The January 22, 1879, issue of the Arial (Vol. 2, No. 5, p. 56) reported that one sample from Winchell’s previous summer canoe voyage made it to the General Museum via an unknown benefactor. The article misspells Mayhew’s name and mistakenly claims one of his traveling companions was not Ojibwe.
A specimen has been lately received for the Museum which has a somewhat curious history. When Prof. Winchell was out on the Geological Survey in the summer, he made a long trip through the unsettled country along the line of British America. He traveled in a canoe, accompanied only by one white man and one Indian. When the party left the trading post of Mr. Mahew, about thirty miles inland from the shore of Lake Superior, they were obliged to take with them, besides a tent and full camping outfit, a full month's provisions. The load was nearly all that the canoe could carry; this circumstance, together with the fact that they were frequently obliged to carry the canoe and all their luggage from one stream or lake to another, made it desirable to select only small specimens to take with them. When about seventy miles from Mr. Mahew's, the nearest point of communication with the outside world, Prof. Winchell found a specimen of "quartz and topaz conglomerate" of some value, but it was too heavy to be carried. Prof. W. therefore wrote upon a piece of birch-bark, a note, which said that anyone who would deliver the stone at Mr. Mahew's should receive fifty cents for doing so. The Indian wrote the same in Chippewa also, and the note and stone were left together, protected from the weather by paper and bark. A stake with a piece of bark waving from the top was driven beside the stone to attract attention, and the party went on. The whole affair had been almost forgotten, when a few weeks ago Prof. Winchell received notice from Mr. Mahew that the stone was in his possession and would be forwarded. It is now in the Museum. How it made the journey to the trading-post is not known.
January 22, 1879 Ariel article on sample's journey to General Museum.
Sadly, the whereabouts of the stone are currently unknown (but we’re still looking for it…).
Henry Mayhew, explorer, prospector, entrepreneur, and county commissioner was one of two founders of Grand Marais. Mayhew hired local Ojibwe men to help develop the Gunflint Trail which began as a tote road (often only passable in winter) running between two of Mayhew's trading posts.
Mayhew is credited in Winchell’s 7th Annual Report of The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota for his help in organizing parties and transporting supplies. Mayhew's name also appears numerous times in the survey’s financial ledger. Together with his brothers, Mayhew offered a building for the survey to use as field headquarters in 1878 and 1879 as well as selling the survey supplies and animal specimens.
Henry Mayhew and his goat at Grand Marais, Minnesota. circa 1890? University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University Archives, collection.mndigital.org/catalog/nemhc:1659