As Hatcher lay terminally ill on July 1, Osborn and W. D. Matthew completed and shipped the first cast from their Diplodocus skull to Holland for the Carnegie mount, which had required a good deal of meticulous preparation in order to combine the fragments into one, light piece. Matthew sent his best wishes to Hatcher for a quick recovery, assuming the ailment resulted from “his old enemy, rheumatism.”1
On July 4 Peterson received a telegram from Anna regarding Hatcher’s death. He immediately wrote Holland the next day:
Last night late a telegram was brought out to my camp with the very sad news that Mr. Hatcher is dead. I just got in. Have wired Mrs. Hatcher and take this oportunity [sic] to reply on your favor of July 1st which I just got on to days [sic] mail. I am extremely sorry to learn that Hatcher should depart, not only from his poor wife and children, but from what we might say a started career on a most nobel [sic] work, and that, at the prime of his life.
It will now [necessitate] be changes which will effect evry [sic] one conserned [sic] in the department. I have accordingly desided [sic] to close up my work here as soon as I can and come back to Pittsburgh. I wish to be there, if for nothing else to try to console and help Mrs. Hatcher as much as I can. Should it become advisable I could come out later in the season, or, the work could be resumed again next spring.
Peterson went on to note that he had just made “some very important discoveries” and had been about to write his brother-in-law about them.2
Having received Peterson’s letter by the eighth, Holland responded with what must have seemed to Peterson to be, at least from a modern managerial and personnel perspective, a rather heartless epistle lacking in empathy, even though it appears to have been endorsed by Peterson’s sister, Anna:
I received your letter this morning in which you stated that you had decided to cease work and come home in order to at least comfort your good sister, Mrs. Hatcher. Mr. Mellor and I were at Mr. Hatcher’s residence this morning, at Mrs. Hatcher’s request, and we talked over the matter carefully, and it seemed to us that in view of all the circumstances it was scarcely wise for you to stop work where you are, especially in view of the fact that you tell us you have made important discoveries, and come back here. In the first place while it is no doubt true that it would be a great comfort to your sister to have you with her, nevertheless there is very little that we can see that you could just at the present time do to assist, and Mr. Mellor and I, as well as your sister, think the best thing you can do under the circumstances is to remain where you are and carry on the work that you are doing with energy. Those of us who are here will do all in our power to straighten up Mr. Hatcher’s affairs in such a way that the best results possible may be secured for his good wife and family, and steps will be taken as soon as possible to collect what is due him and to adjust his affairs in such a way that Mrs. Hatcher will know what there is for her and for her children in his estate. . . . In case at a later date it should be judged necessary that you should return we can arrange for it, but I doubt very much whether it would be wise for you to pull up stakes and come back now. That would sacrifice the good results which in your letter you say you are just on the eve of achieving. Utterback reports that thus far he has accomplished nothing throughout the season, and I should regret very much to have to report to Mr. Carnegie that neither party had succeeded in accomplishing anything this summer, which would certainly be the case if you were to come back here. I promise you that everything that can possibly be done to assist Mrs. Hatcher and her family will be done by ourselves, and we will leave no stone unturned to make the best out of the small estate which he has left, and the authorities of the Museum may be relied upon to act generously under the circumstances.
Until a successor to Prof. Hatcher is secured I shall act as the head of the Section of Paleontology in the Museum, and shall expect you to report to me everything just as you were in the habit of doing to Mr. Hatcher, and to keep me fully advised of all your movements and of your necessities. Mr. Hatcher sent you $200. not long ago, and I infer that you are not in immediate need of any money.
With very kind regards, and expressing full sympathy in view of all the circumstances . . .3
By July 6, news of Hatcher’s death had begun to ricochet around within the paleontological community to the point where it reached Knight, who expressed shock at his “sudden and untimely death.” Knight sought Holland’s advice about what to do regarding the painting, which Hatcher had commissioned for his Ceratopsia volume at a cost of $200.4
Ironically, on July 8, Osborn composed a much more compassionate note to Peterson than Holland had:
I hasten to write you of my deep sorrow and sympathy in learning of the death of Hatcher. Just by chance I saw a notice of it in the Paris Herald yesterday and was greatly shocked, for when I last saw him he was looking very well and was full of bright plans for the future.
