Ned and Sarapeta 

Charles and Sarah had four children at the time of Marshall’s death in early 1902. Anna was six going on seven, John was almost five, Rosezella had just turned three, and Irene was a little over a year old. In the summer of 1903 Ned was born followed by Sarapeta in April of 1905  Ned died when he was six months old and Sarapeta died when she was a year and a half old. Francis was the last child born in Colorado in the fall of 1906. 

The Zimmerman family had a professional photograph taken above.  Francis appears to be less than a year old which would place the picture sometime in early 1907 when they would have been living in the Ordway area of southeast Colorado. 

From left to right are: Rosezella (Rose), Charles, Emma (at the top), Irene Amanda (at the bottom), Sarah Ellen, Francis Moroni (baby), Anna Magdalene, and John Colburn.  Missing are Ned and Sarapeta who passed away as infants.  

Emma was not one of Charles and Sarah’s offspring. She was an orphan born in 1888 in Chicago then transferred to a Denver orphanage in 1892. She was later adopted by Charles and Sarah in 1897 about the time little John was born. Like the flood of orphans coming west in those days, Emma probably joined the family and worked as a nanny or in another capacity. (Montierth 2017).

Their final child Charles Othniel was born a few years later in Utah. 

Not One More

One thing for sure. Sarah was not going to lose another child.  She was going to take every step possible to make sure of this. 

Francis;  “In the summer of 1907 I developed a disease called SUMMER COMPLAINT(this is a severe case of diarrhea). Inasmuch as Father and Mother had lost the two children who were born to them just before me, they were fearful of losing me also. Mother took me into the mountains near Colorado Springs. High in the Rocky Mountains I became well. (Zimmerman, 1991).

Rose; “My mother recalls having to take Francis into the mountains because he had very poor health and my mother had lost her last two babies. It just made her panic and so she had taken Irene and my brother Francis and the gone up into Canon City and they was there for the whole summer”. (Rasmussen, 1989)

Lets Not Have That

While Sarah was away for the summer, financial times were tough and her husband Charles took action to shore up family finances until the fall crops came in. This became known to Sarah when she returned with Francis that fall.

Rose; “Well, my father borrowed some money and he put up a real good stallion for collateral and my mother when she came home and found that he’d put up that stallion,  Mother said; ‘well, I’m going to the bank’.  Father then said;  ‘well we could pay it off at this fall so let’s not have that’ and so she went to the bank with her coat on and with a [illegible, possibly a leather band] wrapped around her arm and she told that banker if he didn’t give her that note, that he’d get the licking of his life, and she unwrapped that [illegible] and I think he knew that she meant what she was talking about so he gave her [the note] and mother said”; ‘you can come and you can look at the cattle. You can look at anything and you can take it if you want some collateral but you’re not taking my stallion’ and she just figured that that was hers. She had raised it and Charlie didn’t have anything to do with it.   The banker said something about putting Charlie in jail and she said” ‘go ahead.‘ 

My mother was a strong determined woman and when she made up her mind she was going to do something she did it…” (Rasmussen, 1989)

One in the Morning, Two at Night

Rose tells the story of their first year after they arrived in the Uintah basin and the question of how they were going to survive their first winter;  

Rose; “We came to the Unitah Basin on the 28th of March in 1908. My father had a land grant from and he had taken up some land which proved to be just just nothing but sand and my parents made a real big mistake when they brought high-bred horses and cattle into into the Uintah Basin because they just about lost everything. Oh, yes, they couldn’t live because they was used to Silo feed. They was used to green and things and they just died.

My mother just wondered what she would do for fruit in that coming winter weather and she received a letter from an elder Mendenhall told her that if she could come she could have all the fruit that she could put up and I can remember her arguing with father and father said ‘No, you better not try to do that’ … As your mother went out he gave her a mule and old Kitty, a faithful horse, and she took my sister Magdalene with her and the youngest boy Francis and they they went out went to Springfield [about 130 miles, just south of Provo on the shortest route today].

Now, that’s a long ways when you travel by mule and a horse and a sheep wagon… they was out there and dried apples and peaches and bottled them and when they was time to go and she had all this and they was going up Nine Mile Canyon … and the Jack mule decided not to go … He just would not go and just shook his head and when you go and mother said, well, there’s only one other thing we can do. We’ve got to kneel down and pray. I’ll pray first and then you pray and she they knelt down and prayed and my mother’s could say the most beautiful prayers and then she said now you pray and my sister said I don’t have to there’s a man looking in. And he said anything wrong in there and my mother said we have a stubborn mule and he said ‘well, we’ll fix that’ and my mother [put on a brake to keep the wagon from rolling backwards] and the man put his rope through this particular place where the brake was and he wrapped it around the horn of the cow and he laid that across the mules back and mother said he said the most horrible swear words, and she said that mule just about pulled that wagon of the hill by itself.” (Rasmussen 1989)

Rose continued with the story of the man and his wife helping. They provided food and shelter during a severe rainstorm and then helped them get on their way home. Magdalene and Francis recalled having an apple, the first they had seen in two years. They also came away with a lot of additional dried apples. When they arrived home everyone, including Charles, cried. 

Rose; “I was so grateful to see her and my mother knew just every bit of that fruit that was in those bottles. You could have two peaches in the morning and one at night. Or you could have one in the morning and two at night and that took care of the family”. (Rasmussen 1989)

Two (or Three) in the Folding Bed

Francis; “At the age of five years, when we moved from Vernal, Utah to Lake Fork until I was about fourteen years old, we lived in two tents. A large tent about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long and a smaller tent about 9 feet by 12 feet. The two tents faced each other. A door was in each end of the tents that faced each other. Each tent was placed on a board frame about 3 feet high built around the base of the tent. This made the tents higher than they would have been. The small tent was used for a kitchen. It contained a large wood stove upon which the meals were prepared. There were cupboards built around the tent where supplies and utensils and dishes were kept. There were also built in tables or work benches used for those to work on who were preparing the meals.

All of the food was prepared in the kitchen or the small tent. The meals were all served in the big tent. As one went into the big tent, to the right was a folding bed. In front of the folding bed was a round table upon which the meals were served and where the family sat to eat.  At night when it was time for bed the table had to be moved back far enough for the folding bed to come down for sleeping. In the middle of the tent was a large oak stove. The stove pipe went up through the middle top of the tent. The stove burned wood or coal. We used wood almost exclusively. The stove was used only in cold weather.

Circling the tent were various beds, cots etc. for sleeping. Drawers, or chests of various sizes were placed in between the beds. In the back was a window to provide for more light. By this big window was a large bed where mother and father slept. The children would sleep in the smaller beds around the tent. ‘Two or three could sleep in the folding bed. We lived in these tents for about eight or nine years.

Life as I remember it was pleasurable and interesting. It never seemed like any kind of a hardship. Now that I am grown and have had the experience of raising a family, I’m sure it must have seemed very difficult for mother and father and perhaps some of the older children.

Both tents were on the ground. The dirt floor would have been a problem with lots of dust etc. However in the big tent mother took cold water and a small amount of fresh cow manure and mixed them together to dampen the floor. This created a hard crust which would last a long time. It could be swept, all dust would disappear and we would lay rag rugs around the room. The process would have to be repeated about as often as we would normally scrub and clean our present day kitchen floors. Each time the crust of the floor would be a little thicker and harder. The rag rugs would be taken out and hung on the clothes line and also cleaned each time we would rework the floors. It would take about three hours for the floor to dry. The floor was so nice that it was amazing to many people who would come into our tent to visit and would see how nice mother had this hard dirt floor made. It seemed to me that it was a frequent topic of conversation.”  (Zimmerman, 1991)

A Hay Rack

Francis; “It became apparent that the promised water was not going to come on the Lake Fork claim. Because it was time for the children to go to school, my parents with the children moved from Lake Fork to  Roosevelt, Utah.

The big tent was left in tact and placed upon a large hay rack on the wagon. The small tent was disassembled and placed in the larger tent along with all of our earthly belongings. The total distance of 16 miles was made at a very slow pace. We arrived in Roosevelt about nine o’clock in the morning. Not too far from the school house our parents found a place to locate the tents. The place where we located was on a lot owned by the City of Roosevelt, Utah. This lot later became the City Park.

During the summer of 1913, my parents bought an acre of land just a mile west of Roosevelt. The acre of land was upon a bench about a hundred or perhaps two hundred feet high… The tents were moved once more from the downtown city lot up on the bench to our new home. This was a permanent home for as long as we lived in Roosevelt.”  (Zimmerman 1991)

Camping

Francis; “In the early days while living in Vernal, Utah, he [father] was one of the freighters who hauled supplies into the Uintah Basin from Price, Utah.

Late Summer and early Fall I would go with my Father or my brother, John up into the Uintah Mountains to the saw mill for lumber. These trips were more of an outing than work. Each trip took three days and two nights. I always enjoyed camping out in the mountains.

During the Summer months I would spend a lot of time working on the farm with my Father. Planting the crops, irrigating the ground, mowing the hay, raking it into bunches, hauling it from the field into the barn yard hay stack, and harvesting potatoes, oats, corn, etc. There was always a lot of work connected with these activities and a lot of fun also.

During the Winter when we could no longer work the land, my Father would resume the lumber hauling for the sawmill to the town lumber company.”   (Zimmerman 1991)

I Regained Consciousness 

Francis; “One interesting experience I had while hauling hay from the field into the barnyard. My Father would pitch the hay from the field upon the hay rack. My job was to place the hay equally level on the rack and stomp it down solid. It should then ride safely from the field into the barnyard. One load of hay was completed and I drove the team toward the barnyard. As I approached the haystack, I pulled on the reins of the team to stop right in front of the haystack. The bunch of hay I was sitting on slid off the load of hay behind the horses. My pitchfork was beside me on the bunch of hay that slid off. It jabbed the horse on my right. I was directly behind the horse on the left. The horse on the right lunged forward pulling the horse I was behind, crushing me between the horse and the hay rack. The accident excited the team into a runaway condition and the team started off.

I fell to the ground unconscious and the wagon ran over me. It was lucky for me the wheels did not hit me. The team ran away with the load of hay back into the field. My Father was walking not far behind following me into the barnyard. He did not know what had happened. He only saw the runaway team. He found me passed out on the ground and took me over to a near by creek. He bathed my face in the cold water with an attempt to bring me to my senses. When he failed, he left me there and started for the team and wagon. He got them and placed me on the hay rack and started for home which was about a mile and a half away. It was while we were on our way home that I regained consciousness.

I was hurting in so many places I could not tell where it was the worst. At home my Mother quickly took over. She called the Elders first and then the Doctor. He said I had some internal injuries and would be a week or ten days in getting well…in two or three days I was as good as new. 

Caught his Foot in the Cogs

Francis’s older brother John wasn’t as lucky as Francis was.  He was working around a long gasoline powered machine that was apparently separating cream.  This may have been one of many unique pieces of industrial farm equipment being developed in those days and often modified by the farmers themselves.  

Rose; “John caught his foot in the cogs of this gasoline engine.  My father went in and he was trying to see what was stopping it and John said ‘why can’t you see me’.   My father then had to carry him into the house, his foot was all bleeding, and it was mixed with leather and stalking and everything. 

My mother had to send many miles to a doctor and the doctor had to get on a train and come and my father had to pick him up and by the time he got here he had to amputate his leg because gangrene set in… I can remember the awful look on my mother’s face when the doctor said it had to be amputated.

This was a real trial to my mother and I’m sure it was to my father too. But my father was quiet consuming man and my mother had a lot of emotions… And it seemed that all our lives we’re either saving money to get an artificial limb for my brother, or sending it back to have it lengthened.” (Rasmussen, 1989)

No doubt that Sarah grew up hearing the stories from both of her parents about amputations in the Civil War. She probably saw veterans growing up in Canon City or traveling back east with missing arms and legs. Worst of all, she saw her brother Emerson die from a terrible farming accident.  She probably wondered if John would even survive.  

