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What is the name source for Mount Ellsworth in the Henry Mountains just north of Ticaboo in Garfield County, Utah? Is it named for someone with a last or first name of "Ellsworth"? Or is it in honor of one of many locales across the U.S. named "Ellsworth"?

If you know or can point to an authority, please contact Bill Allen, who has published a digital mapping how-to article in 3D Artist magazine that, as an example, centers on Mt. Ellsworth. This page will be maintained as a "collaborative research" vehicle at least until the answer is found.

An inquiry to the Henry Mountains Field Station (geologist Buzz Rakow via Bert Hart) of the Bureau of Land Management, which has responsibility for Mt. Ellsworth, received the 20 Dec. response that they didn't know, noting that: Charles B. Hunt's book The Geology and Geography of the Henry Mountains, 1953...listed Ellsworth as unknown for the source but was used by Gilbert in his 1875 survey.

There is a nicely done set of pages on the Henries on the Texas Tech Web site at wrc.ce.ttu.edu/henrypage/henhom.html. Its Bibliography section (direct link) lists four C.B. Hunt sources based on the writings of Grove Karl Gilbert, who was assigned by John Wesley Powell to study the Henries in 1875 and 1876 with famous results.

That site's Geography section (direct link) has the most complete statement I have found so far about the naming of the Henry Mountain peaks: All but one of the peaks were named for persons associated with the Powell Survey. Mount Ellen was named by A.H. Thompson for his wife, the sister of Powell. She, and Powell's wife, spent considerable time in the field and by all accounts she was a real asset to the scientific work.

Some Web pages state that Powell himself named Mt. Ellen for his sister. Almon Harris Thompson accompanied Powell and led sub-parties on various expeditions, including the first recorded through the Henries. (Powell's wife's name was Emma Dean Powell, nee Harriet Emma Dean. Powell may have named a mountain for her further south.)

An inquiry to the author of those Texas Tech pages, Tony Mollhagen, got this 21 Dec. response: I obtained that information from Wallace Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian ... The origin isn't given in the book Utah Place Names, either... There is a fellow who is working on place names in the Henries, but he is mostly interviewing local people about some of the lesser landmarks. I am not optimistic anything will come of this since Ellsworth got it's name long before there were any settlers in the region.

A big question is, if Powell or one of his party didn't name Mt. Ellsworth, then who could they possibly have learned the name from? Powell named this isolated group of peaks the Henry Mountains for his patron, Joseph Henry, the first head of the Smithsonian Institution. (Some reports say that he first called them the "Unknown Mountains," or the "Dirty Devil Mountains," for the Dirty Devil River that meets the Colorado just above the Henries.) The five peaks are named as follows:

• Ellen (11,506') - Ellen Thompson nee Powell (see above)
  
• Pennell (11,371') - Joseph Pennell (illustrator)
• Hillers (10,723') - John K. "Jack" Hillers (photographer)
• Ellsworth (8,235') - ???
• Holmes (7,930') - William Henry Holmes (geologist)

Inferring an Answer

If the direct answer to the question, "Who or what is Mt. Ellsworth named for?" can't be found in the literature or in the source materials, then here follow some avenues for investigation from which the answer might be inferred, including some long shots.