This is a great personal loss for I greatly admired Hatcher’s scientific ability and enthusiasm, and always felt a fresh inspiration from talking to him.
It is a hard blow to American paleontology, to which Mr. Hatcher was making such splendid contributions following his many years of magnificent work in the field—he was certainly our greatest collector. It is especially sad to think of his dying in the beginning of what promised to be the brightest and most satisfactory period of his life—when people could see his work and recognize his ability.
I hope you will express to his poor wife and children my very heartfelt sympathy.
I return early in September to take up my work, and I shall always miss Hatcher.
Believe me, always,5
For Osborn to proclaim Hatcher to be paleontology’s greatest collector is inherently intriguing; Osborn had an ace of his own in Barnum Brown, who had just discovered the first relatively complete remains of the most famous dinosaur in the world, Tyrannosaur rex. But at that point, Brown had barely begun his career, which would continue for more than another half century.
Like others, Utterback was blindsided by Hatcher’s death when he learned of it on the eleventh. He immediately wrote Holland:
Your message received yesterday informing me of the death of Mr. Hatcher was a sad blow indeed. Having been the warmest of friends for many years and associated with him in this work under the most trying of circumstances I feel his loss more than words can express.
I had received no word from you of his illness therefore was unprepared for such painful news.
The loss to science and to our institution will never be fully realized until an attempt is made to replace the position he so ably filled.
Unfortunately, Utterback still had no prospecting success to report but remained hopeful.6
Following up with Holland, Peterson wrote again on the eleventh to relate that his discovery involved the “true nature” of Daemonelix, the corkscrews that had so long bedeviled paleontologists, because he had found the skeleton of an ancient beaver called Palaeocastor inside a Daemonelix. He urged Holland to have Douglass round up all the related literature and send it to him so that he could write a preliminary note to Science before any other parties could beat him to the punch and steal the glory from the Carnegie.7
But behind Holland’s back, Peterson was also planning for a possible escape from the Carnegie’s clutches, writing Charles Schuchert and G. P. Merrill, who now both worked at the Smithsonian, about the salary and qualifications for a position that was open there. He asked Schuchert to contact Osborn or Scott, not Holland, if references were needed; as he intimated to Schuchert, he knew “nothing as yet of what changes may take place in Pittsburgh since Hatcher’s death and naturally [was] on the alert should things turn uncongenially there to necessitate making a change.” Schuchert responded that since Hatcher’s “lamented death,” he had seen Hermann at the AMNH and told him the Smithsonian had had hopes of wooing Hatcher away from the Carnegie.8
Hermann told Schuchert that given the circumstances, it was imperative that the Smithsonian instead hire Peterson. Schuchert had already told that to Merrill, who, Schuchert knew, would welcome Peterson’s application. The position was not yet for a curator but for a chief preparator to look after specimens both on exhibition and in the collections, including mounting, assisted by Gilmore, who had left the Carnegie for the Smithsonian. Later, some fieldwork would be involved. Research time would be limited, and the salary would be $1,500 per year with a month of vacation. Applicants would need to take the Civil Service exam, consisting of “Letter writing 5%, Practical questions 45%, Experience 25%, Samples of work 25%.” Schuchert ended by asking if Peterson knew if anyone was writing an obituary for Hatcher because, if not, he would undertake to do so.9
Peterson next wrote Osborn to thank him for his letter of condolence, agreeing that it was a pity that Hatcher passed just as he began to “reap some genuine satisfaction and pleasure” from his many years of toiling in the field. Peterson bewailed the great loss to Anna and their children as well as to science, adding, “With considerable pleasure and satisfaction not to say [pride] I watched his steady onward march to distinction, well knowing that he now occupied a place where he could with undividing energy devote his whole ambition to his most cherished work. . . .” He related how learning of Hatcher’s death by reading Anna’s telegram on the night of the fourth had made him “dizzy,” and he had wanted to return to Pittsburgh immediately. But Holland insisted he stay in the field and report to him, all of which made him confide to Osborn,
I have no heart to do work as I did formerly. Dr. Holland is no doubt favorably disposed toward me but I know that he is not capable of the sympathy a field man crave[s] in connection with palaeontology. Not knowing what is going on or what changes are taking place in the museum I am naturally on the alert for an other place as I may on my return find that a change will be necessary.10