Five Mothers and Five Babies

Francis:  “Father secured a permit to cut trees and would bring a few big logs each time he came from the mountains. We stacked these on our place for the purpose of building a log house. In time we acquired logs and other materials and some money and started to build the House. It was a large house with five large rooms downstairs and a large attic up stairs which we used for storage. We could have had more bedrooms upstairs but we never did.

For many years in this house my Mother ran a maternity home. It was the family home also. Many little babies were born in this home.  One summer during this period we had five mothers and five babies in the home at one time. 

We also had a large cellar adjacent to the house where we kept our canned foods, and bottles fruits, potatoes, carrots, and many other items of food for our winter supply. We kept anything that needed to be kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer in this large celler. Our large home was built except for the roof, plastering on the inside and putting in the floor.”  (Zimmerman, 1991)

The Nurse, the Undertaker, and the Dentist

Francis; My mother, Sarah Ellen Felch Zimmerman, and wife of Charles, was a trained nurse. Mother was known where ever she lived for her nursing ability. Especially was this true in the Uintah Basin when Doctors and Hospitals were scarce.  She did much in those early days in the Uintah Basin caring for the sick.  She was very handy in laying out the dead.  She was also the town dentist. 

Her family remembers one busy day when she delivered two babies, laid out a dead man, and arrived home to find a man that had ridden five miles on horseback to to have teeth pulled by her.  In the town of Roosevelt, she was the nurse, the undertaker, and the dentist. During the Flu epidemic in 1918 and 1919, she nursed many people back to health.  Mother developed a remedy of her own mustard plasters which she made and placed on the back and chest of the patient.  She never lost one patient with the flu. 

Rose; “I always remember this one girl that had been real jealous of her husband because he had danced too many times with this one woman … and when she got home she took a dose of strychnine and died… she had vomited so much it run out of her chin and I thought oh, I wonder how mother is ever going to fix her. And … of course she did and you never know anything about it. I remember a lady said we have one of the best undertaker’s in the whole country.” (Rasmussen, 1989)

Not One Lazy Hair

Rose;  “I can see rows and rows and rows and rows of pies, great big crocks of donuts and many loaves of bread, our table was beautifully decorated on one end of it was a great big turkey and on the other end was a suckling pig with a great big red apple in its mouth… I can see all these elders and I can remember when she gave him a piece of mincemeat pie. My mother was used to using rum and oh things that made it real nice and I can remember seeing the elders wink hit each other and they ate it and they really relished it.

I can remember even standing on a stool before we got our cream separator that I used to have to watch Croc that they’d strain the milk in and to have the cream raised and my mother who had not one little lazy hair in her head. She had 45 butter customers and she delivered all these to her customers.  She’d wash the buggy and horses and my mother would lay down the reins and they’d stayed till she come back and she pick them up and they start going. 

I can remember one time. She just went to the store with me and she bought me a cute little red velvet hat and a coat to match and I remember how jealous I was when I outgrew that and my sister Irene stepped into it.(Rasmussen 1989) 

The Letters

When Sarah and Charles found themselves living in a tent in the Uintah Basin there must have been some incentive to hang on to the letters many Marsh had mailed to her father in the 1880’s.  It would also not have been possible not to be aware of the work of Earl Douglass.  With the interest of the church, Sarah probably felt comfortable telling the stories of her father’s work digging up dinosaurs.  When the tent blew open one night during a severe windstorm, Sarah went out searching and recovered all she could find and then held onto them for many more years.   

After the bulk of excavation work had been completed at the great dinosaur quarry, Earl Douglass moved to Salt Lake City and went to work at the University of Utah in the 1920’s.   Sarah’s daughter Irene Amanda was grown and living in Salt Lake City on October 5, 1925 and Sarah arranged for a meeting with Earl Douglass that took place at Irene’s house.  A year later Sarah met Douglass at his laboratory on the college campus on July 21, 1926.  Earl Douglass took notes of both of these meetings. (Douglass, Earl 1926)

The meetings were timely, Sarah would pass away in 1928 and Earl Douglass passed away in 1931.

The recognition of the importance of her fathers work is most remarkable considering everything she dealt with in her life in the Uintah Basin.

Ned Weld Felch

Ned Weld Felch was the second child of Marshall and Amanda.  He was born in February of 1869 at the ranch. Unlike his older sister Sarah, we don’t know very much about him. When the military academy was opened, Marshall and Amanda worked to get Sarah in. Maybe Ned didn’t show the promise she did. There was nothing to indicate that he was anything other than a thoughtful young man who helped Marshall with his work, collected fossils, and seemed ready to lend a helpful hand. 

Ned stayed with Marshall doing what he could until that fateful day in 1902.  Marshall left Ned a farewell note at the time of his suicide.  Maybe the note expressed some of Marshall’s love for Ned, possibly something he had not adequately done in life.   

A few years after Marshall died, Ned sold the ranch and moved on. In 1910 he was reported in census data to be in Rawhide Nevada, a mining boom town with reportedly more shenanigans than ore, a major fire, and a flood. The town went bust not long after Ned was there.  In 1920 Ned was reported in census data to be in Arbuckle in the great farming valley in central California.  

Sometime in the early 1920’s Ned contracted tuberculosis; “By the beginning of the 19th century, tuberculosis, or “consumption,” had killed one in seven of all people that had ever lived. Victims suffered from hacking, bloody coughs, debilitating pain in their lungs, and fatigue.(“TB in America: 1895-1954 | American Experience | PBS” 2015.)

Ned probably could no longer survive without help and naturally headed for Utah to be with his sister Sarah and her family. They received him and Francis helped bathe and care for him at the end of his life.   Before he passed away in 1924 he gave title to Francis Zimmerman to a piece of property in Fallon Nevada.  Ned also gave Francis his ford automobile which the family sold and used the money to buy a piano and a washing machine. The piano seems a little bit odd but it fits in perfectly with the family where music was a part of family life, so in that sense it was something that made their cabin more fun than ever. (Zimmerman, 1991)

Ned died on January 28, 1924 and is buried in the Roosevelt Cemetery.  His sister Sarah passed away four years later. 

 Introduction to the Epilogue 

The epilogue will wrap up the story of Marshall, Amanda, and Sarah and bring out the significant and unexpected aspects of their lives. Most importantly it will show how their lives had a more far reaching impact than any of them understood during their lives.   

At the beginning, the story was initiated simply to gain a better understanding of how Marshall completed remarkable (and historically early) excavation work of Jurassic dinosaur skeletons. Along the way we discovered a more interesting and unusual man in ways that were not expected. 

Amanda Felch was well known well before Marshall. The story of her remarkable legacy as a battlefield nurse in the Civil War had been published in 1895, but we knew little about life before or after the war. In the voyage to uncover her story we’ll learn how her life impacted the lives of women in an unexpected way. 

Sarah carries on the legacy of her parents in ways that are remarkable and significant.  We would not be able to fully tell their story if it were not for her. 

Like any good story, this one is built on a series of questions. The answers did not always lead to the conclusions we expected (nor necessarily wanted) but it is those inconsistencies that make the story rich. 

The Historic Context of the Story

Historic context to the story of “Dead Man’s Canyon” is based on a review of Marshall and Amanda’s story in this book, the ghost story itself, and additional research into the characters in the story. 

Marshall Felch enlisted for three years with the 4th regiment in July of 1861, reenlisted in early 1864, served out the war with the regiment until it was over,  and mustered out in July of 1865. During his service, he served in a hospital role eventually working his way up to a hospital steward, the highest-ranking position other than a surgeon in the field hospital system. He served throughout the war with the Vermont Forth regiment including Antietam where a lot of soldiers from the Vermont 4th regiment were wounded or killed. In battlefield situations everyone stepped forward and Marshall would have provided medical assistance to wounded soldiers at Antietam and every other battle. What can’t be substantiated is that an Oliver Kimball, or anyone with a similar name in the fourth infantry regiment or any other of the Vermont regiments existed.  

Amanda served throughout the war primarily as a regimental nurse with the Vermont Third and later on in more official nursing positions with 6th and 9th Corps.

Although Marshall was not a Captain in the Civil War it would not have been unusual for him to have received the honorary title of Capt. or even Captain after the war. Titles like this were a sign of respect and admiration for many Civil War veterans.

Marshall married Amanda Farnham after the war in Boston and then they migrated west. Marshall became a freighter and traveled all through the southern Colorado mountains and along the front range. He would have spent time in places like the Blue River Placers (Summit County), California Gulch (Leadville), Georgetown, and Fairplay that are all places mentioned in the story. 

The Griffin family were well known local pioneers with detailed family records who lived in the Cañon City area. Some of the Griffin men worked in California Gulch in the 1860’s but there is no record of a Dave Griffin or of anyone in the family that died in California Gulch.  

An undeveloped ranch and farm in an arid landscape had little chance of providing an income right away but it  was a major stepping off point for mountain mining camps in the mountains and it was also connected by trails to Denver.  Marshall rode a horse much of his life and like many in those days grew up riding a horse. It ran in the family as Sarah won awards for her horse riding skills. A rider on a horse can cover in an emergency up to 50 miles in a day although it would be more reasonable to assume a top end of about 30 miles per day.  An estimated distance of around 110 to 120 miles for Marshall would seem to be more along the lines of about 3 to 4 days of travel unless Marshall changed horses along the way which is unlikely for his route but not out of the realm of possibilities.

Early on, Denver would have had many more employment opportunities for Amanda and was a good fit for the first two years after arriving in Colorado.  Gertrude Osborn was reported to have arrived at the home of Amanda in Denver but to date no record of an Gertrude Osborn has been located in Colorado or in Vermont who would match anything like the lady in the story. 

Places along the front range that Marshall would have traveled between Canon City and Denver included; Six Mile Creek, Eight Mile Creek, Beaver Creek, Red Canyon, Turkey Creek, little Fountain Creek, Cheyenne Mountain, and Colorado City. These are all places mentioned in the story and they all clearly exist. Marshall may have ridden a horse along this route more than once. 

Dead Man’s Canyon is an informal and seldom used name today for an abandoned early historic route into Colorado Springs near Red Canyon, south of Colorado Springs. Dead Man’s Canyon is the place where Henry Harkins was murdered by the Espinoza Brothers in the spring of 1863. Harkins is buried along state highway 115 near the site where he was murdered. Marshall stated that there were ghost stories about the canyon when he went into it and he did this alone and after a rainstorm when it was getting dark.  

Although murders, shootings, and stabbings were not as common as depicted in many fictionalized westerns, they were also not uncommon. A murder using a knife or a dirk (dagger) would have a little unusual but not unheard of.  In Marshall’s travels in the mountains of Colorado he probably heard every mining camp murder story imaginable and war stories would have been even more common. Telling stories after a meal or around a campfire was a powerful way to share something about the people who served in the war, made the journey out west, or had a fascinating experience after they arrived. 

After the Civil War there was some intense psychological analysis of spiritual encounters.  Marshall, Fitz-Mac, and many others were part of the group of people who were studying the phenomena. 

Just a Matter of Time

Marshall clearly believed that the experiences he described in the story were true and it was just a matter of time before they were understood. Interestingly, he wasn’t alone in these thoughts. This notation appears as a P.S. at the end of the story. It appears to have been written by someone at the Colorado Springs Gazette where the story was later published. 

“This remarkable story of the pioneer days of Colorado was regarded by so competent a judge as the late Benjamin W. Steele, the scholarly founder and editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette, as one of the best ghost stories ever written. It is a striking example of psychological analysis and has been the subject of correspondence between the writer and the Society of Psychological Research.  It is hardly necessary to inform most of our readers that Dead Man’s Canon lies just to the south of Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs.  The ruins of the old cabin mentioned in the story are still to be seen in the canon.  The story was turned in as “copy” when Fitz Mac was associated with the gifted Eugene Field and Mr. Rothacker in the editorship of the once famous and powerful Denver Tribune, afterwards consolidated with the Republican.”