• Ellsworth as a family name
  • J.W. Powell came from an ardent abolitionist family and was an early volunteer for the Union army in the Civil War. Another somewhat like him was Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth. Both came from New York state originally, and both had lived in Illinois (Ellsworth immediately before and Powell immediately after the Civil War). Ellsworth's death was used to rally people to the cause when he became one of the first Union officers to fall, killed in the act of taking down a conspicuous Confederate flag (1861).
          Col. Ellsworth was probably the most famous Ellsworth during the naming period, 1869-76, at least among Powell's people, who included veterans of the just concluded war (1865). (Locals, in their isolation and estrangement from the U.S. at the time, would seem unlikely to have named peaks for U.S. Army officers.) If the colonel had been honored with the naming of a mountain, one would expect 1) that the namer would have made sure to proclaim it, and 2) that Web pages related to him today would take note of it, which doesn't seem to be the case. Here is a sampling of the many sites and pages related to Col. E.E. Ellsworth:
    • msnhomepages.talkcity.com/Terminus/debodun/index.html
    • www.acun.com/dentons/Ellsworth.htm
    • www.zouave.org/craze.html
          Further doubt comes from the fact that Powell and Thompson were remarkable among 19th Century explorers for naming geography after anyone and anything but the "big names" of their day. For instance, the Henry Mountains were named for one of the most famous scientists at that time, but he was also a patron of Powell's work, and four of the five individual peaks in that range were named not for generals or Presidents but for survey team members and associates.
  • I haven't yet found any likely linkages that might connect naming a mountain with any of several famous citizens in the...
    • Utah Ellsworth family lines: Edmund William Ellsworth, or David Ellsworth and German Ellsworth, and their respective descendants. They were in the first Mormon pioneer companies, and David Ellsworth in 1862 was among the first to move into southern Utah.
    • Connecticut Ellsworth family line: This line includes U.S. Founding Father Oliver Ellsworth and his descendants. An intriguing possibility is his son, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (d. 1858), an early advocate of the new federal government supporting science. He became the first head of the newly independent U.S. Patent Office in 1836, and from that position promoted the foundation of what became the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He traveled in the midwest when it was still frontier, and was involved in land investments in Indiana and Ohio. He wrote, Washington Irving on the Prairie; or, A Narrative of the Southwest in the Year 1832 (Washington Irving also wrote about this trip in his A Tour on the Prairies).
    (The author of this page is in an Aylesworth/Ellsworth family line associated with the states of Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont, with no known relationship to any people or places mentioned here.)
  • Christian Hancock at the Utah State Historical Soc. on 12 Jan. 01 wrote to pass on some information that I just received from USGS. They thought that [Mt. Ellsworth] may be named after Charles Clinton Ellsworth (1824-1899), a Republican of Michigan, who served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 45th Congress (1877-1879).
          According to his official Congressional biography, C.C. Ellsworth's term ended on 3 March 1879, so it is possible that he participated in the act that created the U.S. Geological Survey that year (and also defunded the Powell survey, then in the field--see a USGS account). A quick search reveals nothing on this point, but it is mute since the mountain had been named by 1876.
  • If there is an answer in Ellsworth family connections for Powell, Thompson, Steward, F.M Bishop (first cartographer to accurately map this area), or other associates from the 1871-75 surveys, simple Web searches haven't revealed it.
    
  • Ellsworth genealogical/historical information
    • "Index to Politicians: Ellsworth" - politicalgraveyard.com/bio/ellsworth.html
    • "Ellsworths in the U.S. Congress" - www.internettrash.com/users/cheuvront/ellsworth3.html
    • Ellsworth genealogy forum - genforum.genealogy.com/ellsworth/all.html
• Ellsworth as a first name
  • One of Powell's photographers was E.O. Beaman. This page had wondered aloud if the "E." might have stood for "Ellsworth." Beaman's being honored with a mountain name seemed like a very long shot, as he and Powell had "a parting of the ways." However, Powell acquired Beaman's share of the rights to Beaman's photos from the 1871 Colorado River run, and, since other peaks were subsequently named for survey members, including for the photographer who succeeded Beaman (Hillers), maybe it wasn't out of the question, and even might have been sealed in the deal.
          Five Quail Books at www.grandcanyonbooks.com currently has listed E.O. Beaman: A visionary robbed of his legacy with these details: "(Work In Progress) - Charles B. Miller, Phoenix, 2000, 4to., comb-bound white wraps, unpaginated (32 pages), illus. Limited manuscript of 100 signed copies. As new. Signed...$7.00." (Five Quail also lists other rare Powell-related publications including some crucial Utah Historical Quarterly sets.)
          On inquiry as to whether Miller's work explains the initials, Diane Cassidy was kind enough to respond on 11 Jan. 01 that the manuscript says it isn't known but, quoting Miller, There is some common usage, unverified, of the name Elias Olcott Beaman. This statement is footnoted that there is good reason to pursue the possibility that this Beaman is one and the same as another photographer, "Elihu A. Beaman." She also noted that Miller reports that Beaman died in 1876 at the age of 39.
          In his 12 Jan. 01 message about C.C. Ellsworth, Christian Hancock at the Utah State Historical Soc. said, I also found out for sure that it wasn't named after E.O. Beaman, his first name was Elliot I believe.
          Doing a search for "E. Beaman" on the LDS Family Search site at www.familysearch.org brings up several references to the birth (c.1825) and marriage (c.1846) of a Mr. and Mrs. E.O. Beaman of Flagstaff, Ariz., which would seem to be a false or confusing lead for anyone researching the little-known life of an important early photographer.
• Ellsworth as a location name
  • To get an idea of Ellsworth localities that might have served as a name source, take a look at:
    • U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer - www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer?ellsworth)
    • U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System - mapping.usgs.gov:8888/gnis/owa/gnisprod?f_name=ellsworth
  • Ellsworth, Kansas was a major way station during 1864-75. It was a military supply point in the Indian wars, and became a railroad and cattle town. Ft. Ellsworth (unconfirmed but likely named for Col. E.E. Ellsworth) was built here in 1864 at the junction of trails to Santa Fe and to Denver, and was renamed Ft. Harker in 1866. The town of Ellsworth was formed in 1867 when the Union Pacific Railroad arrived.
    Town history - www.droversmercantile.com/droverswebsite/history.htm

