Although the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Minnesota Geological Survey have traditionally traced their origins to Newton Horace Winchell’s arrival in 1872, those are inaccurate creation stories. The origin of both institutions began over a decade earlier, with Minnesota’s first attempts to create a state geological survey. Understandably, both institutions prefer to be remembered in terms of Winchell’s success than to the more troubled histories of the earlier attempts. Yet, birth is a messy affair, even when resulting in a newborn survey. Consequently, this is an attempt to tell a more complete tale of their origins.
As it turns out, a celebrated physician naturalist, a geologically untrained doctor, a surveyor and pre-emptor of Ojibwe land, and two plumbers would all play pioneering roles in the development of Minnesota’s Geological Survey and our university’s Geology Department.
Most overviews of Minnesota’s geology only mention that not much is known of the first State Geologists. Hanchett is typically glossed over with an allusion to Winchell’s later comment that “it became apparent that Dr. Hanchett was not intelligently and wholly devoted to the work, and on the passage of a more general act by the legislature of 1865 the Governor conferred the position of State Geologist upon Mr. Henry H. Eames.”[1] In turn, little is mentioned of Eames beyond that he published two short reports and touched off a false gold rush at Lake Vermillion. In a response to historian Dana H. Miller, Glenn B. Morey of the Minnesota Geological Survey once wrote that survey staff “believe that since Henry Eames was not held in very high esteem by his successors, no attempt was made to compile a file on his activities as the State Geologist.”[2]
Yet, Hanchett and Eames were Minnesota’s first State Geologists, and their activities influenced the design and development of the subsequent surveys, which in turn led to the Earth and Environmental Sciences department. As such, their history deserves a more detailed recognition.
Plan for a Geological Survey
Geological surveys of some Minnesota regions had occurred prior to statehood, but the first call for a state geological survey came in 1860, less than two years after the state began. In response to a resolution passed by Minnesota’s second legislature on March 10, 1860, Charles Lewis Anderson and Thomas Clark wrote a ‘Report on Geology, and Plan for a Geological Survey of the State of Minnesota.’ The pamphlet, published in 1861, included a six-page description by Anderson of what was known of Minnesota geology along with a five-page plan for a proposed survey. Clark followed with a ten-page report, half on the state’s geography and plant cover and half on the state’s potential geological resources. Governor Ramsey forwarded the Anderson and Clark report to the state legislature, but he made it clear he was not ready to support the commencement of a state geological survey. Whether the governor’s reluctance was due to concerns over the state’s finances or his own personal bias, it was sufficient. No further action was taken and the incipient drive for a state geological survey was stillborn.
In his proposal, Anderson estimated ‘The least sum possible to enable him [a State Geologist] to work continuously, and engage at times such help as would be absolutely necessary, would be twenty-five hundred dollars per annum.’
The legislature strongly disagreed. Even twelve years later in September of 1872, when Winchell became Minnesota’s third State Geologist, the survey’s annual budget was a meager one thousand dollars. As Anderson foresaw, that paltry support was insufficient and handicapped Winchell’s survey. In response, the regents of the University of Minnesota raised the survey’s base funding to $2,000 in 1873. Even then, they realized their support would be insufficient so the regents also requested that proceeds from the sale of salt spring lands, given to the state by the federal government in 1858, could be used to support the survey until its work was completed.
Charles Lewis Anderson
Anderson was a doctor by vocation but a naturalist by avocation. Born in Virginia on September 27, 1827, Anderson’s family moved to Indiana when he was ten. Anderson later attended Franklin College and Indiana Asbury University where he earned a medical degree. In 1852, Anderson arrived at Saint Anthony where he established one of the city’s earliest medical practices and was a co-founder of the St. Anthony and Minneapolis Union Medical Society. He also served as the first superintendent of public schools in Hennepin County, Minnesota and helped build the first public school in what is now Minneapolis.
Yet, Anderson was enthralled by natural history, particularly geology and botany. He explored the geology west of the Twin Cities and in 1859 served as the Smithsonian Institution’s geologist on the ill-fated Nobles Expedition. An expedition that sought to establish St. Paul as the disembarkation point for a gold rush in Canada’s Fraser River Valley that eventually led to the founding of the Colony of British Columbia. Poorly planned, the Nobles Expedition fell apart before reaching its goal, but that was the fault of its leaders, not Anderson.
Charles Lewis Anderson (in Santa Cruz, California)
Left: The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat news article on the Nobles Expedition and Charles Lewis Anderson's involvement published on Friday, September 30, 1859.
Below: The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat announcement of Anderson winning awards for fossil, mineral, botanical, and bird collections published on Friday, October 12, 1860.
After Governor Ramsey forestalled any chance of a state geological survey occurring during his term, Anderson left Minnesota on May 13, 1862, moving to Carson City, Nevada. There, at the start of the Civil War, Anderson was appointed Nevada’s Surgeon General.
Two years later Anderson and his family moved on to Santa Cruz, California where he spent the remainder of his life, dying on December 22, 1910, at the age of eighty-three. During his time in Nevada and California, Anderson published many contributions to geology, entomology, and botany, and became a fervent conservation advocate. In his writings, Anderson disparaged the use of guns by bird specialists and championed the preservation of California redwood forests. He became known as one of the west’s leading naturalists and more than a dozen species of plants and seaweed were named after Anderson by others.
The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat article on Anderson leaving Minnesota, published on Friday, May 23, 1862.
Obituary for Charles Lewis Anderson published in Santa Cruz Sentinel on Friday, December 23, 1910.
Anderson was a prime example of the 19th century tradition of physician naturalists. And if the survey had been initiated in 1861, he would have made an outstanding first State Geologist.
Perhaps it was Anderson’s scientific reputation and his plan for a state geological survey that led Minnesota’s fourth Governor, Stephen Miller, to turn to another physician, August H. Hanchett, to finally undertake Minnesota’s first official geological survey.
However, that decision did not work out as well as Miller hoped.