Through the rest of July, Holland continued to receive condolences from friends, such as S. Harbert Hamilton of the New Jersey Geological Survey, who grieved both over the loss of Hatcher and the great burden his passing would place on Holland’s “all ready crowded and fully occupied time.” More importantly, a truly heartfelt testament arrived from Andrew Carnegie on the twenty-fifth from Skibo Castle in Scotland. Regarding the passing of Hatcher, Carnegie confided, “Hatchers death haunts me. We must see to his wife & children.”11
Based on documents and correspondence still preserved in the Carnegie Museum’s archives, it’s clear that several steps were taken to assist Anna and the Hatcher children following John Bell’s death. Holland’s assistant, Douglas Stewart, assumed the role of administrator for Hatcher’s estate on July sixteenth and apparently advanced some funds to Anna in order to carry the family through in the immediate aftermath of Hatcher’s death. She responded, “It was certainly very kind of you to advance money for use, and I certainly feel very grateful to you. I am sorry I am putting you to so much trouble.” Stewart kept a record of the credits and expenses that accrued after the death. In short, interest payments for the $3,500 mortgage on Hatcher’s house, doctor and hospital bills, funeral expenses, attorney fees, and other charges from October 1904 through April 1905 totaled about $1,181, or about $32,200 in today’s currency. In terms of assets, Hatcher had about $718 in his bank account when he died, and a $3,000 life insurance policy was redeemed on October 27. In addition, the museum, through a letter from Holland to Stewart, offered to purchase Hatcher’s library of scientific books and articles for $1,000—a transaction that was completed in December. Along with other deposits recorded by Stewart, the estate’s assets as of the end of 1904 totaled about $4,800 or around $127,000 in current dollars. It’s not clear how the mortgage was paid off, but mention is made in correspondence of selling the house with Stewart’s help. In any event, it is clear that Anna and the children—Earl, Harold, Alice, and John W.—moved from Pittsburgh to Lamont, Iowa, nearby Hatcher’s parents. In an undated letter to Stewart, Anna optimistically reported, “Have rented a better place now and will move next week. It is only across the street and it has a barn and more ground so the boys will have some work to do in making a garden and raising chickens. We are all well and hope this may find you enjoying life.”12
Meanwhile, Utterback had scurried back to the Musselshell region to try and salvage the season, but by July 24 had found nothing significant. They were now concentrating on the rugged drainages that emptied into the Missouri below the mouth of the Musselshell River, where there were abundant exposures of “Laramie,” now called the Hell Creek Formation. He hoped to have better news soon. By entering the realm of Hell Creek, Utterback was following in the footsteps of Barnum Brown from the AMNH, who had pioneered paleontological collecting in the region two years before. His efforts had been spurred by the serendipitous discovery of a Triceratops horn garnered by a settler in the region, who was encountered by William T. Hornaday. Hornaday was the former chief taxidermist at the Smithsonian, who had assumed the role of director of the New York Zoological Park, now known as the Bronx Zoo, under the sponsorship of the AMNH’s Henry Fairfield Osborn. In the spring of 1902, Hornaday ventured into the depths of the Hell Creek badlands with famed western photographer Laton A. Huffman to hunt and document the lifestyle of the blacktail deer; that’s when Hornaday ran into the settler who had found the horncore. When Hornaday returned to New York, he showed the fossils to Osborn and Brown, which triggered a trip by Brown to the Missouri Breaks near Hell Creek just a few months later. It was during this expedition that Brown found the first scientifically described remains of Tyrannosaurus rex just a few miles from where the settler and Hornaday had collected the Triceratops horn. So Utterback had good reason to foresee success.13
Silberling would finish the season but not return to the Carnegie, since he had been offered the chance to assume supervision over his mother’s ranch. Utterback intimated that Hatcher hadn’t been terribly pleased with Silberling’s prep work in the Carnegie lab and had given Utterback license to lay him off if his fieldwork didn’t improve, which it hadn’t. Unless Utterback could find something significant, he confided to Holland from Jordan, Montana, “I should like very much to bring this expedition to a close sending in my resignation at the same time. I have worked early and late hard and faithful the past two months however fate is against me.”14