Something Worth Investigating

If you recall, Marshall expressed already how he felt about ghosts in the story; 

“I do not intend to convey the impression that I gave no credence to the ghostly stories of Dead Man’s Cañon. I distinctly assert on the contrary, that I had always thought there might be something worth investigating about the affair, only the chances seemed strongly against the optical data being furnished to anybody capable of looking into its cause.

If I felt no fear in approaching the place so dreadful to many, it is not because I do not believe in the possibility of ghosts, but precisely because I do.

I agree with you — that there can be no such thing as an isolated fact — a causeless event — but the bent of my mind is not and never has been, to regard an apparition as a thing supernatural.

It has always been my belief that the world is progressing gradually to higher and calmer spiritual planes, and that we shall sometime understand the rationale of these things that now only occasion us horror and fright.”

Marshall further supports his beliefs as an attachment following the story.  Here he delved deeper into his beliefs on what exactly ghosts were. N.B. is an abbreviation for the Latin nota bene that means “note well” and the note below came just after the end of the original story. 

This commentary by Marshall was probably never published and seems to have remained relatively obscure until rediscovery of the original story.  

“N.B.  On reading over this paper I find I have failed to cover what I regard as the most important point (scientifically viewed) in it, namely: The apparition of the horse and the dog.  The horror which the greater part of humanity has of an apparition is undoubtedly due almost entirely to the supposition that it represents a troubled and sinful spirit doomed to wander upon the earth in expiation of some grievous sin.

But the ghosts of the dog and the horse how can these be accounted for on such a supposition?

Now are not the facts plainly these, that we make the first mistake in supposing there is anything spiritual (that is, of the soul) about these appearances at all.

Most people are narrow enough mentally to continue to associate these phenomena in some indefinite way with religious liberalism, but they are manifestly, purely physical (otherwise we must face the question of soul in animals) and have no more to do with religion than any question in chemistry or optics. They belong I firmly believe to a subjective phase of nature which might, for convenience be provisionally termed the phenomena of the sympathies. 

                                                                                                            M.P. Felch

Studying Deep Literature

Marshall may have had wonderful audience reactions to the story but when he strayed from the story to explaining his concept of the apparitions, the reaction might have become muted. What if someone made fun of the story and his role in it and got a laugh in front of a group of people?  What if the story was indirectly a source of the friction in their marriage?  

When the story was challenged Marshall probably felt more compelled than ever to find scientific evidence the ghosts were real.  No such evidence would ever be found and this had to adversely affect his state of mind.  He must have been a troubled soul when he took his own life.  

The Elbert County Banner reported on Marshall’s suicide February 21, 1902;  “the taking of his own life had been a hobby with Mr. Felch for more than a year”

The Canon City Record reported on Marshall’s death on February 13, 1902;  “an eccentric character…a note addressed to the coroner from the deceased contained several strange requests.. spent a great amount of time studying deep literature“,

William Utterback wrote to John Bell Hatcher on July 20, 1901 “old Felch is crazy half the time and is causing me a great deal of trouble with my mail”

The Canon City Clipper reported on February 11, 1902 that; “Mr. Felch was found about 5 o’clock Sunday evening in a tent adjoining the house, dead from the effects of a gun wound. He had placed the gun across a back-less chair with the muzzle of the gun close to the left eye and with a crotched stick pulled the trigger.”  

Sadie

The Canon City Times reported on February 13, 1902; “Mrs. Sadie Felch Zimmerman arrived in the city Monday from La Junta in response to the news of the death of her father, Marshall P. Felch.“

This had to be horrible unimaginable moment for Sadie. She probably heard from the coroner about the strange requests Marshall made and worse yet the details of his death.  Sadie was likely thrust into a role of speaking for the family; addressing the death of her father, a burial, and what to do with the ranch. One of the newspaper reports stated that Marshall had left a goodbye note for Ned which implies he was nearby when the gun shot went off.  Its not clear where Ned was at this moment but what little we know about him implies that Sadie would need to help her brother move on to the next phase of his life. 

At the time of her fathers death, Sadie was married to Charles Zimmerman and together they had four children; Anna 6, John 4, Rose 3, and Irene 1.  The turmoil her father was going through and the gut wrenching way he died must have played through her mind over and over for many years.  How she would describe their grandfather Marshall Felch to the children some day.  What was he like?  What did he do? 

A Very Good Writer

The story Marshall told and wrote may have been an albatross around his neck but on the other side Marshall Felch was a good story teller and writer. 

His writing skills were also revealed in the hundreds of letters he sent to Professor Marsh. Marshall wrote and illustrated hundreds of quality paleontology reports.  On occasion he drifted into more creative writing such as the time he compared excavating a dinosaur to fighting a Civil War battle. 

Marshall’s description of Amanda’s service in the Civil War was interesting and colorful and it is the pretty much word for word what Mary Holland included about Amanda in her book on Civil War Nurses. (Holland, 1895)

The story of Capt. Felch was a classic ghost story that was published and republished again and again although his name seldom appeared as the author. In a somewhat ironic sense, maybe he was a ghost writer for a very popular ghost story. 

Honesty, Moral Fortitude, Bravery, and Empathy

Francis stated in his introduction to the story how he felt about the story; “It also brings out some of the characteristics of my Grand Father, Captain Marshall P. Felch. My mother had some of the characteristics and I have a few of them as well”.

Maybe the crux of this chapter itself isn’t the story of Capt. Felch or even Marshall’s writing skills.  Maybe its strength is that it conveys an aspect about his character that is inspirational.  His story of honesty, moral fortitude, bravery, and empathy was a source of strength not only for Charles and Sadie’s children but to anyone that reads it.

The following is a passage from the story of Capt. Felch’s ghostly adventure.  

“Miss Osborn stated that she had last heard from Kimball some eight or nine months before at California Gulch,, that she had waited long, and having exhausted every other means to hear from him, begged me to undertake at her expense, any measures that might be necessary to discover his whereabouts or his fate. Her father, she said, had recently died and she had now free control of ample means, and would I please communicate this fact to Mr. Kimball – the fact of her father’s death.

How swiftly that delicate hint revealed to me the suppressed tragedy of these two fond hearts. The rich and proud old man had stood between the faithful girl and her lover!

Yes I would inquire after Kimball with all my heart, and communicate the joyful tidings that nothing stood between him and his heart’s desire.”   

Captain Felch, Vermont 4th Infantry, Sixth Corps, Grand Army of the Republic

The Picture Below is of Marshall late in life with his war medal on his shirt.  Images from left to right include; an old Vermont Brigade flag, hospital steward uniform stripes, a Vermont Brigade cross, and a Grand Army of the Republic medal. 

Charles Zimmerman

Sadie’s future husband Charles spoke German and was pure Swiss.  His grandfather Johannes (John) Zimmerman was born in 1802 in Bern Switzerland area where he grew up marrying Elizabeth Wenger in 1823. The started a family and their first child, John Zimmerman was born in 1823 followed by five other children also born in Switzerland.  In May of 1832, they migrated to America following other Swiss families into east central Ohio and settling in the Ragersville area. (Zimmerman 1991) Today Ragersville is located just a few miles south of Sugarcreek, a modern day Swiss village with heritage celebrations every year at the end of September. 

Once settled in, Charles’s grandfather Johannes started a successful cheese factory which should come as no surprise.  Swiss emigrants continued to arrive into the area.  One of those families not only originated in the Bern Switzerland area, they also had same last name of Zimmerman and they had a daughter named Magdalena.  John and Magdalena met and married in 1848 remaining in the same area. They then had a family of their own, eight in total but four passed away before the age of one.  Number six was Charles who was born in 1862, five years earlier than Sadie. 

A few years after the end of the Civil War John, Magdalene, and the family migrated to Hiawatha Kansas and established a new homestead. (Zimmerman 1991) Hiawatha is in farm country in northeast Kansas along the old Pony Express and Oregon trail Route west of St. Joseph Missouri, a place Marshall and Amanda would have gone through in 1866. 

Francis;  When Charles was about 30 years old [1892] he went to Colorado to work in the Russian Camps.  Because of his Swiss parentage, he understood the German language.  He soon understood the Russian language sufficient to communicate with them and therefore was made a foreman.  (Zimmerman 1991)

Francis’s older sister Rose will later confirm Charles had arrived in Cripple Creek.

It seems almost a natural thing for a young unmarried man to be interested in heading into the mountains of Colorado where a great new gold discovery had taken place.  By 1892 Hiawatha Kansas was probably only a day’s train ride away.  Perhaps he could have loaded up one of his favorite mules in a box car used to carry stock and was ready to ride when he got off. 

The route from Canon City to Cripple Creek went directly past the Felch Ranch. In 1892 and 1893 Amanda was alive and well. The ranch house was always open for business from borders or someone looking for a meal and that would have included Charles.  Twenty five year old Sarah was strong, healthy, and attractive, intelligent and well educated, a great rider and had a love for horses and she was there at the ranch to give her mother assistance. 

Where Do We Go from Here? 

The first time I saw that picture above of the two of them beautifully dressed at their wedding with their rather forlorn or serious expressions I thought;  “What’s up with that…who pulled out the life out of the wedding party”  

Considering all the things that were happening in Cripple Creek, it was a mess and must have felt like a bad option.  The logical alternative choice in those days was farming but availability of good farm land at a reasonable price must have seemed daunting especially when considering that Marshall and Amanda had barely scraped out a livelihood on their ranch.  You couldn’t pay a lot for a farm or you would undoubtedly go under financially. 

The Zimmermans

Charles and Sarah migrated down to the lower Arkansas River Valley shortly after being married and there they settled.  Very little is known of what they did but all the indicators point to farming or farming related work.  They appear to have lived primarily in the Ordway area which experienced a mini boom of activity after the opening of the Colorado Canal that opened up some dry prairie to farming.  

They had seven children back then but two passed away. The first three children were born in Olney Springs near Ordway, the second three in La Junta and the last one was born in Ordway.  All towns are within 15 miles of each other in the lower Arkansas River Valley. Their eighth and last child Charles Othniel was born in Utah.   Francis, the writer of the family history was the last child born in Colorado, Francis Moroni and his name indicates another transformation in the family story.  

• Anna Magdalene born March 1, 1895
• John Colburn (Johnny) born March 12, 1897
• Rosezella Samena born February 22, 1899
• Irene Amanda born November 30, 1900
• Ned Avard Zimmerman born June 16, 1903 (passed away six months later)
• Sarapeta Zimmerman born April 18,1905 (passed away in January of 1907
• Francis Moroni Zimmerman born October 4, 1906 in Ordway Colorado

The family portrait above appears to have been taken in 1907. The youngest baby Francis Moroni was born on October 6, 1906.  He looks to be about a year old or so in the picture.Standing in the back is Emma who was adopted.  From left to right is Rosezella, Charles, Irene Amanda, Sarah Ellen, Francis Moroni, Anna Magdaline, and John Colburn. Photo courtesy of Family Search. 

The Suicide of Marshall Felch

News of Marshall Felch’s death was reported in the Canon City Clipper on February 11, 1902; 

Coroner Little and Deputy Sheriff Hawkins went out yesterday morning and returned in the afternoon. They ascertained that there were living at the ranch Ned Felch, a hired man and housekeeper.  Mr. Felch was found about five clock Sunday evening in a tent adjoining the house, dead from the effects of a gun wound. 

The cause is supposed to be melancholia arising from chronic illness.  He was 67 years of age.  He was a great student and possessed a very superior mind.  For many years he was engaged by Prof Marsh, of Yale college, in exhuming the bones of extinct saurians, which were found in an excellent condition.  He took an active part in the civil war.

