1874 Black Hills Expedition

A Black Hills 'Botanist'

Many sources report that during the summer of 1874, Donaldson served as botanist for the Black Hills Expedition led by George Armstrong Custer, which seems an odd assignment for a rhetoric and English professor. 

So how did a rhetoric and English literature professor become an expedition botanist?

Although historical texts often claim Donaldson resigned his position at the University in order to take part in the Black Hills Expedition, that was a later face-saving revision. The Ninth Annual Report of the President of the University for the Year 1873-74 records a different scenario. 

The following officers not having been re-elected at the annual election held in April, 1874, closed their connection with the institution at the end of the year: 

     Professor Aris B. Donaldson, M.A. 

     Assistant Professor D. P. Strange, B. S.

Donaldson had been fired. His brother’s term as a university regent expired in 1872 and when Robert moved to MacLeod County to be closer to his sister’s family, Aris was left without a defender among the regents. 

No reason was given for Donaldson’s termination, but he might not have been the most inspiring instructor. Dean Cristopher Webber Hall wrote in his 1896 ‘The University of Minnesota – an Historic Sketch,’ that ‘The English language was first taught by Aris. B. Donaldson, whose chair was rhetoric and English literature. In 1874 Moses Marston succeeded him, performing excellent work until his lamented death, which occurred July 11, 1883.’ If it seems a possible slight to mention Donaldson’s name without comment yet praise his successor, others were more direct in their disparagement.

‘The professor of English, after the first ponderous Donaldson, was Moses P. Marston, a calm, scholarly man from Vermont, who earnestly strove to make his students appreciate and grow fond of their native English literature.’                       

– ‘Early College Silhouettes’ by Dr. Leonard, 1935

Dr. William E. Leonard arrived at the university in 1872 and experienced two years of Donaldson’s instruction. His description of Donaldson as ‘ponderous,’ was a play of words - referencing not only Donaldson’s weight but suggesting his teaching came off as dull and laborious. Others who met Donaldson described him as pedantic, which may have undercut his popularity with the remaining regents. 

However, Donaldson’s termination might also have been related to a family tragedy that drew his attention from teaching. On March 18, 1874, Aris and Susan lost a two-week-old son, George W. Donaldson. They buried their infant in what is now the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, south of downtown Minneapolis. This loss, followed by his termination, undoubtedly made the chance to accompany the Black Hills Expedition more attractive to Donaldson than just the financial support it provided. However, his departure must have significantly increased Susan’s burden.

In contrast, Winchell’s choice was apparently based more on sympathy than expertise. Knowing Donaldson, a fellow Methodist, had just lost his university position yet still had to support his family, Winchell took him on as an assistant. Although a farmer’s son, it is unlikely Donaldson had any extensive previous botanical expertise. However, Winchell was a competent botanist and well-rounded naturalist despite his focus on geology, so he only needed someone to help with the physical collection of samples.

At 43, Donaldson was one of the expedition’s oldest members. He was nearly a decade older than Custer and Winchell (both 34), and nearly two decades older than Frederick Dent Grant and George Bird Grinnell (both 24). However, Donaldson also stood out for other reasons. Almost every member of the expedition was in good physical condition and accustomed to countless hours on horseback. In contrast, Donaldson was used to a classroom setting, was often described as being corpulent, and had so little experience on horseback that the initial stages of the expedition proved torturous.

Dobbin

Fortunately, Donaldson was assigned a laid-back mount named Dobbin described by William Eleroy Curtis, one of the correspondents accompanying the expedition, as ‘the “very excellent animal” which the Professor “equestrianizes” – a long, lank beast, very deliberate in his movements, but perfectly docile, and exactly to the Professor’s taste.’ Although Curtis also quoted Donaldson saying, ‘Some times when we are passing over a territory at all imperfect in its surface he [Dobbin] stumbles, and it does seem as if he would displace my lumbar verterbrae, or give me a hebidemeal [sic] rupture.’ 

Saint Paul Pioneer Correspondent

While Donaldson amassed a small collection of botanical samples during the Black Hills expedition, his most lasting contribution to its history lay elsewhere. Casting an eye towards his future, before leaving Minneapolis Donaldson contracted with the Saint Paul Pioneer to be their expedition correspondent. Over the course of the trip, Donaldson wrote fifteen letters from the Black Hills that were published as ten, often lengthy, articles in the Pioneer. Donaldson’s writing went far beyond a simple description of the trek to praise the land’s bounty, proselytize its future use, and provide vibrant, often humorous or touching, portrayals of the expedition’s leaders and members. 

