After Hatcher took a six-week respite from the field, he wrote from Gulf, North Carolina, in mid-January 1890 that he was again attempting to find Jurassic mammals but hadn’t succeeded, even though they were now mining coal from an old shaft. He considered it useless to search for mammals there. A specimen might be found, but it would only be a chance find, and “to say that the circumstances are discouraging expresses it but mildly.” Still laboring futilely at the Egypt mine on the twenty-seventh, Hatcher planned to follow Marsh’s directive and travel to Archer, Florida, where he planned to collect next. But before leaving, he revealed to Marsh that he’d had an offer from Georg Baur to join him in a commercial fossil-collecting venture he was starting. Born in Germany, Baur came to the United States and became one of Marsh’s assistants at Yale in 1884 after finishing his doctorate at the University of Munich in 1882. A specialist in the embryology and morphology of living and extinct vertebrates, Baur remained with Marsh until 1890, when, dissatisfied, he left to lecture at Clark University in Massachusetts before eventually joining the University of Chicago as the chairman of the osteology and vertebrate paleontology department in 1892. But regardless of Hatcher’s association with Baur as a colleague under Marsh, Hatcher was wary about joining Baur in his business:
Of course it is impossible for me at present to go into such a business with anyone without doing you an injustice & even if I were inclined to I could not now under my present financial conditions. I think I offended him in my reply as I have not heard from him since. However, I will state definitely so that there may be no misunderstanding between you and I that until my time with you is up I shall enter into no such business with anyone unless it be by your consult & approval. And further, I never expect to make a business of collecting to sell. Great as my success as a collector has been I think I am as well prepared to judge of the cost of getting fossils ready for market as any one & I know what the profits would be.1
Baur’s flight from Marsh’s lab had been triggered when the Cope-Marsh feud exploded onto the front pages of the popular press. On January 12, 1890, the New York Herald led its Sunday edition with a headline in bold, black type: SCIENTISTS WAGE BITTER WARFARE, while subsidiary headlines explained that Cope was bringing “Serious Charges” against Marsh and the director of the USGS, the famous, one-armed Civil War hero and Grand Canyon explorer John Wesley Powell. Cope had conspired to bring his long-simmering stew of scandalous accusations against Marsh through enlisting the help of an acquaintance and freelance journalist with questionable credentials and integrity named William H. Ballou, to whom Cope turned over all the supposedly incriminating documents and evidence he’d collected and sequestered in the lower drawer of his desk for the previous twenty years. Among the more serious charges was an allegation that Marsh had plagiarized his papers on the evolution of horses from the work of Russian paleontologist Vladimir Kowalevsky, along with the charge that many of Marsh’s research papers had actually been written by his laboratory assistants, including Williston for Marsh’s research on toothed birds (Odontornithes) and other dinosaurs, as well as Cretaceous mammals, and Baur for the horned mammals called Dinocerata. Baur, somewhat differently, claimed that Oscar Harger wrote the Odontornithes monograph and the descriptive part of the Dinocerata volume. Much to the horror of numerous leading paleontologists of the day, Cope provided Ballou with correspondence from numerous colleagues, including Henry Fairfield Osborn and William Berryman Scott of Princeton, as well as Samuel W. Williston and George Baur of Marsh’s own laboratory to back up his claims. Regarding the USGS, Cope alleged that Powell and Marsh had conspired to fill the ranks of the National Academy of Sciences with people directly associated with and dependent on the Survey, thereby facilitating the distribution of federal funds to Marsh and his cronies to the detriment of adversaries such as Cope. Powell and Marsh passionately and comprehensively sought to refute each charge and raise countercharges, many of which have already been mentioned, against Cope in subsequent voluminous follow-up articles that ran in the Herald on January 13, 14, 19, 20, and 26. Part of Marsh’s counterattack involved soliciting statements of denial from the colleagues and assistants that Cope had cited as providing evidence against Marsh. Hatcher was only marginally enmeshed in this melee, having only been listed as a person “in a position to offer evidence” regarding Marsh’s alleged “incompetence, ignorance and plagiarism” in Ballou’s lead article on the twelfth. Hatcher’s denial, dated January 10, 1890, stated, “I have never authorized Professor E. D. Cope or anyone else to use my name in any way in any attack against you or the United States Geological Survey.” A similar statement by Baur was quoted in which he stated, “I hereby voluntarily state that I have never in any way authorized the use of my name in any attack on you or your work.” But Baur became a casualty in the battle between Cope and Marsh in the Herald. Marsh had badgered Baur to state in writing that he had not “dictated” any of the generalizations in Marsh’s volume on the Dinocerata to Marsh. Baur eventually complied, but his statement also noted that Baur had advised Marsh on “all the points,” especially how the animals were scientifically classified. However, Marsh only provided the Herald with Baur’s first sentence in which Baur confirmed that he had not dictated any of the generalizations. Incensed upon seeing only part of his statement in print, Baur immediately resigned his position in Marsh’s lab, which apparently led him to offer Hatcher a partnership in the commercial collecting enterprise that he considered establishing in the wake of his resignation.2