Peterson continued his summer of discontent by assuring Holland on the twenty-eighth that he was having “good success” and intended to leave for a new locality the next day. He expected to have almost two tons of fossils by the end of the season, but a whole boxcar wouldn’t be required. On the same day, Merrill wrote to encourage Peterson to take the exam for the Smithsonian position in the fall, although he hoped paleontological efforts at the Carnegie would continue in the wake of Hatcher’s passing. On the twenty-ninth, Schuchert wrote to let Peterson know that he’d welcome him in New Haven, where he was succeeding Hatcher’s friend from Yale—the late Prof. Beecher, who had passed away in February. Schuchert and Peterson would talk in more detail about the position at the Smithsonian. Schuchert again expressed his desire to write a fitting obituary for Hatcher in Peterson’s name, if Peterson and Anna would help by providing information about Hatcher’s life and a bibliography of Hatcher’s publications. That obituary was eventually published during 1905 under Schuchert’s name in the journal American Geologist.15
At the start of August, Holland wrote a long letter to Peterson, which started by trying to clarify issues regarding whether Hatcher had sent Peterson’s salary to him, since the details of the transactions had become confused with Hatcher’s death. Holland next sought to clear up what exactly Peterson meant in terms of the actions he wanted Holland to take in reserving space in a railcar for the collection Peterson would ship. Then there was the issue of what to do with the camp outfit. Holland requested that Peterson provide him with a detailed description of the state of the horses and other equipment, adding in no uncertain terms:
You must not imagine because Mr. Hatcher is dead that the work of the Department of Paleontology at this Museum is going to end or that we shall not have need of your services and of the services of the entire staff. While we deplore Mr. Hatcher’s death most deeply, you must understand that the work of this Museum goes on forever. I wish you to stay in the field and gather all the good material that you possibly can. I know you to be an eminently successful collector, and I do not think that an early return on account of Mr. Hatcher’s death will mend matters at all. The more you collect this summer the better it will be both for the institution and for your own reputation. If you have good prospects and there is material that can be acquired that is needed in the Museum, get it. I prefer to have you stay in the field as long as there is any chance to do good work. I know that Professor Hatcher’s death has necessarily to some extent unsettled your mind, but you need have no discouragement on that score. As long as I am satisfied with you and well pleased it makes no difference who is Professor Hatcher’s successor. You are sure of your position. I am, as you are aware, the man who is to be satisfied.
As for Peterson’s discoveries regarding Daemonelix, Holland indicated that he’d be happy to help Peterson prepare a manuscript in Peterson’s name for submission to Science, since all such manuscripts had to be submitted to him as the museum’s director before being sent to the editor of the journal. With that, Holland reiterated that he wished Peterson to remain in the field until the late summer or fall, as long as Peterson felt it was possible to acquire good material for their collections.16
Emerging from his collecting slump in early August, Utterback was most pleased to report to Holland, “During the past ten days have taken out an almost complete Ceratops skull as well as some good Claosaurus material.” The eight-foot-long skull was slightly crushed, but the bone was solid and would make a good exhibition specimen. The missing portions could easily be filled in with parts of other skulls they’d collected. The snout was perfect, as were the dentitions in the upper jaws and one lower jaw. Beyond that, two local brothers named Sensiba had discovered a hadrosaur skeleton the previous year that included twenty-six feet of the backbone and might well yield a complete skeleton. They’d tried to sell it to many museums, including the AMNH, who had offered them $100 based on what was showing and $300 if the skull was found with it. Utterback hadn’t had time to examine it himself, but members of other crews had and vouched for its legitimacy. Utterback thought that if Holland wanted to outbid the AMNH a bit, he could secure it for the Carnegie; he sought Holland’s advice.17
On August 10, Peterson again tried to clarify for Holland his financial transactions with Hatcher shortly before Hatcher died. Peterson also confirmed that the letter Holland proposed to send the railway depot agent should be sufficient to secure part of a car for the fossils Peterson had collected. Regarding the disposition of the horses and camp outfit, Peterson seemed confused, if not miffed, as to Holland’s wishes:
Your letter is in part pusseling [sic] to me and I hardly know whether to take it seriously or as a joke. I told you—without getting a reply—in an early letter or shortly after Mr. Hatchers death, that it was the understanding I had from him (Hatcher) to despose [sic] of the outfit when I got through with them this season as it was geting [sic] rather old and worn out. By frankly telling you Mr. Hatchers [sic] and my own opinion in this case I hardly expected that my meaning should be misconstrued to the extent wich [sic] you seem to have taken it.
