THE ENGLISH WESTERNERS' SOCIETY
MAY 2010 BOOK REVIEW
This review first appeared in the Tally Sheet (Autumn 2007, Volume 54, Number 1)
HELL OR HIGH WATER - JAMES WHITE'S DISPUTED PASSAGE THROUGH GRAND CANYON, 1867
By Eileen Adams. Published by Utah State University Press, Logan, 2001. ISBN: 0-87421-425-4. (available through Amazon).
DRIFTING WEST - THE CALAMITIES OF JAMES WHITE AND CHARLES BAKER
By Virginia McConnell Simmons; University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2007.ISBN: 978-0-87081-874-5. (available through Amazon).
These two books revive one of the West's enduring mysteries and for readers interested in exploration and western characters in general and the Southwest in particular. They should be a fascinating read as well as being valuable contributions to the literature and history of the Colorado River region.
Who was James White? (1837-1927).There will be little mention of this character in history books, if at all, and then probably only as footnotes. It is alleged by some that he was the first person to traverse the Grand Canyon, through its treacherous rapids, travelling in a frail, makeshift raft, (unrepeated in such fashion by anybody to this day except for short distances), after escaping an Indian attack while prospecting in the wilds of south-eastern Utah in 1867. This was two years before the well-known history version which says that the first man – with his party – through Grand Canyon was one-armed Civil War veteran Major John Wesley Powell. With a scientific team using stout boats Powell, set off from Green River, Wyoming, travelled through to the confluence with the Colorado, then on through the rapids of Cataract Canyon, then the calmer water of Glen Canyon and then Grand Canyon with its series of famous rapids. This expedition took three and a half months. Powell became a hero and eventually a giant in American science, later founding the U.S. Geological Survey. He was also director of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Eileen Adams is White's granddaughter and, though biased in favour of White as having indeed traversed the whole length of the Grand Canyon her meticulous research over many years to find out the truth and bring recognition to White belies any real sense of predisposition throughout the book. At the end she seems confident in being able to state White's point of embarkation on the Colorado River (the mouth Moki Canyon, after viewing the area from the air and comparing it with White's description of the side canyon he came to after his escape from Indians). Though Adams's book has engendered a keen, though small, following favouring White, it is still a minority amongst researchers, and Simmons's book takes a necessarily neutral stance, as do most objective scholars. With both books the scholarship is sound, but in the end there's no solution to the mystery, and so there's no ending of the story to conceal in case of spoiling it for the reader. The interest is in the unravelling of the mystery and the survey of the complexities and opinions surrounding it. In other words, these are "decide for yourself" kind of books. In this both can be equally recommended.
What is certain and factual in the story is that on September 14, 1867, a wraith-like, demented figure, his sun-burnt skin covering an emaciated body, emerged from the river at Callville, Nevada, then a small Colorado River settlement (drowned by Lake Mead after the building of Hoover Dam in 1935). He called himself James White. After he recounted an astonishing tale of survival and hardship his rescuers believed his story. White eventually recovered his strength and his wits, and the unknown drifter became something of a minor celebrity for a time. The story goes that White had been with a small prospecting party, which included Charles Baker and George Stroll, and could be categorized as representative of many nondescripts who were concerned with the opening of the West - drifters, adventurers, nonentities, and some rogues, who left few facts about their origins or fates and never achieved fame. These three were opportunist prospectors and wanderers. In brief the story goes that they were attacked by Indians on the San Juan River, near Mexican Hat, Utah while prospecting. Baker was killed and White and Stroll escaped, reached the Colorado, hurriedly put together the log raft and floated down the river. Stroll was later drowned and White was alone for the next few weeks, having to keep himself alive, especially through Grand Canyon's rapids. How did he survive? Did he really spend those weeks travelling hundreds of miles on the river – or did he actually embark near Grand Wash Cliffs about 60 miles upstream from Callville and below Grand Canyon. But then if he had done that he would have had to have travelled overland for over 400 miles from the San Juan, through northern Arizona with its difficult travelling country, as well as being subject to hostiles at that time. But there is neither reference nor evidence to support the land journey. And why would he have done that and then decide to float down the river? (One curious story, hardly given credence, is that White murdered his companions and fled to escape the law.) The convolutions surrounding the story soon developed into a jigsaw puzzle. It is considered that White himself was uncertain of what he had done, except for his claim that he had been on the river all the time, a claim he always adhered to. But he was certainly confused by his story that from the San Juan he headed for the 'Grand River', far to the north, which would have been through unbelievably tortuous and difficult country. This would have taken days, not the short amount of time claimed to reach his point of embarkation. An embarkation here would have meant a traverse of the treacherous Cataract Canyon as well. (Until 1921 the Colorado above the confluence with the Green was officially called the Grand River.) The problems included inconsistencies in dates, in distance estimates, in descriptions of the river and the cliffs, and in his and Stroll's direction to the Colorado from the San Juan. Was it really from the north or from the south bank? His party was supposed to have crossed to the north bank of the San Juan after meeting it from the Mancos River en route from the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado, where they had been prospecting. There were differences in the details of the story by reporters and commentators. Arguments, wishful thinking, guesswork became rife. Of course, White's physical and mental state had to be factors in the story as well, and the letter he wrote to his brother - the only account of any kind he ever wrote - not long after the ordeal caused only more questions than it solved. Problems lay in his inability to translate his experiences into written words - much was locked away in his memory. This made him vulnerable to criticism and disbelief.
The foremost authority on Colorado River history was Otis "Dock" Marston who studied the question for many years and had much correspondence and association with both authors. In the end it seems he came out against the White story, somewhat surprisingly for Adams and this was a resigned disappointment. Marston probably could not accept that White could have survived on a raft through that amount of time with the dangerous river against him. He carefully scrutinized the possible points of White's embarkation on the river and finally supported the overland theory, with the embarkation probably at Grand Wash Cliffs, as did two other notable river men, Frederick Dellenbough – who was in any case probably biased in favour of Powell, being his historian and member of Powell's second expedition in 1871 – and Robert Brewster Stanton. Yet neither did Marston fully accept the celebration of Powell's achievements in Grand Canyon either, so there was hardly bias there. The prominence of Powell has helped perpetuate the belief that his expedition was the first. White was always the underdog, as it were. The mystery never went away over the years, and White's cause was in some measure kept alive by political and economic adversaries of Powell in the West. The question was an enduring one in White's later years when he was searched out and interviewed during his quiet retirement, living out a prosaic life with his family at Trinidad, Colorado. By then years had taken their toll of accurate memory anyway.
Adams's book should be read first as White's case is stated without the objectivity of the latter book, which discusses White's character and which deals at some length with his association with fellow traveller Charles Baker, who played an important role in White's life before the 1867 events. But the Adams book does have the advantage of the personal side of the investigation. Both are engagingly written.
Raymond Cox
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