Having abandoned his collecting effort in North Carolina, Hatcher shortly headed south via rail to Charleston and on to Florida, where he wrote on February 13 that he had begun work near Williston, Florida, at a locality about 1.5 miles from the post office on the farm of J. J. Mixon (also sometimes spelled Mixson), eleven miles southwest of Archer. Situated in an orange grove, it was by far the most promising locality he’d seen, so he secured the right to collect and hired Mixon’s son to help at $50 per month. The bones were badly broken up but included many specimens of mastodon and rhinos, including a rhino skull with a beautifully complete set of teeth. Hatcher’s crew was working in yellow clay on level ground, and Hatcher anticipated having a nice collection to supplement the Kansas collection. Looking ahead, he suggested Beecher might come down to oversee the operation when Hatcher left for Wyoming, and he sought Marsh’s advice about rehiring his former crew out there as well as the route Marsh wanted him to take when he left about March 10. Marsh telegraphed Hatcher on the seventeenth to return to New Haven to discuss plans for the summer season and advised Hatcher to close operations there at the end of February. But on the eighteenth, Hatcher replied that it was very inconvenient for him to leave immediately “for I have not money enough to square up here and take me to New Haven.” He asked Marsh to send two drafts on his New York bank—one for $25 and the other for $50—as soon as possible, for the nearest bank was thirty miles away. Then he would come at once, despite the fact that they were still having good success, because he realized the Wyoming work was more important. Although the trip was truncated, a search of the USNM Paleobiology collections reveals that seventeen specimens were collected from Mixon’s Bone Bed during 1890, presumably by Hatcher and his assistants. These include one of the rhino, Aphelops; fourteen of the rhino, Teleoceras; one of the early relative of elephants, “Serridentinus,” now called Gomphotherium; and one of the camel Procamelus. The yellow clay in which the fossils were found suggests that all of these mammals lived around a quiet body of water, such as a lake, that also hosted crocodiles and alligators during the late Miocene, about eight to nine million years ago, and this site represented the first rich fossil locality ever found in Florida, as well as the first major Miocene or Pliocene fossil locality ever found in the eastern United States.3
As with the previous year, Marsh prioritized Hatcher’s tasks for the 1890 season around Lusk in a document dated March 7: (1) secure horncore fragments of Skull No. 1; (2) secure other fragments of the small three-toed foot now here and investigate if the vertebrae sent with it were found close by and from one animal; (3) get all fragments of Skull No. 6 (labeled No. 5 when sent) and all fragments of other specimen found twenty yards from it; (4) take up Skeleton A (called Skull 3 in last year’s list); (5) the skull labeled No. 5 last year should retain that number, and try to find more fragments of it since it seems to be distinct from others; (6) the large concretion showing fragments of ribs and other bones projecting may be named the “brown concretion,” and left for present after stabilizing it; (7) Burwell’s specimen in bluff on south bank of “Big Skull Cañon” should eventually be taken up if it’s worth it and pre-dental bone is found; (8) but first, go for the big skulls, “Ceratops” and “Hadrosaurus,” and don’t let any other party interfere; (9) next push on with the mammal hunt, especially where there is chance of getting new things or more complete specimens. The directive ended by emphasizing, “With these few suggestions, I leave everything to your own good judgment, in full confidence that you, on the ground, will know best the relative importance of the various kinds of work before you. With your party as a whole, and with every member of it, your word is law.”4
In pursuance, Hatcher arrived in Long Pine on the eleventh to find “Mrs. H well and everything in good shape.” She was again grateful for the presents Marsh sent. But Hatcher was suffering from a cold and sore throat and thought he’d soon be better if it didn’t turn into pneumonia. Still sick on the eighteenth, Hatcher strained his back wrestling a haystack off his wagon, adding to his misery. Guernsey had been on Hatcher’s train from Chicago and said he’d received Marsh’s letters asking to send the horncore from Skull No. 1, but since Marsh “did not seem to be willing to give him either credit or money he had decided not to send it.” Guernsey also said that the horncore already sent to Marsh was to be held at the Peabody subject to his orders, and he wanted it sent it to him at Westford, New York. Hatcher told him he thought the horncore was more valuable to Marsh, since Marsh had the skull, and asked Guernsey to set a price. But Guernsey set an enormous one, $250, almost $6,400 in today’s currency, for sending the missing one and letting Marsh keep the one in New Haven. So Hatcher asked if they could be cast and Guernsey said he might allow that. Hatcher intimated that Guernsey “was evidently very . . . displeased at something you had said or written or not written,“ but he was very friendly with Hatcher and invited him to take a trip with him that spring. Then Hatcher opined, “Of course, the horncore is not worth $250.00 & you are foolish if you give him that.” Hatcher hoped to start for Lusk the next day and round up his crew, before cryptically adding:
. . . will tell you frankly now that I don’t like this man [T. C. Beecher, Charles Beecher’s brother] & that if I had hired him independently myself I never would take him to camp with me.
