Henry Elliott, 1846-1930
Artist
"Mr. Elliott labored with his usual zeal and efficiency, and, besides great numbers of sketches, he constructed sections of the entire routes traversed during the season. Assisted by Mr. Carrington, he made the circuit of the lake in our little boat, and sketched the entire shore-line with care." --F.V. Hayden [1]
"At the age of sixteen, he became private secretary to Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a post he held until 1878. During this period, he was called upon to serve on numerous expeditions and surveys. From 1865 to 1867, he was a member of the Western Telegraph Expedition to Alaska, then from 1869 to 1871 he was the official artist of Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden's western United States Geological Survey. Elliott's most important contribution to natural history, however, was his own field work in the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea from 1872 to 1874 and again in 1890. His sketches and research convincingly documented the destruction of fur seals in that area, and in 1905 he drafted a treaty to protect the fur seal population, which was ratified in 1911 by Canada, Russia, Japan, and the United States." [3]
Overshadowed
Student Interview with Lee Whittlesey [4]
"Henry Elliott was being overshadowed by his more illustrious colleagues; nevertheless he workmanlike sketches served Hayden's purposes admirably. Elliott made hundreds of drawings, not only of the round-trip route from Ogden to Yellowstone but of the entire circumference of Yellowstone Lake. No less than sixty-three illustrations graced Hayden's own report in the 1871 Annual Report (the only portion of that report to be illustrated), and Elliott drew most of them, though Moran depicted a dozen of the more dramatic views, such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Lake, and several geysers." [5]
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"Henry Elliott, the survey artist, wrote ingle articles for several newspapers, and his boss at the Smithsonian, director Joseph Henry, also sent some of Elliott's personal letters for publication." [6]
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- F. V. Hayden, Preliminary Report of The United States Geological Survey of Montana and Portions of Adjacent Territories; Being A Fifth Annual Report of Progress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), pg. 5.
- "U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library." U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library, photo by W. H. Jackson. 1871. Accessed November 21, 2012.
- Mary Sayre. Haverstock et al., Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000), 264.
- "Interview with Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone Park Historian," interview by author, October 12, 2012.
- Mike Foster, Strange Genius: The Life of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1994), pg. #217-218.
- Merrill, Marlene. With Hayden in the Field : a Case Study Based on Unpublished Letters and Diaries from the 1871 Yellowstone Survey. 1993. Yellowstone Research Center Archives.