In his first missive to the St. Paul Pioneer simply signed ‘Aris,’ Donaldson described the Black Hills but also laid out a deeply biased depiction of contrasting cultural views that lauded the expedition’s scientific approach compared to that of the Lakota.

    ‘It is believed that within are rich mines of precious metals, and rare plants and animals living, and fossiliferous, with which the scientist is unacquainted. It is the famed stronghold and favored hunting ground of the red man. It is even dearer to him than the land of the “graves of his forefathers.” He believes that the souls of the departed revisit these earthly abodes, and in spiritual forms pursue the spiritual game over the old, familiar hunting grounds. To the simple faith of the Indian, it is the most sacred spot of earth, to him the “holy of holies.”

     “Here the souls of the happy dead repair

          From their bowers of light to this bordering land.

     And walks in the fainter glory there

         With the souls of the living hand in hand.”

    The Indian would preserve it inviolate and conceal all its mysteries; the white man would reveal its wonders, unlock its secrets, and satisfy the eager world with information. Superstition and ignorance here stand in opposition to truth and civilization. This will explain why this region has so long remained in terra incognito to all except the non-communicative savage.’

Only an ex-professor of literature would include the third stanza of ‘The Land of Dreams’ by William Cullen Bryant and expect his audience to recognize it.

    ‘In making this expedition complete, in gathering from many sources many men of many minds, there are of course human curiosities in the conglomeration. We have our silent men, and our talkative men; which hobbies, and men with opinion to suit all the nubs and niches in the opinions of others; positive men and negative men some who are a source of information, some a source of annoyance, and some a source of entertainment; but the one who heads the latter class is a big-bodied, big-hearted old fellow, a professor in a Western college, who is doing the botany. His character is noble, yet funny, for in it are mixed the most generous, manly notions, and a simple childishness it does one good to see. 

THE PROFESSOR

    –  he alone, of the titled scientists, is exclusively known as such – is doing the botany; and to see him some in from a long day’s march, with a benevolent smile playing over his sun-burned, half-peeled face, and wreathing itself in his whiskers, and a huge nosegay of flowers in his hand – to see him lower his corpulent form from the back of “Dobbin,” slowly and carefully, so as not to jar the sensitiveness of his rheumatic back, and to hear his sigh of relief, breathed secretly under a cheerful, hearty greeting, is as good as a tonic. The Professor is very learned; his great stomach must be the storehouse of his memory, and it is full of dictionary words, for nowhere else in himself had he room to stow away the great sentences that always roll from his mouth, like mountains of lava from a crater. When he was new to us, when he was making his preparations for the expedition, the Quartermaster’s people considered him a singular curiosity in human nature, and most of us joined in that belief; but now that we know him, the good old fellow’s kind heart, unselfish motives, characteristic politeness, and hearty enjoyment of everything make him a favorite everywhere, and, not withstanding his pedantry, it cannot but seem that he is a great child enjoying a summer’s holiday.’

On the expedition’s second to last day in the Black Hills, Curtis wrote that Donaldson managed to get himself into a situation that led to him being cussed out in front of no less an audience than Frederick Dent Grant, the president’s oldest son. The previous day, Donaldson tagged along with three-person hunting party, hoping to shoot a deer and take its horns and hide back to Minneapolis as a trophy. Although the party shot several deer, Donaldson was unsuccessful and when it came time to return, he was convinced the sergeant leading the group did not know the correct way to camp. Confident of his own judgement, Donaldson set off on his own in the wrong direction and promptly became lost. After traversing an unfamiliar, burned over landscape, he finally stumbled across the expedition’s trail. However, Donaldson somehow managed to misread the tracks and followed the trail in the wrong direction until he reached an abandoned previous campsite. Finally, deducing the wagons and horses had gone in the opposite direction, Donaldson retraced his route to arrive in camp long after his companions’ return. 

The next day, when Curtiss and Grant asked him what had happened, a younger member of the expedition lambasted Donaldson in a profanity-laced rant. 

    “What in h__l did you pike out for, anyway, old man; why d__n your old buttons didn’t you know those Indians would tumble to you a d__n sight sooner than to anyone else in this outfit. Why____ _____ me if they wouldn’t rather have your old scalp tackled to their belly-strap than a hundred others.”