I invited him as a gentleman to come and stop with me until we went on west. He drinks all the time. On the way out from Chicago he associated himself with a drinking crowd & was drunk and noisy all the way out. Drinking from a bottle openly in the car every few minutes. I think he might at least have had respect enough for my wife and myself to remain sober when he knew he was going home with me where I had not been for three months. He has got drunk every time he’s been in town since I got here. I do not believe his brother [Charles] knows what he is or if he does he never ought to have recommended him to come out here. I am not an angel by any means, but I don’t approve of his conduct.5
With a little snow still lingering on the outcrops, the crew pitched camp by the twenty-fourth, and Hatcher left for a short excursion with Guernsey that introduced him to a great deal of new and intriguing geology in the region. Hatcher responded to a telegram from Marsh by assuring him that he wouldn’t dismiss his irritating and inebriated sidekick, because he apparently knew a lot about the area. Nonetheless, Hatcher still loathed him: “I do not want men to tell me what to do, but do what I tell them. Perhaps you should start another party & put him in charge of it.” Hatcher then offered to resign. Regarding his spread in Long Pine, Hatcher confided, apparently in response to a query, that he hadn’t bought more stock but had purchased more fruit trees, flowering trees and “forest trees” that he would have to go home and plant in April. Marsh responded on the twenty-ninth, saying that he and Charles Beecher agreed that he should let T.C. go without delay.6
Despite continued snow, Hatcher had uncovered many more elements of the three-toed foot Marsh had mentioned in his orders by the 30th, along with two massive Skulls (Nos. 7 and 8), one of which he thought would be better than any collected the previous year, especially because it seemed to be connected to at least part of a skeleton, including several limb bones. In addition, Peterson, who was now making $66.66 per month, was exposing another skeleton, and “keeps finding more bones all the time as he goes in.” These finds were the result of a systematic search Hatcher initiated: “I start in at the mouth of a canyon & ride up and down every branch of it. I have done this with every cañon on the right hand side of Lance Cr . . . & if I remain here I propose to do it with every cañon in the whole country.” Then Hatcher disgustedly revealed that Beecher’s brother was “not over his protracted spree yet,” but despite Peterson being the only man to help collect, they were having good success so far. To enhance efficiency, Hatcher proposed to do the freighting to the railhead himself if Marsh would pay him as much as he would need to pay someone else, which would put money in Hatcher’s pocket and save the time Hatcher would expend in finding someone else. In closing, Hatcher dropped what must have seemed like a massive bomb to Marsh:
Now Prof. I’m going to ask you for something you have promised me several years ago. You told me when I hired to you that if I did well & ever wanted to get a permanent position anywhere you would give me a recommendation & your personal influence. I have decided to try to get a permanent position somewhere this summer, and have a place in view where they have already spoken to me. Now what I want is a general letter of recommendation as a collector from you stating how long I have been in your employ & in what capacity & whether or not I have given satisfaction. It is with a great deal of reluctance that I have thought of closing my connections with you, for I have much to be thankful to you for. But during the past year matters have so shaped themselves that I no longer feel contented. Perhaps I am too sensitive but I feel sore over some things, & if I am, it is my fault, & I will have to suffer for it. You no longer have a place for me in the museum winters, & at times I think you are only waiting for an opportune moment to get rid of me in the field. During the time I have worked for you I believe I can truthfully say that I have never let an opportunity pass of doing you a favor, & have always worked for your interest, so that I think I can reasonably ask you for a recommend in full faith that you will give it me, & I can assure you that wherever I go I will work as energetically for them as I ever have for you. The position I have in mind is in a Western institution & not with any of your enemies. I am perfectly willing & will be glad to continue the work here for you until I get another position, but about that you must be the judge. If you want me, allright [sic] & if you dont [sic] want me allright [sic] to [sic]. As long as I do work for you I will work for your interest alone, as I always have worked, & you need have no uneasiness on that score I assure you. If I do not succeed in getting the position I have in view I shall try elsewhere. What I want is a place where I can work & become identified permanently with what I do. Hoping to hear from you favorably . . .7
Hatcher responded to Marsh’s suggestion that he fire Beecher’s brother on April 1 by saying he’d rather not at the moment because he feared the blame would be placed on him, which is why Hatcher hesitated in taking him on the trip. But Hatcher insisted the brother had no one to blame but himself regarding his inappropriate conduct and again reported that the brother had done no work to speak of because he’d been “sick” almost all the time. Yet Hatcher held no ill will toward Charles Beecher.8
An eight-page opus that Hatcher penned to Marsh from Long Pine followed on the sixteenth. Unfortunately the skull he thought was complete did not turn out to be, but there was a good deal of a well-preserved skeleton associated with it, including the complete pelvis. He still hoped to find the rest of the skull nearby. Wilson had rejoined the crew, and since Marsh apparently inquired, Hatcher reiterated the situation with Guernsey before berating Marsh about it: “It has now been more than a month since I wrote you & it seems you have never written him. This is no way to do.” On another front, Charles Beecher had written his brother, who admitted to Hatcher that he had behaved badly and apologized. But Hatcher refused to fire him, telling Marsh, “You hired him & in his case you are the one to do the discharging.” Another seething soliloquy followed:
Since you did not send me a recommend I suppose you had rather not give me one or think me unworthy of one. As for giving Yale the first chance & the National Museum the second I will say that I had rather be connected with either of those institutions than any other in the world for it is there that the results of six of the best years [sic] work of my life are stored. But when I work as I have I like to go up one round at least in the ladder instead of being pulled down two or three as you have done with me the past year. You tell me “that you and Beecher agreed after discussing the matter fully” that it was the proper thing in your last article to state that I “aided” you in securing certain things which I secured for you. I have several times had a friend who I wanted with me & one who I could personally vouch for as a good man (I mean W. W. Russ) & an agreeable one but you always found some excuse for not taking him, but the minute Beecher asks a place for a man who is a perfect “tenderfoot” you take him at once although he is an utter stranger to both of us, & keep him when you know he did everything he could to make himself obnoxious. I do not think that Mr. Beecher has any more right to interfere with my work than I have with his & I would not think of making a single suggestion with regard to his, but on the other hand you have to consult with him as to whether I ought to have any credit or not for what I do. As I understood it Mr. Beecher came out here last Summer in the first place to photograph and make drawings of Skull No. 2. Of the value of those drawings you yourself are the best judge, as for any other aid that he rendered in the field I have never seen that his services were of any more value than those of any other new man. I tried to treat him right and I believe I did in every respect. But when you and he mutually agree that it is right to speak of me in your article I will tell you plainly that I consider you both very ungrateful to me. I also think that when you furnished the material for the series of articles in the American Field last winter you might at least have given me some credit instead of taking all to yourself. Especially since I have collected 75 percent of all your fossils from that region & I first made known how rich the locality was in fossils.