He left a note of farewell to his son, Ned giving directions for the disposition of his body.  He also left a note for the coroner and bequeathed to him a stack of pamphlets on paleontology.

He was survived by one son Ned, and a daughter, Mrs. Zimmermann, residing at La Junta.”

On the 13th of February the Canon City Record reported;   

“A note addressed to the coroner from the deceased contained several strange requests.  He also bequeathed a number of pamphlets in paleontology which showed he was quite a student of antiquities. The deceased had been in poor health for several months and at the time of his death had been suffering from melancholy.  He spent a great amount of time studying deep literature.”

About a week later the Elbert County Banner reported on  February 21, 1902;  

“Marshall P. Felch, one of the oldest and best know residents in that section of the state, committed suicide at his home in Garden Park, eight miles north of Canon City, at a late hour Sunday. 

The Canon City Times reported on February 13, 1902; 

“Mrs. Sadie Felch Zimmerman arrived in the city Monday from La Junta in response to the news of the death of her father, Marshall P. Felch.”

Marshall’s story could have ended here but it doesn’t, there is one big surprise left.  It turns out that Marshall Felch was a much more interesting and complicated man than we have previously realized. We will tell the ghostly tale of Capt. Felch, an honest, brave and heroic Civil War veteran who solves a most unlikely murder mystery in the next chapter. 

Next Chapter:  In Life and Death – Yours, Gertrude

Marshall Felch’s remarkable dinosaur excavation will be his legacy, but after the Civil War, he was better-known Capt. Felch, the Civil War veteran and mountain freighter who bravely encountered spirits from the afterlife that in turn helped him in solve a heinous murder in the minefields of Colorado.   This ghostly tale is not only good reading, it reveals a layer of Marshall’s persona we would never have known otherwise.

Is About Petered Out

In early 1887 Marshall was as ready as possible to begin excavating dinosaur bones but question marks about availability of funding were once again prevalent. Marsh was still wanting missing parts and was convinced they were hidden somewhere in the quarry walls so he would find some funding one way or another.  Marshall needed to know if Marsh wanted just certain parts such as a particular skull or if he wanted the more careful approach and much slower approach Marshall had become accustomed to. On April 10, 1887 Marshall wrote; “I wish to know is – whether I shall continue on as we have for the past two seasons….in this way is terribly slow and tedious… or push on ‘till we find some continuous skeleton like No. 4 or 11 – throwing all else aside and working out that of most value?”

Marsh wrote back encouraging the slow and tedious methodology but, as always, he would be pushing hard for key parts; in other words he wanted it both ways.  Marshall went back to work that spring  and found a number of foot bones of a sauropod, well defined claws of a theropod, a number of other bones, but no Stegosaurus. Marshall wrote on June 19, 1887; “There were 14 (boxes) in all – three wagon loads – between 4 and 5 thousand pounds – somewhat more than I expected before packing”

On September 14,1887  Marshall wrote that they had found; “bones here belonging to the carnivorous beast and to some of the larger sauropod”. Earlier on September 4, he wrote; “some remains of an animal of immense size” referring to the same larger sauropod.

Marshall had seen a lot of dinosaur bones by now and although there was some promise he could tell that the old quarry by the end of September was at the end of its life. His honesty and integrity would not allow him to deceive Professor Marsh and on October 16 he wrote;  “appearances indicate and work proves that in one direction at least the good bones are worked out – and that we are off from the “pay streak”.  Earlier on the 1st of October he wrote that he had; “come to the conclusion that our old quarry, that has produced so many of good – bad & indifferent specimens – is about ‘petered out’”.

  I.C. Russel: The Photographs

About the time Marshall was getting ready to start work at Quarry 2 and Sadie was in New England, a geologist and photographer with the U.S. Geological Survey named Israel C. Russel spent time in the area collecting invertebrate fossils and photographing geological sites, including the old quarry.

On July 9, 1888 Marshall wrote; “Mr. Russel has been here and gone – I spent the most of two days with him – showing everything of interest and in making measures of the different stratas in the Jurassic. He expresses himself as highly pleased and well satisfied with his visit here – and astonished at finding such a great variety of fossils – especially the mollusks – a box of which we packed up to send to the National Museum. He had his photographic apparatus along and took several views of the strata along the creek – and some of our quarry – which he will finish up on his return to Washington –and will send you some copies.”

Russel took two photographs of the old quarry with Marshall in both pictures. They represent the moment in time when, according to Marshal, the old quarry was “petered out”. 

 I.C. Russel took the photo above looking north across the gully at the quarry. Marshall Felch is visible on the left side of the picture. The new quarry (no. 2) that Marshall was planning to work was to the left (west) of where I.C. Russel was standing when he took this photo. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yale Peabody Museum.  

The left image above looks west toward the Old Quarry and Marshall Felch can be seen in the foreground overlooking the gully. The image above right is an enhanced close up version of Marshall. Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yale Peabody Museum.   

Russel also photographed Marshall and Amanda when he was here in front of their their farm house above left. The photo above right is a close up and enhanced version of the photograph.  It is probable that from left to right; Ned (standing), possibly William Shepherd (sitting), Marshall (standing), and Amanda (sitting). Photo is courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yale Peabody Museum. 

Loretta Bailey began a research effort to figure out who the man sitting was and came to the conclusion that it was William Shepherd. 

Shepherd was a minister who arrived early to the area, preaching at an early shared church located in an abandoned army barracks in Cañon City.  He was also a blacksmith in those early days in the late 1860’s when Marshall and Amanda established a foothold in Garden Park when there were only a couple of hundred residents in the whole area so it seems unlikely they would have not met. The Felch family and his family also had a number of mutual acquaintances. In fact, one of William daughters married one of the Lucas’s. Two factors that point to the man being William Shepherd are:  1) Loretta found a picture of  Williams son (William Jr) that almost identical to the man sitting in the chair and 2) William Shepherd attended the first meeting of a Territorial Women’s Suffrage Society at Unity Church in Denver on January 10, 1876 with a Ms. Sheetz as representatives from Canon City. (Loretta Bailey, personal communication, 6/27/2019)

In 1888 Amanda was in the process of making her application for a pension application and that process was conducted in conjunction with work underway by the Women’s Relief Corps. It would be likely William was up at the ranch that day on a visit with Amanda if he had both an interest in the women’s suffrage issue and he already knew the Felch’s. The connection between Amanda and the suffrage movement will be explained in detail in this chapter.    

Amanda’s Pension Application

About the time I.C. Russel was taking pictures of Amanda and Marshall in front of their ranch house, an active Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) post along with a supporting Women’s Relief Corps (WRC) organization in Canon City were in place.  Across the country, the Women’s Relief Corps (WRC) was was very active and one of their missions was looking for “ministering angels”, that is nurses who served in the Civil War with exceptional moral standards. A nurse who had worked for the Sanitary Commission or even better worked for Dorothy Dix would only have been selected if they had extremely high moral standards so by the fact that Amanda worked for Dorothea Dix answered any question related to moral standards. 

The second question was more difficult.  Amanda had served on the front lines as a regimental nurse with her own medical wagon beginning in 1862 but she was not paid that year nor the next. Nothing could be more difficult for anyone to do than tend dead, dying and severely injured soldiers crying out for help but many of the relatively few women who served in these roles were not paid and therefore they were not in the official regimental records. Twenty years later many of these aging women were in need of assistance but in order to get it they would have to work much harder to establish their record of service.

Although Amanda considered work away from the battle front as less significant and less noble, it was fortunate in early 1864 that General Grant ordered all woman off the front lines in anticipation of the battlefield carnage that was about to happen. When Amanda arrived in Washington D.C. she met with and went to work for Dorothea Dix. Other than about two weeks in Fredericksburg following the Battle of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Amanda went to work at the White House on the Pamunkey River,  City Point near the Petersburg siege lines, and a short stint in the Shenandoah Valley campaign where she was on official duty for the remainder of the war.  The advantage of this work was that in 1887 and 1888 when she was getting ready to apply for a pension, she could provide official documentation of her service in 1864 and 1865. 

The wheels of congress were as slow then as they are today and pension legislation for nurses was still on the horizon.  In the meantime, the WRC began pushing forward hand picked pension applications, or test cases, in order to shed light on what worked and what didn’t in order to ultimately pass pension legislation on behalf of Civil War Nurses.

It didn’t take much of a leap of faith for local WRC and GAR members to recognize that Amanda had exceptional battle front experience and that she was also someone who had served under Dorothea Dix.  Amanda was a natural fit and so she was encouraged to make an application  realizing that she would need to document her service record in 1862 and 1863 through the testimony of Army soldiers who knew her. . 

The Signers of Amanda’s Application

Sometime in early 1889 eight former members of the sixth Army Corps signed Amanda’s application stating;

“We hereby certify that we personally knew Mrs. Farnham, now Mrs. M.P. Felch of Canon City, Colorado and believe the foregoing statement she has made in regard to her services while in the army are true and further that she should have some reward for her arduous and faithful duties with the sick and wounded, for whom she devoted nearly four years of her life with but little compensation.”

The eight men who signed Amanda’s application included; 

Andrew W. Brazee:  Initially a Major in the 49th New York Volunteers and later on the Provost Marshall where he was in charge of the second Division of the 6th Corps military police.

George W. Bonnett:  Bonnet was an enlisted soldier with the Vermont 3rd Regiment.  On the morning of April 2, 1865 Bonnet was awarded a medal for gallantry during the Vermont troops breakthrough of Confederate lines paving the way for the collapse of Confederate lines that had held firm for nine months.  One week after the breakthrough, General Lee surrendered at Appomattox.  

Carlton Felch: A Sergeant with company G of the 3rd Vermont Regiment.  Felch had longest record of service for a Vermont volunteer.  No known relationship to Marshall Felch.

William Hubbard:  Enlisted as a private at the beginning of the war with the Vermont 3rd infantry. At the end of the war he was a major.

Marshall Montgomery:  Began as an soldier in the Vermont 3rd infantry. Promoted to captain during the war and led company D of the 10th Colored Infantry. 

Samuel Everett Pingree: Enlisted as a private at the beginning of the war and was quickly promoted to Captain and later to Major for  meritorious conduct. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Lee’s Mills but returned with 2 1/2 months. By 1864 he was a lieutenant colonel and helped repulse General Early’s attack on Washington.  He went on to become Lieutenant Governor and later Governor of Vermont. 

Nathaniel G. Reed: An infantry solider who honorably served with the Vermont 3rd. 

Thomas Orville Seaver;  Was chosen to be Captain of Company F of the Vermont Third by the other soldiers at the beginning of the war.  Over time he was promoted to Major, then Lieutenant Colonel and later Colonel.  He received the Medal of Honor for leadership during the Battle of Spotsylvania where; “Colonel Seaver advanced, and under a most galling fire, occupied the rebel works while the other regiments of the attacking column fell back and some of the regiment that didn’t hear the order to retreat remained in the works obstinately holding them against all attacks of the enemy until late in the evening, refusing to fall back until they received positive orders to do so.” (Welch 2019)

Memorializing Amanda’s Service

‘Once Holland decided who among these women were so special that they were going to be included in her book she; “undertook the arduous work of securing the addresses of all I could locate, and have received letters and photographs of more than can be contained in this book.”  (Holland, 1895)

Mary Holland logically would have contacted selected nurses by letter well before the book was published in 1895, so probably in the 1890 to 1894 time period. The story of each nurse in Holland’s Book is typically signed at the end by the nurse themselves, but in a few cases, including Amanda’s, someone wrote on behalf of the nurse and signed the letter. Amanda’s Letter is signed; “M.P. Felch – (For his wife Amanda, deceased)”. This almost certainly confirms that that the letter was submitted in 1894 and in another light that Marshall deeply appreciated Amanda.