Peterson lamented that his collection for the season was not as good as he had hoped it would be. The whole season had been “a trial,” not only because of Hatcher’s death but also because of the “dyspepsia” he’d been suffering, which had forced him to spend time in the hospital in Fort Robinson. As a result, he’d about decided to quit collecting for a while “and have taken steps accordingly,” perhaps an oblique reference to his plan to apply for the Smithsonian position. Given the hardships he’d faced, he was resolute in defending his results:
So far as our institution, The Carnegie Museum is conserned [sic] I can say that we have a magnificent collection from this locality which when worked up should be a pride to the Museum as well as to the collectors and preparators. I am glad to say that so far as I have been able to continue this summer, we have met with good success in fact I have done some of my best work this season notwithstanding my condition.
With that, he thanked Holland for the support he had offered to help pull the Daemonelix manuscript together and informed his supervisor that he planned to close out the season shortly because of his ailment.18
Holland wrote back in an equally antagonistic tone on the thirteenth, having now gotten a grip on the financial situation, yet still prickly with Peterson regarding the condition of the camp outfit. Noting Peterson’s previous presumption that Holland sounded like he wanted to keep the horses and equipment, Holland harangued:
Please do not “imagine” things, but comply with my requests. I asked you to give me a list of what we have & to tell me whether the horses &c. are too old to keep. . . . I am not “joking” but wish a plain business-like statement, so that I can decide what to do. . . . I do not “misconstrue” your meaning, & do not understand what you mean in saying so. I asked you for information which I do not possess & you will greatly oblige me by giving me the information I ask for, to wit: a list of things in our outfit, with a report upon their condition, & a statement as to whether they should be in your judgment kept or sold.
To soften his testy soliloquy a bit, he then expressed his sorrow that Peterson wasn’t well and advised him to take care, adding, “If you find it impossible to go on with your work, why then of course you should return.”19
In rather stark contrast, Utterback was merrily upbeat in his update to Holland on the tenth, having discovered another ceratopsian skull “far superior to No. 1.” It was “perfect in every respect” except for the lack of lower jaws. At 6.5 feet in length and perfectly symmetrical, it would make a superb specimen for exhibition, and Utterback was taking every precaution in crating it by doing all the work himself. At long last, he could celebrate, for “if I have accomplished nothing more this season have found Laramie fields that we can draw upon another season.” Although Utterback claimed to have collected two skulls, only one—CM 1221—currently exists in the Carnegie collection database. As Utterback had hoped, it indeed made a fine exhibition specimen and is still on display in the renovated fossil halls at the Carnegie. The fate of Utterback’s other skull is unclear. In other news, the skull for the Sensibas’ hadrosaur had been found at the end of the entire vertebral column, but Barnum Brown was now on the scene and had offered the brothers $300 for the specimen. Utterback was also disappointed that Silberling was now demanding $50 per month in salary and fifteen days’ vacation. Utterback confided that he’d had other assistants who did better work for $40 per month, but he’d leave the decision of whether to meet Silberling’s demands up to Holland. The weather was harsh and dry, causing problems for the crew by forcing them to travel long distances for water to sustain themselves and the horses.20
Peterson had left the field for New York by the eighteenth, apparently wishing to recover there and gather more intelligence regarding the Smithsonian job, although he hadn’t been to the AMNH yet. It also gave him a chance to write the Daemonelix paper, if not avoid Holland’s wrath a bit longer. He sent the manuscript, entitled “Facts and Discoveries of Daemonlix [sic],” to Holland with a request that he review it, and assured Holland that the loading process for the fossils had gone fine and he’d stored the camp outfit with a reliable local in Nebraska. By the twentieth, Holland had reviewed Peterson’s paper, given it a “slightly better literary form,” and sent it on to Science. Yet Holland was not yet ready to let the issue of the outfit go, again complaining,
You failed to realize, as is evident from your former letter, that I was in ignorance as to the condition of the horses and outfit, all matters in relation to these things having been left entirely to Mr. Hatcher. . . . If as you state in your letter the horses are too old we had better perhaps make arrangements even yet to sell them, but I will confer with you about these things when you get back to Pittsburgh.