I have always worked for your interest first of all & Yale College & the National Museum second & have never failed in securing every good thing for you that I ran across. In return I think as a Yale graduate I am deserving of a little better treatment than I have had the past year, especially from a Yale graduate and professor. Of course you will show this to Beecher as it is no longer possible for one of you to know any thing that the other does not know. You used to think ourselves competent to run one party in the field & we have always had good success & everything ran smoothly. All I have to say is if we can not run our own business as we used to without a third party why then let’s quit at once. If we can & you are willing to give me full credit for what I do why then I am willing to go on and work with all my energy for you or Yale College or the National Museum as long as you want me & for a reasonable salary & in any field you want me. I think what I ask of you is only reasonable & what I offer perfectly fair.9
Returning to more routine business on the eighteenth, Hatcher submitted vouchers for April and part of March totaling $498.33, with a request to credit him with $75 on his note before sending the remaining $423.33 to him at Lusk so it would be there by April 30. In other news, he recommended that Gus Craven and a collector named George A. Clarke would both do good work in the “Bad Lands” if Marsh didn’t have enough fossils from there. Craven had seven more brontothere skulls and wanted Hatcher to look at them, so Hatcher inquired whether Marsh wanted him to go. He didn’t know what W. H. Burwell was doing, but he’d been talking of working in mines. Hatcher planned to return to Lusk that day and have four or five thousand pounds of fossils to ship by May 1. He’d learned that Prof. Scott of Princeton was coming out this summer, so Hatcher anticipated lots of bone hunters in the country. But he intended “to have the bulge on all of them and . . . keep it too.”10
At that point, a six-week hiatus ensued until May 1, when Hatcher composed another lengthy epistle to plead that he’d expended $78.09 more than he’d received, mostly as a result of purchasing a buckboard as Marsh had directed, and he needed that money, especially since he was trying to repay his debt to Marsh. He also reported that a crew from Minnesota was due out around May 20, and that Baur had gotten a position at Clark University and intended to collect in Kansas that summer. Regarding Hatcher’s own crew, Beecher’s brother had left that day after an annoying incident. He’d failed to properly tie Hatcher’s horse when he dismounted, so when it spooked, it skedaddled four or five miles back to camp, destroying the saddle and slicing his hide as it fled. Infuriated that the brother had risked Hatcher’s horse, especially because that had happened before and he knew better, Hatcher discharged the brother even though Marsh and Charles Beecher would think he’d done wrong. Still disgusted, Hatcher vowed, “I never again want a man whom I do not know myself” on his crew. Adding to Hatcher’s troubles, Wilson, who was drawing $50 per month, quit because “. . . he prefers life on [the] ranch over our quiet life & for the present . . . can command better wages.” He seems to have been replaced by a Peter Olsen, who was paid $53.33 per month. Regardless, the crew’s luck was good, with eleven crates packed and material for forty to fifty more in sight, including four more skulls, one of which was rather small. He’d blasted open the “brown concretion” and found a continuous series of vertebrae. Burwell’s specimen was ready to haul down the bank, and skeleton B seemed more slender than the typical “Ceratops.” To top it off, the crew had gleaned another large collection of mammal teeth, all of which led Hatcher to sarcastically quip, “So you see if you have been busy & are nearly sick from overwork & worry I have not been altogether idle.” That dig preceded a pronouncement from Hatcher on May 1 regarding his quest for a permanent position on May 1: “I now have three chances of getting such a position,” and he wanted a letter of recommendation from Marsh. He bemoaned the fact that “. . . now after the fossils go into the box in the field & are put on the depot platform ready to ship I have nothing more to do with them,” and he longed for the opportunity to prepare and mount them for exhibition. He pledged to continue working with all the energy he had, but he couldn’t accept that there would be “no chance for me ever to do anything of any account but work in the field as long as I am with you.” He fumed at Marsh’s claim, “You say you rather give me too much credit instead of too little. I should like to know in what instance you have given me too much credit.” In all, Hatcher argued, “. . . I am getting to that age when I ought to make up my mind & settle down to something. I now have a chance of getting a position & I may never have another such a chance if I let this one go.”11
This fully unveiled warning triggered, given the mail at the time, a rapid and rare handwritten response on USGS letterhead from Marsh on May 9, in which he sought to salvage the continued employment of his ace collector:
Dear Mr. Hatcher.
I suppose you rec’d my telegram of the 7th inst., so I will now write fully as I promised.
Let me say first of all that I have fully appreciated your remarkable ability, the past success you have achieved, and especially what you have done for Science in so many ways. I decided some time ago to show all this, when your time with me was up, not merely by giving you the strongest recommendations, and securing for you the best place I could get, but by much more substantial testimonial.
I was pleased, moreover, when our agreement was completed, to do all I could to benefit you either to continue with me, directly or indirectly, either on the Survey, in my division or in some other, if you wanted field work, or partly with field, and partly here or at the National Museum, if you preferred less field work.
I made arrangements, when last in Washington, to have you spend next winter there (if you wished to) preparing your own specimens for exhibition and putting them in place yourself. If you preferred New Haven, I could give you the same chance here.
Now as to salary. If all goes as usual with the Geol. Survey so far as appropriations go, I can promise you from the 1st next July (1890) an increase of $50 per month, making $150 monthly.
I hope you will consider this a “fair salary,” the term you use in your proposition of April 16th. The other conditions you mention, I accept fully, and will do better. How you ask. When I see you, we will talk about the more distant future. Your ability and knowledge will command a good position at any time, but I cannot see why you should leave Yale or the National Museum when your services are so much needed, and will be fully appreciated more and more as the results of your work are made known.
