's account
of Hall's expedition was rushed into print so that Nares would benefit from its
discoveries. Perhaps Nares merely reaffirmed the name and thereby helped make it official.
One secondary source quotes him as stating that the cape "was named by the
late Captain Hall," but gives no citation for this quote.
Geographic Names Database.
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8. Alexander Leitch, ed., A Princeton Companion (Princeton, 1978),
pp. 64, 160, 248;
"Nobel Prize Winners";
Charles G. Osgood, Lights in Nassau Hall: A Book of the Bicentennial, Princeton, 1746-1946 (Princeton, 1951), p. 114.
[Return to text.]
9. William Barber to Spencer F. Baird, May 15, 1878; Barber to Miss
[Mary?] Henry, June 9, 1879: both in Box 39, Joseph Henry Collection, Record Unit 7001,
Smithsonian Archives; excerpt from Board of Regents Meeting of January 25, 1967,
Box 1, Office of the Secretary, Record Unit 99, Smithsonian Archives; David Ferry, trans., The Odes of Horace
(New York, 1997), pp. 64-65.
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10. Rothenberg, Papers of Joseph Henry, vol. 8, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv. John Rodgers to
Harriet Henry, July 5, 1878, Rhees Collection, RH 4221, Huntington Library; Letter from the Secretary
of the Treasury, Recommending an Appropriation, to be Paid as Compensation for
Services Rendered by the Late Professor Henry as a Member of the Light-House
Board," Senate Executive Document No. 94, 45th Congress, 2d Session, quotation from
p. 2; "U.S. Coast Guard Cutter, Fir," at
the web site
of the National Maritime Initiative, National Park Service, dated
6-25-99; label to model of Joseph Henry in the National Museum of American History;
Arnold Burges Johnson, The Modern Light-House Service (Washington, 1890),
pp. 42-43; quotation from George R. Putnam, Lighthouses and Lightships
of the United States, (Boston, 1917), p. 213;
Annual Report of the Light-House Board...for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1886
(Washington, 1886), pp. 106-107.
[Return to text.]
11. Horace C. Hovey, "The Caverns of Luray," chapter 12 of Celebrated American Caverns
(Cincinnati, 1882), especially pp. 164-167, 172, 179, and map facing p. 163; "Report of a
Visit to the Luray Cavern, in Page County, Virginia, Under the Auspices of the Smithsonian
Institution, July 13 and 14, 1880," Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the
Smithsonian Institution ... for the Year 1880 (Washington, 1881), pp. 449-460; Russell
H. Gurnee, Discovery of Luray Caverns, Virginia (Closter, New Jersey, 1978), pp. 45,
52, 69, 72-73, 76, 77, 86, 88; S. Z. Ammen, History and Description of the Luray
Cave (Baltimore, 1882), p. 31; "Luray Cavern," Encyclopedia Britannica
(Cambridge, 1911), pp. 127-128. Image of Henry-Baird Column taken from Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper, February 1, 1879, p. 400.
Surviving documents do not explain why the Reading Society named the stalagmites after Henry
and Baird (or why this small society was involved in the naming of the object).
The documents do, however, offer some hints. Henry had begun corresponding with officials of the society
shortly after its founding in the late 1860s. At their request, he supplied the society
with publications in natural history (and probably specimens as well). Baird, a native
Pennsylvanian who possibly was acquainted with some members of the society, also corresponded
with them. Perhaps the society acted out of gratitude for Henry and Baird's assistance.
It is unclear what, if anything, the Smithsonian's interest in the cavern had to do with
the naming. But it is worth noting that another feature of the
caverns, Hawes' Cabinet, was named after someone from the Smithsonian, geologist George
Wesson Hawes. W. J. Hoffman to Joseph Henry, February 4, 1869, Record Unit 26, Office of the
Secretary, Incoming Correspondence, Smithsonian Archives; Henry to R. S. Turner, February [11?],
1870, Record Unit 33, Outgoing Correspondence, Smithsonian Archives; Frank Kimball to
Henry, May 29, 1871, Record Unit 26, Incoming Correspondence, Smithsonian Archives;
Hovey, Celebrated Caverns, p. 186; "Obituary Notice of Dr. G. W. Hawes," Annual
Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution ... for the Year 1882
(Washington, 1884), pp. 158-160.
I wish to thank Roger Sherman, museum specialist at the National Museum of
American History, for first alerting me to an entry in the 1957 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica
that mentioned the Henry-Baird Column.
[Return to text.]
12. "S. H. Short," Dictionary of American Biography; S. H. Short, "The First Electric
Railroad," St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, May 14, 1899,
Section 3, p. 10; George K. Bradley, "Thomas A. Edison, Leo Daft, Edward M. Bentley,
Walter H. Knight, and Others Who Were Pioneer Electric Railway Inventors," in
John R. Stevens, ed., Pioneers of Electric Railroading:
Their Story in Words and Pictures (New York, 1991), pp. 54, 81;
George W. Hilton and John F. Due, The Electric Interurban Railways in America
(Stanford, 1960), pp. 6-7.
[Return to text.]
13. Report of the Action of the
International Electrical Congress held in Chicago August, 1893, in the Matter of
Units of Electrical Measure, pp. 1-4, in Box 27, Joseph Henry Collection,
Record Unit 7001, Smithsonian Archives; Annual Report of the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution...to July, 1893 (Washington, [1895]), p. 10;
T.C. Mendenhall, "The Henry," Annual Report of the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution...to July, 1894 (Washington, 1896),
pp. 141, 143, 152; Mascart entry in Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Photograph
of delegates to the congress from Proceedings of the International Electrical
Congress held in the City of Chicago: August 21st to 25th, 1893 (New York, 1894), frontispiece.
[Return to text.]
14. L. A. Sawyer and W. H. Mitchell, The Liberty Ships (Cambridge,
1970), pp. 13-16, 86-88; additional information supplied by maritime historian William F. Hultgren,
to whom we are indebted for a photograph of the Joseph Henry. I also wish to thank
Smithsonian research associate Ellis Yochelson for first suggesting that a Liberty ship
might be named after Henry.
[Return to text.]
15. "Galway: Yesterday and Today," a brochure published by the Galway
Preservation Society, 1988; Albert E. Moyer, Joseph Henry:
The Rise of an American Scientist (Washington, 1997), pp. 17, 20.
[Return to text.]
16. Alexander Leitch, ed., A Princeton Companion
(Princeton, 1978), pp. 248, 277, 351. When the widow of Stanley Palmer Jadwin died in
1964, the bulk of her estate went to Princeton (some $27 million). A new physics
building was constructed shortly thereafter and named Jadwin Hall in honor of
Stanley Palmer Jadwin. The physics department had suggested the building be named
after Joseph Henry. When the university administration chose to honor the
benefactor, the department named its complex of laboratories after Henry.
Leitch, A Princeton Companion, p. 277; phone interview with physics professor
Frank Shoemaker, August 11, 1999.
[Return to text.]
17. 1993 press release, Joseph Henry Press; communication from
Stephen Mautner, executive director of the press, July 1999.
[Return to text.]
18. William Jay Murphy to Henry, two letters, each dated October 9, 1873,
Record Unit 26, Office of the Secretary, Incoming Correspondence, Smithsonian Archives;
Henry to Murphy, October 14, Outgoing Correspondence, Office of the Secretary,
Record Unit 33, Smithsonian Archives.
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