Its the string of coincidences that makes Hollands discovery of Amanda interesting. If a pension application had not been submitted for Amanda and then Hollands discovery of it, followed by Marshall’s letter outlining many more details of Amanda’s service, it’s extremely unlikely that Amanda’s story would have been memorialized. Holland’s book is actually just the stepping off point of readily accessible information about Amanda although subsequent books and website information all seem to be based almost exclusively upon her book.

It is this shared knowledge and appreciation of her bravery, fortitude, and compassion during the Civil War that is considered her second recognition.

A Disability Pension for Marshall

One of the major achievements of the  Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) organization was passage of the Dependent and Disability Pension Act on the 27th of June, 1890. This legislation was designed to assist aging, disabled, and sometimes indigent Union veterans.  This pension act was signed into law almost entirely because of GAR’s strong support of Benjamin Harrison and his election as President in 1889.  By 1893 about 400,000 Union Civil War veterans applied for assistance after passage of the pension law. 

Marshall learned about passage of the act from a friend in Denver. With his friends assistance, he and Amanda began the application process.  The process began the fall of 1890 after the act was passed and Amanda provided the testimony;  “On this 6 day of November, 1890, at Canon City, County of Fremont, State of Colorado, before me, Rodney Chipp, a Special Examiner of the Pension Office, personally appeared Amanda M. Felch, who, being by me first duly sworn to answer truly all interrogatories propounded to her during this Special Examination of aforesaid pension claim, deposes and says: ‘I am 57 years of age, am the wife of this claimant’…” 

Marshall was present at this testimony but too ill to speak.  At the end of the testimony Marshall acknowledged that everything Amanda had said was true. This testimony is a primary source of information used throughout this book about Marshall’s health. 

Marshall wrote to Professor Marsh on February 10, 1891 stating; “the result of our trip to Denver last winter began to crop out – Gov. Cooper through Proctor got my claim made special – and the result was last week I got my first money – with back pay enough to pay up the debts, and then have three or four hundred dollars for my wife and I to go back and make our old home and relatives in New England a good visit.”  Proctor is most likely Redfield Proctor, the well known governor and senator from Vermont who had served with the Vermont 3rd regiment in the Civil War. 

On March 3, 1891 a special act pension was finally presented to Amanda Felch and therefore her money would have arrived probably in the late spring of 1891. Marshall received his pension money around the first of February of 1891 even though his application was submitted two full years after Amanda’s. Either way, early 1891 was a time when some very needed funding assistance arrived for both of these worthy Civil War veterans.

Fort Collins Courier, December 21, 1893

The Women Jubilate

The equal suffrage ratification, last Wednesday evening, at the opera house, was a grand success. The speakers, singers and orchestra were at their best, and the large audience evidently appreciated their efforts.

After the opening anthem and prayer Rev. Coffman expressed the congratulations of the clergy and spoke of woman’s work in the churches and missions. He was followed by Mr. Working, who gave the only franchise speech of the campaign in Timnath, where on Election Day equal suffrage was approved more than 12 to 1.

A song by a double quartet, composed of Misses Currie Moore, Guertha Lown, Lena Wills , Miss Slockett and Messrs. Abbott, Handy, Cameron and Golding-Dwyre , with Miss Slockett at the piano, followed.

Mrs.  Kenyon read a short paper or memorial on “Our Promoted Comrades”, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Wallace and Mrs. C. H. D. Thomson, who were intensely interested in the work and did so much toward the victory we celebrate. They were called to their reward before the final triumph to which they had so largely contributed. Mrs. Thompson’s funeral being one week and Mrs. Stone’s three weeks before.

Mrs. Mclntyre expressed the thanks of the association to their campaign speakers and to all who in any way contributed to the success of the meetings, especially the seven young men of the college whose time is so precious and so closely occupied.

Mr. Bailey spoke of the campaigns of 77 and 93 and the intelligence and progressiveness of the people in the counties where equal suffrage was approved and their lack where defeated.

After a selection by the orchestra, Dr. Brown spoke of the status of women forty years ago; of the ridicule and persecution of the pioneers in the reform which the voters of Colorado have now so decidedly approved.

After giving the congratulations of the public school teachers, Miss Meade spoke of the present status of women, showing their great progress since given the same opportunities for education as their brothers; of the recent franchise victories in England and New Zealand, and of the interest and pleasure expressed in telegrams and letters from all over the country and beyond the seas in our Colorado triumph.

After giving the congratulations of the literary society of the college, Miss Southworth spoke of the condition and needs of the masses and of women’s new responsibilities and opportunities in connection therewith.

After the singing of the Equal Eights Banner, Mr. C. C. Emigh spoke of women in the teacher’s profession, and Carrie Moore gave a recitation in her own inimitable style which brought down the house.

Mr. Seckner, commander of the GAR , spoke for his organization and the relief corps [Women’s Relief Corps] and told of women’s work for the soldiers in a feeling , appreciative manner.

Harlan Thomas did the honors for the Sons and Daughters of Veterans, and also for the Colombian literary society of the college.

The singing of “Giving the Ballot to the Mothers” was greeted with the Chautauqua salute by the ladies. Mr. Walsh gave a humorous speech and Prof. Carpenter a brief, interesting one.

Judge McAnelly commended the manner of conducting the campaign and said the next thing is to register. Notwithstanding the proverbial reluctance of women to tell their ages it must be done.

The orchestra closed the exercises with a fine selection.

All the exercises were brief and appropriate and most of them spicy and humorous, each having its own distinctive line of thought and different from the others, making a delightful variety.

Next Chapter: Sarah

After the death of her mother Amanda, Sadie marries a Swede named Charles Zimmerman who is working in the mines at the goldfield of Cripple Creek. They marry and move to the lower Arkansas Valley to start a life farming.

They have four children who will come to know their mothers name as Sarah.

In early 1902, Sarah comes home when she learns that her father Marshall has taken his own life.

“Such Success is Most Remarkable”

Almost 30 years after Marshall excavated the Stegosaurus, Charles Gilmore described the acquisition by the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) of this material.

The description included the drawing to the left (Gilmore, 1914).

“When the Marsh collection was received at the National Museum in 1898 and 1899 a very small part of the Stegosaurian material was in condition for study. The preparation of this material was begun m 1906 and has continued, barring some interruptions, up to the close of the year 1913…The material at hand includes the remains of several individuals, each of which represents a considerable part of the skeleton; also a vast number of separate bones. Of the associated skeletons the type of Stegosaurus stenops Marsh is worthy of especial mention, since it represents the most perfect specimen of the genus yet discovered and the only one known that gives positive evidence as to the arrangement of the dermal armor…The extensive collection of Stegosaurian remains in the National Museum has, with few exceptions, been obtained from two important, though widely separated, fossil deposits. These are Quarry 13, located in Albany County, Wyoming, and Quarry No. 1, in Fremont County, Colorado. The former, I may say without fear of contradiction, was the source of the greatest accumulation of Stegosaurian remains ever discovered, and from the latter has been obtained the wonderfully complete skeleton of Stegosaurus stenops (No. 4934, United States National Museum), in addition to many other valuable specimens.” (Gilmore 1914)

The picture below shows the Stegosaurus during the preparation phase This picture appears to be the bottom side of the Stegosaurus. Both sides were prepared and the initial exhibit include mirrors to enable visitors to see key parts of the underside of the Stegosaurus. Picture courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History. 

The skeleton, group, and block designations were painted on the stone, so that, aided by the rough sketch diagrams made and properly marked at the same time, the work of assembling the blocks in the laboratory was reduced to a minimum. Considering the early date of this work, which was before the development of modern field methods, the painstaking care and ingenuity displayed by Mr. Felch in collecting this difficult material with such success is most remarkable.”  (Gilmore, 1914)

The image above of Stegosaurus as it looked near the end of its preparation phase around 1912. Images of Stegosaurus in preparation are courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. This particular specimen became lovingly known at the National Museum of Natural History as the “Roadkill”.  The term has since been used for dinosaur skeletons so perfect (and so rare) that they have the appearance of being hit by a bus and falling over. 

Ranching and Farming From March through July?

About the time Marshall was finishing up shipping Stegosaurus bones from work in 1885 to Professor Marsh, he was having serious reservations about continuing to excavate dinosaurs in the spring and early summer. This was the time period when the ranch needed the most attention. When Marshall was geared up to start excavating at the beginning of 1885 Marsh had unexpectedly pulled the rug out from under him stating he suddenly had no funding until July. This caused Marshall and certainly Amanda great consternation on a number of fronts. On the other hand Marshall noticed was that he had time to get the ranch and farm in order when it needed the most attention and over the last few months he thought about this a lot. Perhaps he would have thought about this a lot less if Professor Marsh put in some effort publicly recognizing Marshall’s work or paid him enough to make this all worthwhile but neither of these avenues were going to happen.  

Marshall suggested to Professor Marsh that for 1866 he could dig dinosaurs before April and after July.  He described the dilemma to Marsh on January 24, 1886; 

“when help here is always scarce – crops need the most careful and constant attention… I have to drop my farm work, to go to work in the quarry – start out to get help for that work – also to work on the ranch.  I find all good hands, or men that are of much account either went to the mines in the spring or hired out March 1” for the full seasons work, and so am compelled to depend on some floating, transient help – for which in order to get at all I must pay the very highest price, as the labor market is in their hands Suppose, even I am fortunate enough to get a first class hand to work my ranch, he is a stranger to the peculiar lay of the ground (an item of no small importance in farming by irrigation) and work as hard and faithful as he may will be unable to accomplish little more than half that I would with far less hard labor, besides more or less of my time must to some extent be given daily in planning and directing him and where the work may be applied to the best advantage that any good results may be had.“

Marshall may have been encouraged by Amanda to stand up and to quit letting Professor Marsh take advantage of his good nature.  Marshall not only stated the case, he laid out the terms of what he needed; 

“After my experience of last year in doing business this way I cannot take the same chances again… What I wish to do with my ranch is, either to let it to some good man – or hire a good man to carry it on from the first of March when I can stand a better chance of getting good men – and in either case, I must, if I go to work in the quarry at all, begin by the first of April in order to meet expenses and not get behind.” 

Marshall pointed out that the previous year he had been in a bind because of Weld’s preemption land claim and to protect the quarry (that was in the interest of Professor Marsh) he not only didn’t receive adequate pay he ended up in his debt.  He stated that he had been protecting the claim from other collectors and Marsh had done little to recognize this effort.  He made it known that he needed to know by the 1st of March what the Professor was willing to do so he could plan accordingly.  

Professor Marsh knew clearly that this quarry was providing some outstanding results. He could also tell that Marshall had evolved into a great collector.  He had a lot going on at the Peabody and other collecting localities so he pleaded poverty on the 12th of February but agreed to give Marshall $10 more per month, additional money to pay for a man to work at the ranch for three months, and $50 for some of the improvements Marshall had paid out of his own pocket. This arrangement seemed fair to Marshall and full time work at the quarry for 1886 was underway.  

Marshall’s Masterpiece: The Stegosaurus

Plates and Ossicles

Marshall Felch wrote to Marsh on the 27th of October, 1885 stating that the bones he was finding definitely belonged to Stegosaurus.  He described; “great numbers of dermal plates…one large spine…strong curved…and also the little clusters of small bones … in reading up the papers on Stegosaurus – I could find no mention of this particular feature – and did not know but what they might have been missed, or overlooked in collecting, as they would be hard to find in anything but hard firm rock like ours”. 