If, after a while, you prefer the West to the East, I trust we can still retain your services to increase our Collections here and at Washington, in a way that will be of benefit to us both.
At all events, let me assure you that, now or at any time, I am ready to do you any service in my power.
Will you not kindly let me know by telegraph that you have rec’d this letter, and I hope you will answer it with same spirit I have written it.
Yours ever,
O. C. Marsh (signed)12
Apparently, Marsh also sent a telegram, for on the twelfth, Hatcher, in addition to alerting his boss that he’d brought in a load of boxes and informing him that he was excavating a skeleton “quite different than anything yet” in its short massive bones and humungous horncores, further stated:
Have not yet received the letter you speak of in regard to a permanent position. I would be glad to have position either at Yale or the National Museum & will gladly accept one if permanent. I have an offer of a place to collect 3 or 4 months in the year & take entire charge of the collection in the museum. I will accept this offer unless I can get an equally good one at Yale or the National Museum. As soon as I get your letter stating what the position is you have in view for I will let you know.
He ended by saying he’d not sent the Minnesota party any information about localities and didn’t intend to before asking how many payments Marsh had credited him on his note.13
By the eighteenth, he sent in the monthly $375 worth of vouchers for May with a request to credit him $75 on his loan and send the rest to Lusk by the end of the month. There was a “fine sacrum” with skeleton C, along with ten vertebrae, and he’d discovered another ceratopsian skull. A week later, in addition to shipping nineteen crates, he’d received a camera and a slew of letters from Marsh, including Marsh’s new employment proposal, which offered a $50 per month raise. In response, he wrote on the twenty-fourth that although Marsh’s offer was “very liberal,” he would only accept it if it came with a permanent position.14
The shipment primarily consisted of Triceratops material (Skeletons B and C, Skulls Nos. 7, 8, 9, and associated elements), along with one turtle. That was followed on the thirty-first by a newsy account that acknowledged receiving Marsh’s monthly check for $375 and contained the balance sheet for May, which documented that expenses exceeded the money received by $113.94 due to blacksmithing and purchases of a new tent, buckboard and harness, lumber, plaster of Paris, and other “unusual” items. Beyond that, Hatcher realized he’d made a mistake in the balance sheet for March and April, either neglecting to include some items or adding it up incorrectly, so he corrected it in the May statement. He’d now finished skeleton C, proclaiming it “the finest thing we have found yet.” He’d also heard from Baur, who was collecting in Kansas, and thanked Marsh for his account of the Yale boat race. Hatcher’s receipts revealed that he’d also hired a new assistant at $40 per month—one William H. Utterback, who would, like Peterson, stick with Hatcher, at least off and on, for most of the rest of his career.15
Hatcher finished skeletons C and D by June 8 and found at least thirteen little “horncores” united at their base, evidently forming part of the dermal skeleton of D (possibly tubercles rimming the frill). He wondered, “Can it be possible that portions of the exterior of these animals were covered by these little horns like the body or arms of the star-fish are covered with peduncles and pedicles? We evidently don’t know all about Triceratops yet.” The bones of the skeleton were much more slender than others found heretofore. He also sent a few Laramie mammals in the same package, including an upper jaw of “Platacodon” that he thought would throw some light on the true position and character of teeth that Marsh already had. Hatcher was working on a complete skull, but it was in such hard rock and the bones were so soft that he feared he couldn’t do much with it, since it was “cracked in ten thousand different ways.” In closing, he wondered when Marsh thought he’d be out there. Clearly trying to make amends with his skittish collector, Marsh’s check for the $114 in extra expenses arrived by the tenth, just as Hatcher shipped the rest of Skeletons C and D, with which the “little horncores” were found. Baur wasn’t having much success in Kansas, and although Craven’s skulls had not impressed Marsh, he’d written to say he’d found nine more, one of which Craven claimed was the best he’d ever seen. Hatcher lamented that Beecher must be “on the outs” with him, since Hatcher hadn’t received a letter from him since discharging his brother, but he repeated his vow: “I shall never have anything more to do with any relatives of my friends. Nine times out of ten they think they can treat you as they please & that you must stand it and say nothing.” He passed along the news from Anna that Long Pine had suffered from severe wind, rain, and hail that blew down several houses and windmills; killed lots of colts and calves; completely destroyed crops; blew Hatcher’s buggy shed and chicken house over; and killed all the chickens except twelve out of one hundred.16
As the summer sizzled, Hatcher set off for Hermosa, South Dakota, to negotiate with Craven for his cache of brontothere skulls, which Marsh via telegram on July 1 authorized him to purchase if offered at a “fair price.” In Hatcher’s mind, haste for securing any scientifically significant specimens was imperative, since Scott of Princeton was on his way there. But brontotheres weren’t the only commodity in view, as Hatcher informed Marsh that he had eleven more crates of fossils from the Laramie ready to ship. To the south, Baur was now having some success in Kansas and was contemplating a visit to Hatcher’s camp near Lusk. Hatcher was unfazed, reassuring Marsh, “I think I have it all corralled & they can do no damage.” Besides, he had “quite a lot of mammals ready to send.” The negotiations with Craven resulted in Hatcher buying nine skulls of his relatively high-quality collection on July 4, for $690, around $17,500 in modern dollars. One had a lower jaw in place with canines and incisors, which Hatcher considered as good a skull as YPM VP 2048. Thus, he concluded the price was reasonable, and he thought it better to wrap everything up before Scott arrived. As the mercury soared to 107 in the shade, Hatcher informed Marsh that he expected Baur to arrive on the nineteenth and vowed to treat him as a guest and take possession of anything he found. Crates 28 through 38, all containing Triceratops material including portions of Skeleton A, shipped on the eighth. But Marsh was uneasy about Baur’s visit, telegraphing on the thirteenth not to allow it: “He is now [an] open enemy of [the] Survey and me, and doing all he can against both. His visit will lead to serious trouble.” Undaunted, Hatcher telegraphed back the next day: “No injury shall occur to you through B’s visit.” Intent on minimizing Marsh’s malaise, Hatcher reported Baur arrived on the fifteenth and only planned to stay a day or two, but Hatcher communicated by letter, which would not arrive until after Baur had left. He then left for Long Pine to ship Craven’s 4,450-pound collection, which also included a set of Elotherium jaws and a large ammonite.17
Upon receiving Hatcher’s missive, Marsh must have remained on edge; on the nineteenth, Hatcher apologized for Baur causing so much uneasiness. Hatcher reassured Marsh that Baur had only been in camp one day and that he’d informed Baur that he was receiving him as a friend and a gentleman. Thus, Baur would be expected “to make no use of anything he saw while with me in any way.” Then Hatcher gently turned the table on Marsh: “If you think Baur can use me to your injury in any way you do me an injustice. I have always protected myself & you out here & I am not at all alarmed yet, nor would I be if Baur, Scott, Cope and all should invade my territory.” Then Hatcher cheerily went on to announce more “splendid success.”
