Scope and Contents

This collection consists of 42 glass lantern slides that were shot by John Wetherill (1866-1944) circa 1892. The bulk of the photographs depict Ancestral Puebloan sites at Mesa Verde and Hovenweep in southwest Colorado. Wetherill may have been escorting the H. Jay Smith Exploring Company around the region as they collected objects for a Mesa Verde exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The glass lantern slides depict cliff dwellings in a state of pre-archaeological preservation including the sites of Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, Square Tower House, Kodak House, Sandal House, and Spring House at Mesa Verde; and Square Tower at Hovenweep. The photographs also depict Oraibi Hopi Village, Montezuma Castle, and Casa Grande Ruins sites in Arizona.

A few photographs depict Ute and Diné (Navajo) men and women. One photograph of note depicts an outdoor group portrait photographed at a Ute wedding in Mancos, Colorado. The individuals depicted include George Bowles (Harvard student), Mancos Jim (Ute) and his wife, Herbert L. Cowing (1877-1956), Elmer Coston, Benjamin Kite Wetherill (1832-1898), and Richard Wetherill (1858-1910).

Several photographs in this collection also depict objects such as pottery, yucca baskets, stone axes, manos, and metates alongside Ancestral Puebloan human remains. These photographs are restricted.

John Wetherill is listed as the photographer, however, his brother Richard Wetherill (1858-1910) may have shot some of the photographs as well. The lantern slides feature handwritten labels that describe the photographs and were probably written by a Museum of the American Indian employee. Additionally, "Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, Broadway at 155th ST. N. Y. City" is printed on the back of the masking paper, which indicates that the lantern slides were most likely assembled by MAI staff.

Some lantern slides may be the reverse or mirror images of the actual scenes.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in photo number order.

Biographical / Historical

John Wetherill (1866-1944) was a cattle rancher, explorer, and amateur archaeologist in Colorado. Born in Kansas in 1866 to Benjamin Kite Wetherill and Marion Tompkins Wetherill, the family moved to Mancos in southwestern Colorado in 1879. In December 1888, Richard Wetherill (John's older brother) and Charles Mason (brother-in-law), were credited with having discovered Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, and Square Tower House sites at Mesa Verde, although the cliff dwellings were already known to some Native Puebloan communities in the southwest at the time. Additionally, several non-Native explorers had visited other Ancestral Puebloan sites in the region prior to the Wetherills' discoveries including Mexican-Spanish missionaries Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante in 1776; prospector John Moss in 1873; and photographer William Henry Jackson for the Hayden U.S. Geological Survey in 1874.

After the discovery, Richard and his brothers John, Clayton, Winslow, and Benjamin continued exploring and found other Ancestral Puebloan sites in the region. In 1891, the Wetherill brothers worked with amateur Swedish archaeologist Gustaf Nordenskiöld excavating Cliff House. Nordenskiöld taught them the basics tenants of archaeological excavation and trained them to keep detailed provenance records and to label objects.

From 1888-1893, the Wetherills collected more objects from Mesa Verde and eventually sold many of their collections, including a large collection to the Colorado State Historical Society (History Colorado). By 1900 John Wetherill moved to New Mexico and then Utah with his wife Louise Wade Wetherill. John continued serving as a guide and trained archaeologists and anthropologists in the region. He died in 1944.

Agnes Cowing (1880-1965), the collector of the glass lantern slides, was a librarian in New York. She most likely obtained them from her brother Herbert L. Cowing (1877-1956) or her sister Julia R. Cowing (b. 1857) who were both friends of the Wetherill family and visited the Wetherill Ranch in Mancos, Colorado in the 1890s.

Related Materials

History Colorado in Denver, Colo. holds a John and Richard Wetherill photographs collection (2000.129), a Richard Wetherill manuscripts collection (Mini-MSS #3035), and a large collection of objects collected by the Wetherills. The Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives holds a collection of photographs collected by H. Jay Smith (NAA MS 2420).