Online References

Here are some wonderful information resources about Utah history and geography. They, however, do not reveal the name source for Mt. Ellsworth.

• 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., Smithsonian Institution, GPO, 1875.
  This 290-page report by Powell, with a section by Thompson, can be viewed in its entirety as photos or as an uncorrected, badly-mangled OCR text. See page 287 for the index, pages 71, 137, 138, 141, and 177 for named references to the Henry Mountains, and pages 67-68 for a telling of what appears to be Powell's initial views of the Henries (first spotted from Narrow Canyon) on the 1869 expedition.
  

• Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia - www.uen.org/ucme
  Quote: All of these names were given to the peaks by U.S. government surveying parties in the 1870s.
• Utah History Encyclopedia - www.media.utah.edu/UHE/
• Utah State Historical Soc. Markers & Monuments Database - www.dced.state.ut.us/history/Services/lcmarkers.html

• Bureau of Land Management - www.ut.blm.gov/wilderness/wrpt/wrpteclittlerockies.html
• Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance - www.suwa.org/WATE/henrymtns.html
• Tony Mollhagen's pages - wrc.ce.ttu.edu/henrypage/henhom.html

• Desert USA - www.desertusa.com/magnov97/nov_pap/du_jwpowell.html
• J.W. Powell Memorial Museum - www.powellmuseum.org/MajorPowell.html - [maps]
• J.W. Powell River History Museum - www.surweb.org/surweb/tour/jwp/jwptour.htm
• USGS, History of - pubs.usgs.gov/circular/c1050/index.htm

Offline References

These are sources that could help in this inquiry, but which apparently are not available online.

• Publications by or about Grove Karl Gilbert, including Geological Society of America Memoir 167.
• Publications by Charles B. Hunt. (Bert Hart reports that the answer is not in Hunt's The Geology and Geography of the Henry Mountains.)
• Publications by Charles Gregory Crampton.
• Publications by Wallace E. Stegner. (Tony Mollhagen reports that the answer is not in Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian.)
• Publications by or about Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, especially his A Canyon Voyage, 1908, reprinted 1926, 1959 (Yale Univ. Press), 1984 (paper)
• Bartlett, Richard A., Great Surveys of the American West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962.
• "Powell and the Names on the Plateau," Western Humanities Review 7, no. 2 (Spring 1953): 105-10.
• Utah Historical Quarterly of the Utah State Historical Soc. [contents]
  • "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson," 7 (1939): 3
  • many articles in 15 (1947)
  • many articles in 16-17 (1948-49)
    A good starting place would be the article based on the journal of John F. Steward, a geologist who reportedly was the first non-native to approach Mt. Ellsworth (during the 1871 second Powell expedition).
  • many articles in 37, no. 2 (1969)
  • "The 1872 Diary & Plant Collections of Ellen Powell Thompson," Beatrice Scheer Smith, 62, no. 2 (1994): 104
  • maybe other UHQ articles such as ones based on diaries of members of Powell's expeditions

Source Material Archives

Below are archives that clearly need to be checked. If you are a researcher with access to archives of original materials in Utah, please get in touch for a few other less-obvious possibilities as well.