Found four Tri. skulls one of which I know is new & another I think [is]. The horncores have a deep groove on inner side running whole length.
I also found a skeleton which bids fair to surpass anything yet. I never saw such fine toe bones; they equal those of the rhinoceros in Kansas.
All the bones in a foot are not commonly found together because they are relatively small and easily dispersed by currents in rivers after the connective tissues deteriorate before being buried in sediment. Hatcher reminded Marsh that he’d promised to raise Hatcher’s salary by $50 if Marsh got the ususal appropriation from the government. Marsh telegraphed on the twentieth to say he would send all the money “on answer to my letter.”18
That letter seemed to involve financial complexities related to paying for Craven’s collection. On the twenty-second, Hatcher wrote from Long Pine to say he was disappointed that Marsh hadn’t already sent the required funds. Hatcher needed to make the payment to free up funds for his return to Lusk, since he had paid an advance installment to Craven and had apparently expended funds on his farm. At issue was a loan of $75 that Marsh had made to Craven the previous winter. Hatcher angrily wrote, “I know nothing about that. . . . However my deal has nothing to do with your old one. I bought the collection for $690 . . . and sold it to you at same price . . . and I thought I was doing you a favor when I did it.” He went on to say that Scott wouldn’t be out before August 1, so his stay would be short.19
No check from Marsh had arrived by August 1, so Hatcher proceeded to continue prodding, “. . . not yet received check for balance of Craven’s collection nor for July & I am very much in need of money.” He knew that appropriations for government departments had been extended for thirty days in the beginning of July, so the delay in passing the civil servants bill should have nothing to do with the last month. Then he lashed out in a temperamental tirade: “I want to pay off my indebtedness to you & close up and quit this business. I am thoroughly disgusted with the way everything has gone the past year. You never pay any attention to my requests nor anything I write you.” But by the seventh, two checks for $350 and $190 arrived that had ostensibly been delayed in the mail. In the interim, Scott had arrived and entered the field, but he wouldn’t collect in the Laramie. Then Hatcher calmly laid down his royal flush in front of Marsh:
I think I will be able to secure a position commencing October 1st Prof. & I think I shall accept it, for then I can be at home all of the year but about 3 or 4 months when I would be collecting. I like collecting, but I am tired of having 12 months in a year of it as I have had the past three years, and I must give it up.20
The four big skulls, although unfortunately not as complete as had been hoped, were ready to ship by August 9, so Hatcher headed into Lusk. Yet, one seemed entirely new in terms of the horncores and the condyle that attached it to the neck. It possessed one jaw in which all the teeth were preserved, and Hatcher also had found and packed a number of good foot bones. In all, there were twelve crates. Shortly thereafter, the crew’s camp was decimated by a “regular Wyoming ‘Jimicane’” that blew the tent down and generally tore things up, but they had another twelve boxes ready to ship.21
Uncharacteristically, Hatcher promptly received the $350 check for the September salaries on the twentieth when he came in to ship another sixteen crates. Success continued to follow the crew, although the recent haul contained only “good things” and nothing spectacular. Hatcher was disappointed that Marsh would vacation back east, for he desperately wanted to see Marsh in person, especially after receiving Marsh’s proposal in his letter of May 9:
I should like very much the work of preparing the specimens for exhibition in Washington you speak of. But I have fully decided to accept a permanent position this fall. I have endeavored during the last seven years . . . to show you that I was worthy of a permanent position. . . . Since my marriage three years ago, instead of considering my changed position & trying to make matters more agreeable to me, you have kept me in the field constantly. . . . I now have an offer of just such a position [with] 4 months in the year collecting & the remainder . . . working on collection with an assistant & at the same salary that you are now giving me. It looks hard to leave the immense collection I have made . . . but if I have to break off, the sooner the better.
I wish you would come out here and bring my notes with you. For I want to settle up everything with you & leave in a perfectly friendly, fair & honorable way.