He hoped Peterson would recover soon and return in good health, where work awaited him. Peterson finally filed his report on the condition of the outfit on the twenty-first, after apologizing for the delay and stating that he preferred to have “no further controversy” about it, which seems to have put the matter to rest.21
As the drama between Holland and Peterson played out, Utterback’s crew baked amidst the rugged ridges and ravines of Hell Creek, a tributary of the Missouri thirty-five miles north of Jordan, Montana, which was one hundred miles north of the rail line at Miles City. As Utterback told Holland,
I question very much if you would have enjoyed camp life with us the past month. Have been camped on Hell Creek and found it every-thing its name implies . . . bad water and other disagreeable features. This is one of the roughest parts of Mont and is an ideal fossil country providing there was water. . . . Many places we cannot prospect for want of it.
The uncomfortable conditions were due in large part to the fact that it hadn’t rained since early June. Nonetheless, they’d managed to collect the skull and transport it to Jordan, although they’d had to engage in extensive “road-building” to manage it. But Utterback deemed it a fine specimen, and he believed that a pair of lower jaws he had prepared over the winter would serve well in replacing the missing parts of this new skull. Although they had seen fifty skulls that had become exposed and badly eroded, he was puzzled about why no other bones of the skeletons seemed to be preserved. Regarding the Sensibas’ duckbill skeleton, the asking price had apparently escalated to $1,500, and from what Utterback had heard, the brothers had broken it badly by trying to expose it, making the whole proposition a “pig in a poke.” This specimen, sometimes euphemistically referred to as “Sensiba’s mule,” was eventually acquired by AMNH in 1905 after a long sequence of negotiations by Barnum Brown for the much more reasonable price of $200.22
Throughout late August, Peterson and Holland continued to fine-tune the Daemonelix manuscript while they waited for the proofs. Holland also implored Peterson to rest up so he could work energetically during the fall and winter, explaining that it was “important and pressing,” since they might need a new display for the new building, the foundations of which were now nearly complete. Holland was also searching for Hatcher’s replacement and brought Williston in to see if he might be interested. But the salary was too small to tempt him. Williston wrote Peterson to provide him with this and other intelligence he’d gathered:
He discussed all possible candidates with me—Wieland, Mathews, Riggs, Case, Hay and others. He seems most disposed toward Mathews. It is not his intention to settle the matter at once, and I suspect that the condition will remain unsettled for some months. He, meanwhile, looking after the department himself. I think, however, that this is a mistake. From all that I can hear, I suspect there will be greater changes before long in the museum—perhaps for the better.
Peterson also received a letter from Merrill at the Smithsonian on the twenty-seventh, saying the appointment for the position was now in the hands of the Civil Service Commission, and it would probably be possible for Peterson to take the exam in Pittsburgh, where Peterson planned to return in early September.23
Utterback had been forced to use a freighting service to transport his massive ceratopsian skulls from Jordan to Miles City, since they were heavier than his team could handle, but by September 1 the Laramie and Judith fossils had been consolidated in Miles City. The expense was great, but as Utterback noted to Holland, “The time has come when good things are not to be found within a stones throw of the rail-road.” He’d amassed around three tons of fossils, but he bemoaned the fact that he hadn’t discovered the Hell Creek exposures earlier because he could have had a carload of fine fossils. Regardless, the skulls were well worth the cost in his estimation, and he submitted his $18.80 bill for supplies, including oats, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, rice, peaches, apricots, corn, tomatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, cream, syrup, soap, hominy, and onions.24
Over the next week, he traversed about 175 miles through the Powder River region, locating several promising prospects, including exposures of the Laramie near the head of the east fork of the Little Powder River. But, once again, a freighting firm would be required to get large fossils out to Belle Fourch on the rail line. Through the rest of the month, Utterback continued his search and made preparations to load his cache on a railcar at Miles City. On the twenty-second, he summed up his season for Holland:
While my work for the season has not given the results as I had anticipated I believe everything considered the final outcome of the expedition will well repay us. There is no question but what I have located two very rich Laramie fields, and under ordinary circumstances should have had a much larger collection to send in. As I have written you in previous letters the drouth has been the worst known to the oldest settlers. Perhaps another season the problem of water will not [need to be contended] with.