Charles Gilmore analyzed where these bony scutes (ossicles) were found;  “they covered the sides of the neck from the base of the erect plates downward, scattering, if at all, on the ventral (underside) areas”  Gilmore also commented on the large dermal plates noting;  “ This feature has been the subject of considerable speculation and discussion among vertebrate paleontologists..this specimen (no. 4934) the plates of opposite sides are not arranged in pairs but those of one side alternate with the other”. (Gilmore 1914)

Ossicles discovered by Marshall  shown on plate 22 to the left (Gilmore 1914)

12,308 Pounds of Stegosaurus

Marshall and his crew proceeded judiciously excavating the Stegosaurus. He wrote to Professor Marsh on December 9, 1885; “We have 29 boxes in town, and shall have 6 or 7 more when all are packed. The work is now complete up to where all the rest ahead, appears to be in much better and firmer rock than where we have done the most of our work this season.”  

On Christmas day 1885, Marshall wrote; “I shall expect to receive orders from Maj Belcher by tomorrow or next day to ship the boxes, 35 in all, and then I will go to work writing up on their contents.”  Two days later he wrote; “The total weight of the 35 boxes is 12,308 pounds.”  

Marshall elaborated On February 11, 1886 about the Stegosaurus stating; “Skeleton No. 11 the last Stegosaurus found – lay mostly on the marl bed – under Sk. 9 and the other bones.”  Sk 9 will be repeatably be referred to over the next two years, apparently a large unidentified sauropod that may have been Haplocanthosaurus or Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus). 

Marshall responded to Marsh’s compliment on March 25, 1886; “I am glad to know that you have found the long hoped for Skull of Stegosaurus – and that it is in as good condition as it is… It is a wonder, any of this skeleton has turned out as well as it has – for in our work in ’83 when … we worked clear up, and on to this skeleton in several places – and only left off – within a foot or so of this group that had the skull.” 

Cutaway view of Stegosaurus skull on the left, plate 8 (Gilmore,1914)

Under the Nose of Ceratosaurus

Four months later on June 17, 1886 Marshall wrote; “In regard to the other fore leg – I don’t believe it is here – for I took out and sent the humerus in 1883 – as will be seen by looking on the quarry map of that year. It lay almost directly under the nose of Ceratosaurus and but a few feet from where we now are – and must have belonged with Sk. 11 as no other bones of Stegosaurus but Sk. 11 have been found in this division of the quarry.  

“An Armor Plated Vessel”

On March 25, 1886 Marsh described how the plates may have been connected to the Stegosaurus; “It was the position of this plate that gave me the idea – that the top of the plate rested on the top…Plates laid on over such a frame work – supported by those strong curved ribs would make a good design for an armor plated vessel.”

Its logical Marshall could have thought this because of Charles Gilmore’s description of the plates in 1914 as the skeleton was being prepared;  “The dermal plates, which in life stood erect along the back, are present to a point back of the pelvis and are retained in the rock in their mutual relations. The eleven plates forming the armor of the anterior part of the animal are turned back in under the body and neck, forming a continuous sheet of bone upon which the anterior parts of the skeleton lay.” Gilmore didn’t suspect this was the position of the plates when the dinosaur was alive, simply that is how they were initially found by Marshall.  The major anatomical question was were they in pairs or did they alternate. 

Plate 14 below showing plates that Marshall excavated. (Gilmore, 1914)

Marshall: “The Only Safe Way”

Marshall explained in great detail the quarry location of the Stegosaurus along with their work plan on the 18th of April, 1886:  “there is but one way to go on – the same as for the past two years – to work with the natural seams – take all along clean across the face of the quarry – good bad or indifferent, old and new as we come to it – any other method is liable to work ruin to many specimens as in the first seasons work. … I know this method is terribly slow and tedious – and half of our work has to be spent on bones that will probably be of no use whatever – but it is the only safe way.“   

About a month later on the 16th of May Marshall wrote what his assistants were doing; “they have a lot of broken bones that they are hardening and pasting to make it ‘hard as a marble slab'”.

On the 30th of July, Marshall wrote;  “We have done no extra work with chisels – none whatever – except in getting points of separation – or where it was necessary in trimming off waste rock.” 

It must have been painfully frustrating to explain their work procedures and receive what felt like unwarranted scrutiny. 

The excavation of the Stegosaurus was just getting underway at the time the map below was prepared. Marshall included the quarry map with one of early 1886 letters.  This map was constructed largely from memory as pretty much everything Marshall produced was sent off to Marsh. 

Almost thirty years later Charles Gilmore wrote; “The pelvic bones are all present, though slightly disarranged; the ilia, however, remain firmly ossified with the sacral vertebrae and show plainly the great breadth of the hips.” (Gilmore, 1914)

Professor Marsh Pays His Last Visit

In the latter part of September and early October of 1886, Marshall continued to describe bones from multiple skeletons that were mixed up together as he was excavating. Although Marshall understood much more clearly what was going on at the quarry than anyone anywhere by this time, it was probably of some assistance that Professor Marsh stopped by and paid a brief visit sometime in mid September.  It was the last time the Professor would ever visit the old quarry and the last time he and Marshall would ever meet. Marsh and Sadie Felch would meet one additional time. 

Marshall wrote on the 26th of September; “bones of another skeleton mixed up with the spines of No. 11 – and on the left side what appears to be as good a foot as Allosaurus – the bones…showing up at every break = from the largest metatarsal to the smallest bones – and at one point a claw”

On the 26th of October Marshall wrote; “we shall take in the last of this lot with Sk. 11 – 26 boxes in all – tomorrow… This makes all of Sk. 11 that we have out.”   The majority of Sk. 11 (Stegosaurus stenops) was removed by this time although some additional bones would be uncovered over the next year. 

Professor Marsh wanted a complete skeleton from tip of the skull to the tip of the tail but he was not satisfied. In all likelihood, Marshall found most if not all of the skeletal material that was there to be found.  There were enough animals ranging from crocodiles to small dinosaur predators around 152 millions ago that when the Stegosaurus died some scavenging of the tail and back legs was probable. 

Articulated cervical vertebrae of Stegosaurus stenops excavated by Marshall, fig. 16 by Gilmore below.  “The vertebral column is largely intact and to a great extent articulated—at least it is so little disturbed that the axial skeleton appears to be complete from the tip of the nose to the seventeenth caudal.”  (Gilmore, 1914) 

Digging up dinosaur skeletons in a site like this is hard work, particularly when you consider the heat, cold, wind, gnats, and lack of shade.  Marshall likely spent most of his days working at the quarry and at night he worked by lamplight putting together letters.  This kind of work is something that can be done fairly well over maybe 3 or 4 months per year but Marsh was pushing him to work not stop. The quarry was highly productive and Marsh was very demanding. The reality was that there is only so much an injured and ill Civil War veteran could do.  

Like the Stegosaurus he was excavating, Marshall had been driven to exhaustion.  

Every Hour is Precious

The excavation of the Stegosaurus was largely complete by December of 1886 but work would continue in the field as well as several letters back and forth where Marsh was having difficulty and Marshall was responding to questions.  Perhaps it would have saved a lot of back and forth letter writing if Marsh had paid for Marshall to come to New Haven and answer questions but such an offering was no longer on the table.  

On December 15, 1886 Professor Marsh wrote; “We have come to grief with Sk 11, and I write for help…. Can you help us out? If so, please do so at once.”

As soon as this letter arrived, Marshall responded on December 20, 1886 providing detailed descriptions and information but concluding: “There can be nothing done toward putting groups together without the diagrams-for in them I have tried to give all the explanations necessary-and what they do not give I can add very little too new-as they are the main history and record a I work along”

A few weeks later on January 19, 1887 Marsh wrote; we seem to need is an outline sketch of how the groups lie, and about how the beast Sk 11 runs through them… every hour is precious in making plates for the Volume.”

About the time Marshall was unable to hardly get out of bed he again responded on February 2, 1887 with another detailed description and also providing; “an outline showing as near as I can remember the position of the groups in SK.11” 

Marsh wrote again on the 10th of February; “I am very anxious to find the hind feet (or one of them), and also to get the position of the plates and spines” 

It should have been apparent by now that although the Stegosaurus was remarkably complete, a specimen considered by Gilmore to be “the most perfect specimen of the genus yet discovered” it wasn’t perfect and short of a Rhino being suffocated in a volcanic ash flow twelve million years ago such as at Ashfall State Park in Nebraska, perfect preservation in a river system was pretty much not an option.   

Marsh, being Marsh, expressed disappointment that both hind feet would be missing.  Marshall never gave up trying and once again did his best to assist Marsh. On the 27th of February, Marshall expressed dismay that both hind feet were missing and provided Marsh some boxes to check. 

Over the next few months discussion of the Stegosaurus gradually subsided and other dinosaurs including Diplodocus became the focus of the quarry story and thus, this is where our chapter comes to closure.

Above is a picture I took of the pelvic region looking back toward the tail area during one of several visits by JoAnn and I to the National Museum of Natural History over the years.  Beginning in 2014 and ending in the summer of 2019, the Dinosaur Hall underwent significant renovations.  JoAnn and I are planning a trip back east for the fall of 2019 to see what happened to the Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Stegosaurus. 

Next Chapter: The Hands Whoso Beauty Was Duty Done

After 1887 Marshall’s days as a dinosaur excavator continued for another three years but from a practical standpoint were over.

Marshall and Amanda apply for and receive pensions for their Civil War service and both go home to Vermont for a visit.

Amanda unexpectedly dies on New Year’s Eve 1893, about the time she becomes known for her service and an inspirational figure to other women.

Charles Whitney Gilmore (1874-1945), curator of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology at the United States National Museum,  Gilmore is shown with vertebrae of a Diplodocus. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 90-105, Science Service Records, Image #SIA2008-1930

Dr. Charles Gilmore working on a 32 foot long tail of a sauropod dinosaur on March 24, 1938 in the National Museum of Natural History. 

Charles was “one of the great American students of dinosaurs, a quiet and most modest man, a man of great generosity, truly beloved by his colleagues”  (Colbert, 1984). Picture courtesy of the library of congress and wiki commons.

Without a Scratch

The Cabin, a Shed, and a Shaded Work Table

Considering both the remarkable excavations in 1883 and the strong probability the bone bed would continue into the hillside, Marshall needed a building. There he could  store tools, equipment, and specimens until they could be packed and later shipped.  On the 7th of January, 1884 Marshall wrote; “We are much in need of some place at the quarry – to keep things housed in better shape than we have had – for it is difficult to take care of different bones and their fragments by laying them around in the quarry as we have had to do… So also with our papers – diagrams – maps – tools etc – two or three times in the summer we were washed out and had a good deal of work to do over again.”  Marshall continued; “If we had a small board building say 10 x 16 – with board roof and cracks battened without floor – but plenty of shelf room around the sides we could … fixing up the bones to pack …some of the work could be done in stormy weather.”  Marshall then described specifically what he wanted; “1000 ft. of common lumber would I think be sufficient … and could be put up in a few days after getting the lumber on the ground – the hardest part of the job being in packing it up the hill on our backs some 250 yards from the road.” 

Marshall mentioned in early March that he was working on the building and that they were moving the blacksmith shop currently at the ranch over to the quarry.  When it was stated there was a need to store tools, blacksmith tools were a beautiful example.  

The cabin was finished in September at which time added a shed to it. The cabin couldn’t hold it all and they needed additional space to both work and store specimens particularly in bad weather.  In early November Marshall shared that they had purchased wood for shipping boxes and the shed.  Marsh described  that they used tar paper for a roof covering on the shed instead of shingles but that the roof was so flat it would not shed rain and “maybe some tar or mineral paint was needed to make it last longer“.  During the monsoon rains that are common in late July and early August, a cloud burst; “beat our tar paper roof on our store shed to a pulp – and buried the working ground and quarry with mud and rocks from above – and completely washed our trail to the road down to bed rock”.

The buildings needed to support the excavation were in place with one exception.  They needed a long table for organizing specimens with a shade cover that was built in early 1886. As each block with dinosaur bones came out, they would first lay it out on the table in the position as it was found.  They could then do various markings on the specimens which would enable preparators back at the Peabody to do the same, extremely valuable information on how things were connected.  The quarry with all the buildings was photographed in 1888 by I.C. Russel from the USGS on July 7 or 8, 1888. This is shown below and modified to show when buildings were built.  