• American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, Penn.
  • Its Web site reports that the Library holds a dozen reels of microfilm and 175 pages of collected research that W.E. Stegner donated, consisting of a considerable amount of original J.W. Powell material, as well as related items such as the microfilmed journals of Dellenbaugh and Steward (but not Thompson?). For listings, use your browser's Find command on those names at www.amphilsoc.org/library/guides/indians/info/film.htm and www.amphilsoc.org/library/browser/pem.htm. The materials in the microfilms are credited to the New York Public Library and the U.S. National Archives.
• National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) [NAIL|NAIL Search]
  NAIL is the NARA Archival Information Locator. Searches can be done on control numbers. A "Digital Copies Search" gives hits only for holdings that can be viewed online.
  • USGS archives - www.nara.gov/guide/rg057.html
    • Powell Survey - www.nara.gov/guide/rg057.html#57.2.2
    • Photographic Prints Produced & Collected by John K. Hillers
      Control #NWDNS-57-JH: Photographs (original negatives and prints as well as later copies) taken as part of the Powell surveys during 1871-78, most with captions. A few of these images can be viewed with their descriptions (none apparently are relevant to the Henry Mountains) by doing a Digital Copies Search for "hillers".
    • Wheeler Survey - www.nara.gov/guide/rg057.html#57.2.4
      Whether or not this material overlaps with those in the Chief of Engineers archives, it does seem to be the location for material relating to Wheeler's 1872 work in southern Utah around Bryce and Kanab (and where else?).
  • Chief of Engineers archives - www.nara.gov/guide/rg077.html
    • Wheeler Survey - www.nara.gov/guide/rg077.html#77.5.2
• New York Public Library [digital collections|archives]
  
  • Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh Papers (no online links)
    Dellenbaugh was a member of the second Powell expedition and a nephew of A.H. Thompson. He wrote in 1926 (see www.uapress.arizona.edu/samples/sam108.htm) that Thompson bequeathed to me his diaries and all his Colorado River material. These diaries I have deposited in the Manuscript Department of the New York Public Library together with my own diary of that time, and with those of other members of the [second] expedition through the courtesy and generosity of their heirs.
  • Robert Brewster Stanton Papers
    Stanton was a contemporary explorer and surveyor of the Colorado River who was involved in railroad and mining development plans for the Colorado and especially for Glen Canyon. His papers and/or his various writings, including an unpublished manuscript about the region's history and geology, might possibly mention the name source of Mt. Ellsworth.
• Utah State Historical Society
  • Harry LeRoy Aleson Papers
    Box 25 is reported to include the "Canonita survey of Glen Canyon, June-July 1872 (Diaries of Johnson, Hillers and Dellenbaugh)."
          The summer 1872 trek from Potato Valley (Escalante) to the mouth of the Dirty Devil River to retrieve the boat Cañonita, which had been cached there during the 1871 river expedition, is recorded as the first exploration of the Henry Mountains.

Where from Here?

• A lot of reading: Is the name source for Mt. Ellsworth actually not given anywhere in the voluminous original writings of the participants in the 1869-79 Powell survey work, or is it just that no one to date has thought to pick out the fact from those writings and put it into the modern literature?
        In reading source material, watch for references to famous Ellsworths of the time, such as Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, and for references to locations named Ellsworth, such as the fort/town/county in Kansas.
• Find the maps: What is the earliest map on which the name Mt. Ellsworth shows? If they are extant, is the name on the preparatory map for the 1871 expedition or on working maps from during that expedition? Is it on the charts that F.M Bishop reportedly finished in 1873 as the very first accurately-measured maps of the Colorado River?
• Check out Gilbert: So far, it appears that G.K. Gilbert was the first to use the Mt. Ellsworth name. How early does it show in his notebooks? It is used on a sketch dated 2 Oct. 1876, but Gilbert began his work in 1875. As the first to use the name, is it possible that he gave the mountain its name? Here are a couple of Gilbert starting points:
  • academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/gilbert/gilbert.htm
  • geoclio.st.usm.edu/gilbert.html
    This page describes Gilbert as "quite self-effacing, he was eager to give others credit."
• Look for more survey associates: With expeditions and surveys running 1869 through 1879, there must have been many more people involved than are commonly reported. For instance, did Gilbert work alone? Who did all the engraving that was done from the photographs? And who provided local support as well as hospitality during those years, and where did those who wintered over stay in Utah? (There were at least two different Mormon pioneer families named Ellsworth. Brigham Young's oldest daughter married into one of them.)
• Look for local connections: Powell reported that he tried, where known, to use local names for geography. Although for several reasons it seems unlikely that this particular peak would have been named locally, the very first Mormon pioneers to move into this area were arriving around this time, so it is a possibility. In particular, pathfinder and missionary Jacob Hamblin was reported to have made an attempt to reach the area of the Henry Mountains from what is now the town of Escalante just before A.H. Thompson's team successfully made that journey. And the Henries could have been approached by other easier routes from Mormon territory. Where are Hamblin's papers, and what Ellsworth connections might they reveal? (In local source documents, southern Utah is often referred to as "Utah's Dixie.")
• Finally, do the genealogies for all the possible namers, including Powell, Thompson, Steward, Bishop, Gilbert, and maybe Hamblin.