Utterback’s season closed after he sent the shipment, and on the way to Pittsburgh, he visited his aging father in Franklin, Indiana.25
The disturbing and depressing loss of Hatcher’s guidance and direction seems clearly manifest in his crew’s collection for the season, which totaled only 117 specimens. That was less than half of their next-lowest total at the Carnegie, in 1903, and only about 15 percent of their total during Hatcher’s most productive season at the Carnegie in 1901. Clearly, Hatcher possessed an essentially irreplaceable knack not only for finding fossils but also inspiring his crews to perform at the highest levels of their own abilities.
Peterson soldiered on, procuring one specimen of the beaver Palaeocastor from the 37- to 34-million-year-old beds of the Gering Formation; seven specimens of the horse Mesohippus, the camel Poebrotherium, the oreodont Merycoidodon, the deer-like Leptomeryx, and the lizard Peltosaurus from the 34- to 32-million-year-old strata of the Brule Formation. But Peterson pulled an impressive eighty-two mammal fossils from the 30- to 19-million-year-old outcrops of the Harrison and Monroe Creek Formations, including the relative of bears called Nothocyon; the hyaena-like, bone-crushing dog Sunkahetanka; the “bear dogs” Delotrochanter, Ysengrinia, and Daphenodon; the beaver Palaeocastor and its corkscrew burrow Daemonelix; the beaver Euhapsis; the rhinos Diceratherium and Menoceras; the horse Parahippus; the large, clawed, herbivorous chalicothere Moropus; the terrifying “terror pig,” or entelodont Dinohyus; the small camels Stenomylus and Oxydactylus; the oreodonts Promerycochoerus, Merychyus, Mesoreodon, Sespia, Phenacocoelus, Ticholeptus, and “Cyclopidius,” now called Leptauchenia. Peterson also added one camel called Stenomylus from the 19- to 16-million-year-old sediments of the Upper Loup Fork Beds, as well as another specimen of Stenomylus and an oreodont called Merycochoerus with incomplete field data.
Douglass is credited with one rhino called Aphelops from the 16- to 12.5- million-year-old rock layers of the Madison Valley Formation, and as mentioned, Utterback finally found the Carnegie two Triceratops specimens from the 66-million-year-old outcrops of the Hell Creek Formation.
Peterson learned that he passed the Civil Service exam with an exemplary score of 91.70 during the latter half of October, but he was worried. He wrote Merrill in distress on the nineteenth. “I learn that Mr. Gidley in the Am. Muse. Nat. History N.Y. and myself passed the examination, and that you likely may call on Gidley for the place. I hardly believe this until I hear from you directly.” Pressing his case, Peterson told Merrill that he’d heard Gidley didn’t really want the position and might decline it even if Osborn wanted him to take it. Merrill responded on the twenty-second that he didn’t know how Peterson had gotten his information because the Civil Service hadn’t even sent him the exam results yet, but he expected to hear in a few days and thanked Peterson for the intelligence. Finally, S. P. Langley, secretary of the U. S. National Museum, wrote Peterson on November 21 that he had been “probationally appointed” to the position at the salary of $1,500 per year and should report on December 15 for his assignment under the head curator in the Department of Geology. But Merrill granted an extension of Peterson’s start date to January 3, 1905. Accordingly, Peterson sent Holland a brief formal letter explaining his actions and decisions:
I hereby respectfully resign my position as field collector and assistant in the museum, to take effect on Jan. 1st, 1905.
The reason for my action is, as you are aware, my last summers illness while in the field, and fearing the recurance [sic] if again similarly exposed, I had long thought of changing my field work for steady laboratory occupation, for a while, although the former is perhaps more pleasant to me.
In the Carnegie catalogue, Peterson’s last record of specimens collected is 1904. However, based on the Carnegie’s staffing records, he appears to have remained at the Carnegie until 1933, ending his career as a curator of vertebrate paleontology when he passed away that same year. One might reasonably suspect that Holland simply made a better salary offer than the Smithsonian, but that inference, at this point, must remain speculative, since there is no evidence of such an offer or raise.26
Utterback’s last record of specimens collected in the Carnegie catalogue is 1907. On April 17, 1908, Utterback wrote Douglas Stewart, who appears to have been the assistant director of the Carnegie at that time, to state, “I have decided to give up the fossil business for all time, and shall send receipts and account of all expenses to-date, in a few days.” However, the Carnegie’s staffing records show that Utterback remained as a field collector and assistant preparator until 1910.27
Gilmore’s last record of specimens collected in the Carnegie catalogue is 1903, the same year that he was hired as a vertebrate paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. At the Smithsonian, he became one of the world’s premier experts on fossil reptiles, including dinosaurs. He retired from that institution in 1945, shortly before he passed away that September.