The Trail 

A trail was constructed to connect the quarry to the dirt road down below that connected Garden Park to the town of Canon City.  They needed it to get materials up to the quarry and packed boxes from the quarry.  Marshall and his helpers had repaired the trail more than once and explained to Marsh on October 28, 1885 that that it was necessary “to get lumber up the hill for boxes – or the boxes down”.  About a week later Marshall wrote again stating that  most of the lumber they needed to make shipping boxes was still at the foot of the trail. Marshall went on writing that once the trail was sufficiently repaired,  they could “draw up the lumber with a horse – and so divide up the time in making and packing boxes and taking out what is necessary to leave the work in good shape – and if the weather holds good … haul in the boxes to town. This part – carting – I can do alone after the rest are through.”   

The trail was much too steep for a wagon but not an issue for the time.  They most likely built a small flat sled, loaded a box on it and pulled it with a man or maybe a horse down to the road with one man holding onto it from uphill so it didn’t take off on its own. Conversely you could use the sled to help drag up lumber to the quarry. 

On July 9, 1888 Marshall wrote to Professor Marsh; “Mr. Russel has been here and gone – I spent the most of two days with him – showing everything of interest and in making measures of the different stratas in the Jurassic. He expresses himself as highly pleased and well satisfied with his visit here – and astonished at finding such a great variety of fossils – especially the mollusks – a box of which we packed up to send to the National Museum.

… He had his photographic apparatus along and took several views of the strata along the creek – and some of our quarry – which he will finish up on his return to Washington – and will send you some copies.”

Figure 40 from of right fore limb and foot of Allosaurus. (Gilmore 1920)

Marsh wanted everything generally immediately and in perfect condition but the majority of the Allosaurus skeleton was buried under what Marshall called the deepest part of the quarry.  The simple approach was to simply dig a trench into a fifteen feet layer of rock but Marshall felt it would be detrimental to approach it that way and Marsh wanted it in good condition.  Marshall suggested removing overlying rock in a much larger area just to the west and in that way there would be plenty of work room and the whole skeleton could be approached at the same time. In Marshall’s words; “to work to the best advantage – not only in removing the rock but in getting out the specimens in good condition, we should commence at A and work it with the natural seams – and take out all clean to the marl bed as we go along…and we could carry along a wider strip and if we struck on to a skeleton that was continuous – and found to be so we could make sure work of it with less trouble…and save the specimens in better shape” 

Marshall’s map from March 7, 1884 shows this work plan.  The map has been modified in red text with arrows to show Marshall’s intent.  Marsh agreed a few days later to this plan.  The full excavation of the Allosaurus would therefore be delayed for a few months but Marshall had some relatively accessible areas containing some Allosaurus bones.  These along with what Marsh felt was another carnivorous dinosaur Labrosaurus would continue to be discovered.  

A Tragic Farming Accident

Marshall and Amanda’s son and Ned and Sadies little brother Emerson, fell victim to a tragic farming accident around the 6th of July, 1884.  Marshall Felch described what happened in a letter to Professor Marsh on the 15th of July. The letter Marshall’s own handwriting along with the transcribed version are shown below.  

Canon City Colo
July 15” 1884 
Prof. Marsh
Dear Sir,

One week ago this morning, my youngest boy = almost fourteen = was taken sick, and after great suffering – died on Saturday evening. 

His trouble – was an injury causing peritonitis.

All that we could do – and with the best medical attendance to be had, it was of no avail.

He was a keen bright active boy – a general favorite with all whom he met – and his loss has completely prostrated us.

The anxiety and care during his sickness together with the terrible heat of the past ten days has so unnerved and upset me that I am almost down myself.

As soon as I get a little rest and strength I will go on with the work – and in that try and overcome as much as I can something of our great trouble.

Respectfully Yours
M. P. Felch

The drawing to the left is a Labrosaurus (Allosaurus) metatarsal (foot bone) prepared by Sadie Felch. The drawing was included in an August 20, 1884 letter to Professor Marsh from her father Marshall. Perhaps the difficult class work Sadie had been taking at the Military Academy helped prepare her to be a more effective assistant to her father and contribute something like this.  

One month later Marshall wrote;  “We have in all now ready to ship – forty one (41) boxes all well made and packed, and well hooped in good shape to handle safely.”   He goes on to describe some additional discoveries and stated that in order to complete more of the Allosaurus that “considerable stripping overhead is done – and a part of the large skeleton is removed which has overlaid No. 7 all the way along.”

Right forefoot of Allosaurus based on skeleton excavated by Marshall Felch.  Figure 45 from Gilmore (Gilmore 1920)

The Confession

On the 20th of October, 1884 Marshall wrote to Marsh. He provided both good and bad news beginning naturally with the good news. 

A few months earlier Marshall and the other workers had done some work on the far western end of the quarry but were finding only what Marshall called “smooth water worn fragments” or small fragments of bones in rock.  To Marshall it looked like a part of the river where there was fairly good water flow so any skeletal material would be fragmented and water worn. They excavated blocks containing these fragments and stacked them on the quarry floor in same order and location as they had been found in the spirit of preserving everything. The diggers figured they would come back and take a closer look when they had time. A few months later in mid October they had some time so they took a second look.  

Marshall made an unexpected discovery that he described to Marsh on the 22nd of October. He described a block that contained what he believed was; a portion of the Skull of Stegosaurus the top or frontal bone I suppose, as both eye orbits show – and the back of the skull showing the occipital condyle [base of the skull]. This appears to be all – not any part of the lower jaws or maxillaries being connected with the rest.  

Right humerus of Allosaurus excavated by Marshall Felch.  Figure 41 from Gilmore (Gilmore, 1920)

Marshall had received his fair share of harsh rebukes over the last two years from Professor Marsh but this one must have been especially painful.  What Marshall didn’t know was that Marsh had a long history of strained relationships with all those who worked with or for him. 

Below is figure 48 from Gilmore that includes the front, outer, and back views of the tibia, astragalus, and calceneum  (lower leg, ankle, heel) of Allosaurus discovered by Marshall Felch. (Gilmore 1920)

The image above originally drawn by Marshall Felch and included in his March 16, 1885 letter. It was modified here to point out key features including the 40 acre parcel Ned Weld filed on along with a placer mining claim labeled Q.  At the time Ned took the first step and filed a “preemption claim, this parcel was not owned by anyone and part of the public domain. 

Four Hundred Dollars 

Ned wanted $400 for the land claim.  Marshall went to a lawyer and they worked out an agreement to pay Ned $400 for his land claim but here came the next problem. Marshall didn’t have $400. 

It was already a tough year considering both the debacle with the apple trees, and no excavating money coming in.  Marshall simply didn’t have the money.  After some deliberation Marshall contacted Professor Marsh explaining that this would ultimately benefit Professor Marsh which isn’t a lie, its clearly the case.  Marshall would file a homestead application on land that would include the dinosaur quarry and give Marsh full access to dig dinosaur bones on it;  provided Marsh gave him some help with the $400 problem. 

Marshall requested Marsh pay $200 or half the cost of clearing off the Weld claim and Marshall would borrow the rest.  Because we do not have the Marsh letters for this time period it is not clear what the final arrangements were but later in June Marshall asks Marsh how he would like to be reimbursed for the $200 so either Marsh paid $200 and lent Marshall the other $200 or maybe he only lent Marshall half and Marshall had to borrow other money for the other half.  Regardless, once the Weld Claim was purchased, Marshall filed for the land under the Homestead Act of 1862. For all practical purposes, the land was immediately the Felch’s but officially it was not until 1891 that the official title was presented.  That title included the old quarry.  

Starting Late, but Starting

Marsh wrote in mid June that he had received funding and that the quarry could be reopened.  This was great news for Marshall but he had missed the cooler digging weather in April, May, and June so they would begin in the hottest buggiest weather, but any work was better than none.  The time off had also given Marshall somewhat of a reprieve to focus some attention on the ranch and farm during the ever busy growing season.  Fencing, planting seed, weeding, running irrigation water, and all the rest required a lot of attention in the spring and early summer. In 1883 and 84 Marshall had to hire a ranch hand to do the work he couldn’t and finding good help was a challenge. 

Charles Gilmore

In the pages that follow I have attempted to give, for the first time, a detailed description of the complete osteology of Antrodemus valens [Allosaurus fragilis]. This work is based almost entirely upon material preserved in the paleontological collections of the United States National Museum, and primarily upon specimen No. 4734, U.S.N.M., known also by the collector’s designation as “Sk. 7.” I have selected this specimen on account of the well-preserved condition of the bones and from the fact that it consists of the greater part of the skeleton of a single individual. (Gilmore, 1920)

No 4734 is the museums accession number of Marshall’s Allosaurus that he generally called sk 7. The image below left is Allosaurus skull excavated by Marshall and illustrated in Gilmore’s 1920 publication.  The full skeleton is “Marshall’s Allosaurus“ on display at the National Museum of Natural History.  

Next Chapter: Marshall’s Masterpiece

Marshall first discovered Stegosaurus in the quarry in 1884 but it would be a second discovery of Stegosaurus in late 1885 that would lead to Marshall’s masterpiece; the Stegosaurus that will go on display at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) . 

This specimen will showcase everything that Marshall had learned about excavation, removal, and documentation.

Although Professor Marsh hired Marshall to do the work it will be the paleontologist Charles Gilmore ,working for the NMNH, that will come to truly appreciate Marshall’s work.

Above drawing by Marshall Felch from his letter dated August 19, 1883

A tooth collected and mailed to Professor Marsh on June 13, 1883.  This has the artistic look of drawings by Sadie Felch. 

The Swede

The first person Marshall hired to work with him was J.L. Smith. He described on Smith in an April 28,1884 letter to Marsh as “a Swede by birth”  noting that Smith was very skilled at sharpening, making and repairing tools. These were extremely valuable skills when it came to doing quarry work, skills Smith learned as a blacksmith in the industrial city of Worcester Massachusetts.  Marshall felt that Smith was an excellent worker describing him on September 11, 1883 as; “by far the best man that I ever saw work at this work“.  He spoke of him again on February 3, 1884 stating that Smith was; “worth two of any other…skillful and trustworthy”.  Over the next two years it would be Smith who, other than himself, had the greatest understanding of the fossils in the quarry. 

On May 25,1883 Marshall wrote

“We have stripped off some 50 yds in length = from 10 to 20 feet in width and in places 10 to 12 feet in depth to get to the pay streak. The rock as we get in gets very hard in places – almost like mill-stone grit – and where the bones come in that – it is a slow and tedious job to work them out – as all the rock around has to be chipped away with small chisels a fragment at a time…If it were not that there were so many good bones – of many different kinds I would abandon the quarry for some other place.” 

Dynamite

Marshall, Fred Brown, and J.L. Smith stripped off an estimated 10 to 12 feet of barren rock above the bone bed. Marshall described the area stripped as about 150 feet in length and anywhere from 10 to 20 feet in width.  In order to strip off the rock they first needed to loosen up the hard sandstone and the “tool” of choice to do that in those days was dynamite.  With practice, they could hand drill a hole into hard rock, set the charge, and break up the rock without damaging the bone bed. The height of the face of rock by this time was 14 feet high which was almost twice the height of a typical house room. All the rock removed above the bone bed would be put into a wheel barrow and carried over to the edge of the cliff and dumped.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the time (November 30, 1884) that Marshall confessed to Marsh about using dynamite in a rather unusual way; “This record will hardly be complete if I fail to state that we have used nearly a keg of your powder in honor of Cleveland’s Election and Burchard’s speech that elected him“

Collection Techniques

These are three examples of early collection techniques to protect fragile bone utilized by John Bell Hatcher who will visit the Marsh Felch Dinosaur Quarry in later years.   These images provided courtesy of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.  