Tirade aside, it is difficult to conceive how Donaldson misinterpreted the direction in which 1500 horses and mules had traveled, but that he had done so made it even more apparent Winchell had chosen Donaldson out of friendship rather than for his abilities in the field. 

Expedition Botany

In contrast to Curtis’s articles, Donaldson was only briefly mentioned in the expedition’s official reports. In Ludlow’s and the scientific corps’ official reports, the sole reference to Donaldson was a two-sentence reference in Winchell’s fifty-page account. 

     During the progress of the expedition, Prof. A. B. Donaldson made a small collection of plants. These were sent to Prof. John M. Coulter, of Hanover, Ind., for naming. 

During the course of a two-month expedition, Donaldson only collected seventy-four plant specimens, although Curtis reported Donaldson also helped Winchell collect some fossils. 

     ‘I would sketch him as he is frequently seen, bent almost double in the ardor of scientific investigation, the patch on his pantaloons exposed to the sun, gripping Dobbin’s bridle in one hand and whacking patiently at an obstinate relic of the paleozoic age with his hammer in the other.’

Donaldson himself reported that ‘The floral decoration is the very richest. Every order and species seem to vie with every other in giving brilliancy to the display. The gaudy sun-flower and the delicate hare-bell, the fair lily and the bright blue daisy, the coarse eglantine and the modest violet, the gay larkspur and the fragrant peppermint, roses and pinks, asters and phlox, bell-flower and calliopsis, geraniums, goldenrod, purple cone-flower, are part of Flora's contribution to these lovely dells.’ He went on to second Custer’s description ‘Everybody, even muleteers, were enraptured with the flowers. Everybody was making bouquets. All sorts of interjections were used to express wonder and admiration. Some said they would give a hundred dollars just to have their wives see the floral richness for even one hour.’

As impressed as Donaldson was with the flora, he still felt it could be improved, ‘If nature uncultivated does all this, what might not a skilled horticulturist attain?’

Collected Flora

However, even with all this botanical bounty, Donaldson only collected specimens of seventy-four species over the course of a two-month trek. A paucity all the more striking as Curtis reported that in Floral Valley alone ‘our botanist collected fifty-two distinct varieties of flowers in the limits of our camp, and twelve under the walls of his tent.’

It is also notable that Donaldson used the common names of many of the plants in his articles; he never drafted a botanical report nor mentioned the plant’s scientific names. In contrast, Winchell used the scientific names of all forty trees and shrubs listed in his report, despite focusing almost all his energy on the region’s geology. 

Winchell did not rely on Donaldson to identify the flora. Despite his own botanical experience, Winchell instead sent Donaldson’s samples off to botanist John Merle Coulter for identification. Two years earlier, Coulter had served as assistant geologist on Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden’s Yellowstone Expedition, where his extensive plant collecting caused Hayden to promote Coulter to expedition botanist. Coulter then returned to teach at his alma mater, Hanover College. In 1879, Coulter moved to Wabash College and brought along his collection, then numbering several thousand specimens. Winchell apparently never asked Coulter to return the Black Hills specimens, so they became part of the Wabash College Herbarium. In 1987, Wabash College decided to donate their herbarium to the New York Botanical Garden and at least forty of Donaldson’s Black Hills specimens survived to become part of the garden’s Steere Herbarium. 

Another expedition legacy

I only know of two images of Aris Berkley Donaldson. The first is his faculty photograph in the University of Minnesota archives which was featured in the 1893 Gopher yearbook. The second is part of a group photograph of thirty-eight military and civilian members of the 1874 Black Hills Expedition taken on August 13, 1874. 

In the center of the image, standing behind a reclining George Armstrong Custer, is NeesiRAhpát (Bloody Knife), Custer’s chief scout. On NeesiRAhpát’s left is Newton Horace Winchell, on his right, the only individual in plain shirtsleeves and with a chest-length beard, is Aris Berkley Donaldson. He looks rumpled and slightly out of place in the group, but in fairness to Donaldson, it should be noted that 19^th century concepts of corpulence differ from modern American standards. Although his contemporaries described Donaldson as corpulent with a ‘great stomach,’ Donaldson’s size would not attract undue notice on any modern American street. 

The last direct mention of Donaldson during the expedition is found in the diary of Fred W. Power, correspondent for the Saint Paul Daily Press. Power rather precipitously ended his expedition diary with the notation ‘Prof Donaldson with his Mule made their appearance on top of a Bluff in full view of Lincoln.’

Post Black Hills Life

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email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])