Hatcher also revealed that because one of Marsh’s “bosom friends” had told him in New Haven the previous winter that Marsh considered Hatcher “an element of discord in the museum,” he had “at once commenced looking for another position.” He closed by noting he’d received a blank “Oaths of Office” apparently related to his USGS position with the government but would not return it, since he didn’t suppose there would be any need for it.22
On the thirty-first, Hatcher revealed another reason for wishing to remain closer to his family. “A letter from Long Pine tells me that we have another young bone-hunter at our house. I hope he will live longer than the other one did.” The boy was christened Earl Madison Hatcher. John Bell also alerted Marsh to expect a very good coracoid bone in a previous lot of eleven boxes, and they had another very peculiar bone ready to pack, probably a scapula, about four feet, four inches long averaging about one foot in width. It was complete and different from anything he’d seen. The crew was preparing fifteen to twenty more crates for shipment. He still hoped Marsh would come out but acerbically added, “. . . of course, it is much pleasanter and more interesting for you at Newport or Bar Harbor.” In an echo of the truly Wild West, Hatcher chronicled that the country was infested by a band of horse thieves that had stolen about two hundred horses during the summer. They’d run off with one of his two weeks before, and he’d never found any trace of it. But three thieves had been caught the previous week. To handle all the loading and hauling, Hatcher had added a crewman named W. L. Magoon for $40 per month, and the monthly expenses now totaled $425, although that was reduced by Hatcher’s request to credit his loan with a $75 payment. The extra help allowed Hatcher to comment on September 19, “We are getting the field pretty well cleaned up so far as we have looked over it.” Marsh finally broke his several-week silence after returning from vacation by telegraphing Hatcher on the twentieth: “Best congratulations on arrival of new bone-hunter. Will write fully. Shall come out soon as some Washington matters permit. Will telegraph before I start. Could you meet me at Chadron if necessary.” No doubt pleased with this development, Hatcher telegraphed back that he would.23
The resulting tête-à-tête at Chadron precipitated a monthlong lacuna in their letters that was broken on October 16, when Hatcher wrote in hopes that Marsh had safely reached New Haven. They’d finished packing the ceratopsian skull Peterson had been excavating when Marsh was there, and Hatcher had finally repossessed his pilfered horse. He included a list of contents for crates 55–67, which all contained Triceratops material, including Skulls No. 14 and 15, as well as Skeleton H and Burwell’s specimen. Monthly costs totaled $295 without Hatcher’s usual $75 credit on his loan. On the twenty-eighth, Hatcher wrote saying he hoped to wrap up the season by November 11 and asked if Marsh wanted him to see Craven and buy his collection. Marsh responded on November 7 that he did and wanted Hatcher to see other collectors in the region and secure all the important specimens without paying too much. The same day, Hatcher shipped the last seven crates of the season as snow began to fall, including what he thought might be the most important specimens yet from the Laramie: “two lower jaws [of] either a carnivore or ungulate.” He tracked down Craven and purchased another thirty-one boxes of fossils for $675 on the thirteenth, then headed home to Long Pine.24
Accounts of Craven’s collection reveal that it featured eighteen brontothere skulls and eight lower jaws, along with two turtles. Hatcher considered the price fair and intimated that Craven wanted more and didn’t seem satisfied, but Hatcher couldn’t justify a higher evaluation. He had also purchased seven boxes of fossils from Joseph Brown and Burwell. Regarding his own situation, Hatcher responded on November 16 to a letter that Marsh had sent:
Received your letter in regard to house on reaching home today. If I should remain with you I shall certainly buy a small house & lot in New Haven. But owing to the uncertainty do not lose an opportunity of renting it on my account.25
The tally for Hatcher’s 1890 trips included two rhinos (Aphelops and Teleoceras), one camel (Procamelus), and one elephant relative (“Serridentinus”) from the 9- to 8-million-year-old Alaucha Clay in Florida, as well as one brontothere (Megacerops) from the 37- to 34-million-year-old Chadron Formation and a specimen of the creodont carnivore Hyaenodon from the 34- to 30-million-year-old Brule Formation in the Great Plains. A much larger sample came from the 68- to 66-million-year-old sediments of the Lance Formation in Wyoming, including multituberculates (Cimolodon, Cimolomys, Essonodon, Meniscoessus, and Mesodma); marsupials (Alphadon, Didelphodon, Pediomys, “Didelphops” and “Stagodon,” now called Didelphodon); and a placental (Gypsonictops). The ranks of ray-finned fish contained Belonostomus and “Kindleia.” Six salamanders were found: Scapherpeton, Habrosaurus, Lisserpeton, Piceoerpeton, Prodesmodon, and Opisthotriton. A trio of turtles is also recorded (Baena, Basilemys, and Thescelus), along with the lizard Litakis and the alligator Procaimanoidea. Hatcher’s hunt for dinosaurs greatly expanded the known record for late Cretaceous forms in North America with the discoveries of the duckbill Edmontosaurus, the bird-mimic Ornithomimus, the bone-helmeted Stygimoloch, the herbivore Thescelosaurus, the carnivore Paronychodon, the king of them all Tyrannosaurus, its close cousin Aublysodon, the close relative of birds Troodon, and the shorebird Cimolopteryx—not to mention a full treasure chest of Triceratops skulls and bones that provided for the first time a nearly complete portrait of this superstar’s skeletal anatomy, along with another specimen of its smaller cousin Leptoceratops.