Douglass’s last record of specimens collected in the Carnegie catalogue is 1923. However, the staffing records of the Carnegie reveal that he remained at the museum as a field collector until he resigned in 1924. He discovered the famous Carnegie Quarry in the hills bordering the Green River outside of Vernal, Utah, in 1909, which led to the establishment of Dinosaur National Monument around that site in 1915. Then from 1923–1924 he worked with the USNM and the University of Utah to collect a specimen of Barosaurus lentus from the quarry. Then work at the quarry ended. He then joined the staff at the University of Utah, spending two years preparing specimens from the quarry for mounting, before conducting geologic work in the Unitah Basin during his final years. He passed away in 1931.28
Holland retired as the director of the Carnegie in 1922 and passed away in December of 1932.
One slightly silver lining surrounding the dark cloud hovering over Hatcher’s death involves an effect it had on the city of Pittsburgh. The demise of such a celebrated citizen triggered by typhoid spurred the city to take new steps to clean up its water supply.
Prior to his sudden death, Hatcher left a legacy of scientific research that would be published posthumously in the ensuing years, including a detailed account of the geology and paleontology of the Judith River Formation, which was coauthored with Stanton in 1905, and a massive treatise on the horned dinosaurs—The Ceratopsia—which was completed by Richard Swann Lull of Yale under the direction of Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1907. Although Hatcher did not complete the scientific research and text for this latter work, he oversaw the production of a tremendous amount of the supporting illustrations, including Knight’s painting of Triceratops; as a fitting tribute, Osborn and Lull published the monograph under the name of their fallen colleagues, John Bell Hatcher and O. C. Marsh. (See Hatcher bibliography)
Beyond that, Hatcher also left a lasting legacy for the public that, even today, still inspires visitors viewing the mounts that he and his crews discovered and constructed in museums around the world. Among them are Diplodocus (CM 84, 94, and 307), which represents a composite of 1899 specimens from Wortman’s crew and Utterback’s 1903 specimen. This first complete mount of any sauropod dinosaur, which is popularly nicknamed “Dippy,” was not only finished in Pittsburgh and revealed to the public in 1907; casts of it were also shipped to museums in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Russia, Spain, Argentina, and Mexico, thus making it one of the most viewed dinosaur skeletons in the world. In the wake of Hatcher’s passing, Holland supervised these efforts, but Hatcher’s chief preparator, Arthur S. Coggeshall, was the hands-on hero who helped design and construct these mounts for all to experience. Further forming the foundation of the fossil exhibitions at the Carnegie are, as identified in the exhibit, Hatcher’s specimens of Deinosuchus (CM 963), Opisthotriton (CM 6468), Meniscoessus (CM 11623), Teleoceras (acquired from USNM), Trigonias (CM 96), Brontops (CM 92 and 11061), and Merycoidodon (CM 236); Peterson’s specimens of Tyrannosaurus (CM 1400), Oxydactylus, Stenomylus, Menoceras, Daphenodon, Merychyus, Trigonias, Daphoenus, and Hoplophoneus; Gilmore’s and Douglass’s specimens of Apatosaurus (CM 566 and CM 3018) and Utterback’s specimen of Triceratops (CM 1219). The Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum long exhibited one of Hatcher’s Triceratops skeletons (USNM 2580), which it affectionately nicknamed “Hatcher,” as well as one of his Edmontosaurus specimens (USNM 2414). Further, at Yale’s Peabody Museum, where Hatcher was educated and initiated his unprecedented career, the museum’s Great Hall, with its magnificent mural The Age of Reptiles by Rudolph Zallinger, is also adorned by Hatcher’s Edmontosaurus skeleton (YPM 2182) and no less than three of his spectacular Triceratops skulls (YPM 1821, 1822, and 1823), as well as one skull of the dinosaur he first truly discovered—Torosaurus (YPM 1830). This spectacular roster of speciemens represents a fitting and visually diverse monument to a “King of Collectors.”29