Given the work needed around his farm, he didn’t anticipate reaching New Haven before December 5. Numerous financial transactions ensued to wrap up business regarding the crew and the purchases of fossils over the rest of November. And Hatcher wrote that he might have to return to Wyoming to retrieve his horses and outfit due to some “Indian excitement.” But he didn’t think it would be necessary because “they now have enough troops at Pine Ridge to wipe out the whole Sioux tribe & I hope they will disarm the Indians or force them to fight.” Finally, on December 4, with Anna and, presumably, the new baby in tow, Hatcher informed Marsh that they were in Washington, D.C. and planned to travel to New Haven shortly.26
Ostensibly throughout the middle of December, Hatcher and Marsh conducted face-to-face negotiations regarding Hatcher’s future at Yale. Those efforts culminated on the twentieth with the signing of a new contract, handwritten by Marsh, which made Hatcher an assistant in geology at Yale’s Peabody Museum for the next five years (1891–1896) and, crucially, gave him the responsibility to work on his own collections whenever he was back home in the East.27 (See appendix 1)
Hatcher’s new contract represented a ramification of the poker game he’d once again been playing with his professional career. This time it involved not only Marsh but also Osborn at the AMNH. Correspondence from August 1890 reveals that Hatcher had first requested a position from W. B. Scott of Princeton, but apparently Scott did not have the funding for it. Nonetheless, when Hatcher met Scott in the field in late July or early August, Scott told him that Osborn was then “in a position” to offer Hatcher a job at AMNH, and Hatcher immediately wrote Osborn on August 7 to pass along his pleasure at hearing the news, adding, “I will be greatly pleased to accept a position there,” while at the same time requesting more information regarding what Osborn had in mind. Osborn was in the process of founding a department of vertebrate paleontology at the AMNH and sought to staff it with the very best young paleontologic researchers and collectors he could find. Clearly, that would cost a considerable amount of money, but Osborn, like Marsh at Yale, was well connected to the aristocracy on the East Coast. His father, William Henry Osborn, was a wealthy merchant and president of the Illinois Central Railroad, and his uncle was none other than the legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan. After receiving Hatcher’s letter, Osborn replied on August 15 that he envisioned Hatcher conducting fieldwork during the climatically “favorable months,” then working at the AMNH to supervise the unpacking and preparation of fossils for exhibition and research with the help of Hatcher’s own assistant, and finally spend the rest of his time on his ranch in Long Pine—all at the same salary that Marsh had been providing. He could immediately guarantee that position for one year but would need to confirm the arrangement with the museum’s trustees before committing to future years. Also, Osborn insisted that Hatcher tell Marsh that this offer had resulted from the request for a new position by Hatcher and not from an initiative by Osborn. On the nineteenth, an uncharacteristically giddy Hatcher exclaimed to Osborn that the position was “exactly what I’ve been wishing for,” before confirming his annual salary of $1,800 and explaining that he currently received one month of vacation per year, which would be plenty for him to devote to his ranch. Hatcher also intimated that he was proud of the collections he’d garnered, “but of something over 700 large boxes of fossils which I have collected I have never had the pleasure of seeing a single one of them put on exhibition and I have given up all hopes of ever doing anything but collect. . . .” So Hatcher would accept Osborn’s gurarantee of one year with the understanding that if he performed satisfactorily, the position would be made permanent, and Hatcher would inform Marsh that he had sought the position, which he did in his previously discussed letter to Marsh on August 20. Through the end of August into early September, Hatcher and Osborn discussed further details regarding the position, but Osborn envisioned Hatcher finishing the year for Marsh before joining the AMNH around June 1, 1891, whereas Hatcher, writing Osborn on September 8, seemed anxious to fly Marsh’s coop as soon as possible and begin collecting for Osborn in the Laramie on October 1, 1890. Here, Hatcher seems to have misplayed his hand, for on September 20, Osborn resisted Hatcher’s request, writing, “It seems to me best to start in Spring [1891]. . . . You can give your present employer due notice [and] I will have ample time to complete all the arrangements in the Museum. . . . I fear if you start this Fall, it will be said that you ought to have given at least a month’s notice. . . .” On September 25, Hatcher dejectedly relented and told Osborn he’d wait until the next spring, but he wouldn’t be working for Marsh because he’d already given Marsh notice. A somewhat stunned Osborn quickly telegraphed Hatcher on the thirtieth to begin collecting for AMNH in the Laramie, focusing on mammals and reptiles. But this episode of cross-country whiplashes continued, with Hatcher informing Osborn on October 11 that an “anxious” Marsh had met him in Long Pine as previously mentioned and implored Hatcher to continue working for him through the winter, which Hatcher agreed to do. Osborn applauded Hatcher’s decision on the seventeenth but wanted to make sure Marsh didn’t lay claim to new collecting areas over the winter, so Hatcher reassured Osborn that Marsh would probably not.28
After Hatcher and Marsh had hashed out Hatcher’s new contract, a seemingly stressed and depressed Hatcher wrote Osborn on December 22 from New Haven to say:
For various reasons I have concluded to remain where I am for a while and then quit the collecting business altogether and settle down on my ranch out west.
I fully appreciate the spirit both you and Prof. Scott have shown toward me. . . . You have been fair with me all the way through and I fully intended and hoped to commence work with you in the spring; but rather than to inflict the discomfiture which this would cause to others I prefer to quit the business and seek a livelihood in some other line.
An understandably astounded yet seemingly annoyed Osborn replied on Christmas Eve:
I can hardly tell you how surprised I was by . . . your letter. From what Scott and Baur have both told me of your character, I believe your word is as good as your bond. . . . I can well understand the influence and pressure you have been under to write me as you have. I . . . will stop in New Haven to see you. . . . This seems to me the best way.
It’s unclear if that meeting took place, but regardless, it seems that Hatcher’s impatient gamble to flee the clutches of Marsh had, at least for the moment, foiled his best chance and led to an extremely rare, self-inflicted, existential crisis of confidence in Hatcher’s own view of his heretofore promising paleontological career.29