Shipping

Bones were placed into packing crate lined with hay, sawdust, or any other available soft material.  A wagon type trail had not been yet constructed to quarry so the technique would be to pack them into a box and when you had enough boxes for a wagon, put them on a sled and pull them by hand or a with a horse down to the main road. They could then be loaded into a wagon and transported the six miles over the rutted trail to town and unloaded at the Denver and Rio Grande terminal in Canon City where Marshall would negotiate shipping rates with what Marshall considered an uninterested and unhelpful employee. The bones would be loaded and shipped to New Haven Connecticut. On February 16, 1884 Marshall wrote to Professor Marsh describing how he felt about the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad;

“In regard to the over charges for freight it is no more than can be expected of the D&R.G. Ry. Co. notoriously a Corporation of Highway Robbers that fleece everyone that comes in their way”

Knowing where they lay, with Reference to others

Over time three special characteristics about the Marsh Felch Dinosaur Quarry became more and more evident; the diversity of species, the concentration and overlapping skeletons, and the articulation of the skeletons.  It was a bit unusual to find so much skeletal material joined together (articulation) and must have been both nice, yet painful, for paleontologists back in New Haven who were trying to figure it all out. In today’s world, something as simple as a picture could have very helpful but unfortunately Marshall did not have anything like a camera.  The key to telling the story fell to a large extent on the preparation of good notes, drawings, and quarry maps.  

Professor Marsh wrote to Marshall on June 21, 1883;  

“Since writing you this morning it has occurred to me that the best way to mark the
localities of the bones found would be to make a map of the quarry showing; 

1st the old workings.
2nd the extensions you make
3rd the positions of all important bones found

Then when you send a box, you can mark a line around the bones then sent, ep [express post]. In this way we can keep the thing straight. Otherwise there is great danger of confusion, and half the value of specimens consists in knowing where they lay with reference to others.

If now you name each skeleton, A, B, C etc you will help us greatly. Suppose for instance you call this piece of head sent Skeleton A and all the rest of the same animal, Skel A this will keep it all by itself. If you have already started on other distinct skeletons, you might call them B, C, etc, as you chose. The main thing is to keep each separate, and have them so labeled that we can make them out here. You might label the vertebrae etc of each skeleton Vert 1A, Vert 2 A, Bone 1 A, etc.

I will send you some red crayons to mark broken bones so that we will know how they go.”

Marshall would take this task to heart. In  turn it encouraged him to think about the whole thing more scientifically. He wrote a detailed letter on July 5, 1883 to Professor Marsh that included the quarry map to the left. 

Here is part of the system Marshall used: 

• Quarry sections were called divisions.
• Some skeletons were called “Sk No 1”, etc.
• Notations used for strings of vertebrae such as “series 1” etc.
• abbreviations such as “Sc” for Scapula & coracoids
• individual important bones might be called “bone A”
• some simple markings such as a line for a tooth were used.

Brachiosaurus  –  Skull No 2

Skull no 2 will not be the most important skull found in the Old Quarry but undoubtedly it will have the most interesting paleontology journey. 

Marshall first identified Skull No 2 on September 25, 1883 writing; “No 2 remains as first found but now that we have no doubt as to what is – we shall commence soon – and trim down as far as possible – without injuring the bone on exposed parts – and box and pack up.” The skull material that was found was boxed up for shipping on the 30th of September and a week later on the 7th of October Marshall wrote that it had been “shattered during the excavation process with the jaws badly broken” while observing that the “skull belonged to a very large animal“.  The letter arrived at Yale where the word “Brontosaurus” was added to Marshall’s October 7, 1883 letter that included a description of No 2.

Five years earlier, August of 1879, quarry no 10 at Como Bluffs Wyoming was opened up by William Harlow Reed and with the help of  Edward Ashley they exhumed one of the finest “brontosaur” skeletons ever found.  It was very complete with the exception of the skull. Not long afterward Marsh decided that a skull from a nearby quarry at Como Bluffs the missing piece,  but soon it was determined to belong to a Camarasaurus, like what the Lucas brothers had uncovered.  The otherwise amazing Brontosaurus skeleton remained headless. 

Marsh but later in the winter after Marshall’s excavation work increased in intensity over the next few months. Although the other discoveries seemed to overshadow Skull No2 in importance, Marsh began asking about it writing on December 12, 1883; “I find that the back part of both lower jaws of Skull No2 and the three bones of the skull that join on to them are missing. They probably all were torn off of the head together, and may have been scattered not far from where the skull lay. … Have you any more pieces small or large? 

Marshall continued to dialog with Professor Marsh here and there writing on the 7th of January; “The extreme cold and stormy weather of the past few days, and which still continues, prevents doing much in the quarry. I went over on Thursday however; to see what I could do towards finding some of the missing portions – belonging with skull No. 2. I removed a block of rock some 20 in. long 15 wide and 8 or 10 thick – on the top face of which was found the back part of jaw No. 2 of that skull. 

Professor Marsh responded to Marshall on April 9, 1884 writing; “We are now working on Skull No. 2. and any pieces will be very acceptable.” 

Marshall wrote back on June 5, 1884; “The cervical vertebrae mentioned in my last are Brontosaurus, as you have figured them – and from their position – Skull No 2 must have belonged with them.”.  Other Brontosaurus material was being found in the quarry so this would not be surprising.

For many years Brontosaurus was called Apatosaurus which was the first one discovered and therefore had the “naming rights”.  Although the final verdict is not in, Brontosaurus was declared a separate animal in 2015 and the name was brought back much to the delight of paleontology crew at the Yale Peabody Museum (Choi 2015)

Not A Brontosaurus Skull 

Skull Number Three

On September 18,1883 Marshall wrote in regards to a new skull that he had discovered; 

“I did not have a chance to send to mail to day and will write more of the skull. We have tried to cut down the blocks but as the exposed parts jar away easily we conclude to let it remain and ship rock and all…The whole skull with both jaws I think are all here complete. The whole length of the head from the base of the skull to the teeth in front is quite two feet – and though I cannot tell very near – think the head is not more than 7 or 8 inches wide in the widest part. The teeth are those long, slender, cylindrical ones such as I have sent twice. Species must have been abundant here for we have found very many straggling teeth of this kind.”

Can you work to advantage all winter?

In response to the extraordinary amount of material coming from the quarry, Professor Marsh began suggesting Marshall and his team continue working through the winter such as in his letter on October 15, 1883; “P.S. Can you work to advantage all winter, if you have a tent etc?“.  One day later Marsh wrote; “I wish you and Smith to keep at work all winter. Williston tells me that the weather in your part is mild.”   

Ceratosaurus Illustrations

After the death of Professor Marsh in early 1899, the bulk of the collection at Yale that had been funded by the US Geological Survey was transferred to the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). There it was initially housed within what is known today as the Castle at the Smithsonian Mall in Washington D.C. until the NMNH was built, opening to the public in 1910. In the meantime an outstanding scientist by the name of Charles Gilmore undertook the arduous  task of taking another look at the material Marshall had collected, particularly the Allosaurus (Antrodemus), Ceratosaurus, and Stegosaurus.  This new evaluation meant additional preparation on every specimen and several years of analysis.  The end result was a major scientific paper on Ceratosaurus that was published in conjunction with Allosaurus (Gilmore 1920).   Gilmore described the Ceratosaurus as; “worthy of special mention, for it comprises parts of almost the entire skeleton, and was to a considerable extent found articulated”. This publication included a number of beautiful illustrations that are being included below to help illustrate the results of the historic work underway on Ceratosaurus (aka Skull No 4) in late 1883 to early 1884. 

I’ve revealed that No. 4 is a Ceratosaurus in order to share these illustrations in a timely way but Marsh wouldn’t give it that name until the spring of 1884. 

Above is the Ceratosaurus sacrum from plate 21.  Below is the string of caudal vertebrae from plate 22. (Gilmore 1920)

The image below is a cervical vertebrae. (Gilmore 1920)

The Dump

The issue for Marsh was whether or not any significant material, particularly if it was associated with the Ceratosaurus, had gone over into the dump. 

On the 24th of February Marsh wrote; “You will of course recognize the pieces by their color and texture, and how they are almost worth their weight in gold.” A few days later he wrote; “the whole determination of the genus to which this animal [Ceratosaurus] belongs turns on the dorsal vertebrae and the ribs belonging to them.” Once again, on the 8th of March, Marsh emphasized;  better leave all other work until every fragment is secured from the dump or rock. I would rather you would get me the rest of these two skeletons even in small pieces than to get 20 tons of big bones that I already know.”  

Marshall responded and began hiring additional help to sort through many tons of material in the dump below the quarry.  It would become a time consuming job that continued into early April. Marshall wrote on March 12, 1883; “Hunting the dump is slow work as all the stripping done over the Allosaur – the rock some 100 tons at least was thrown over partly covering the dump lower down the gulch where the rock from No. 4 was dumped over.” On the 20th of March, Marshall wrote; “some foot bones have been found.”  Later in the same letter he wrote;  “Tyler … went down and got the piece with the limb”  Marshall wrote on April 2, 1884; “We have at last got through the dump – and have the material found mostly sorted.”

On April 9, 1884 Marsh wrote; “I am glad you are finding so much of value in the dump. I knew there must be very important specimens there, and we need them here very much.”

Save Everything, That is the Rule 

All of the conversation about “getting every piece” and “not forgetting about the dump” originated from a small confession that Marshall made in his December 20, 1883 letter to Marsh;  “We fixed up two sternal bones to-day with glass and glue – one of which I think is a fine specimen. … The other was found with scapula X and limb Y in the East End not shown on the map I believe. I think we have seen at least two besides these this season – one quite small – which puzzled us at the time – and we called them fragments of larger flat bones and did not save them – not knowing of anything like sternal bones till we saw them figured in the plates.” 

Professor Marsh read  intently every word of Marshall’s letters and he did not miss this confession, writing on January 4, 1884;  “I was greatly grieved to hear that you had thrown away some sternal bones. These are next to the skull in importance. Mudge and Williston knew little of collecting, or they would have told you to save everything. That is the rule in fossil vertebrates. There may be exceptions, but they are few.”

Harsh criticism from Marsh continued, becoming almost unbearable. If Marshall knew more about his personality he probably would have been able to accept these harsh critiques of his work,  but considering the lack of formal training, the difficulty of this excavation site, his personal health, and what Marshall called some of the coldest and most severe weather he had ever seen (26 degrees below zero), he was extremely frustrated.  Marshall and his crew had made mistakes but overall he was doing some remarkably good work, maybe the best work he had ever done in his entire life. By the fall of 1883 he was uncovering not just one but several highly significant skeletons. His reward was to receive little in the way of any compliments and making matters worse was he was generally getting paid late or even shorted. 

Marshall responded to these unrelenting critiques on March 7, 1883 writing;  “Had your instructions to me been as full and explicit in the beginning as in your letter of Mar. 1” many of the mishaps that have taken place would not have occurred. No one deplores the mistakes made more than myself and I have felt a good deal lately like giving up the work entirely.”

Ceratosaurus

On March 12, 1884 Marsh shared what was one of the driving forces to ensure that Marshall got every piece of this skeleton; “I shall have my figures of Sk 4 out in a few days and the article will be in the April [issue] of the Am. Journal of Science”. (Marsh, 1884)

On March 19,1883 Professor Marsh revealed the name of this new dinosaur; “Sk 4. which I shall call Ceratosaurus, (Horn lizard) is proving more and more important every hour, as we work on it. It is worth all the rest of the quarry including Allosaurus, so far as you have got.”

The drawing below of the Ceratosaurus skull by Gilmore was discovered by Marshall and crew in 1883. (Gilmore 1920)

Rejoicing in our Museum

Professor Marsh On March 19 wrote back to Marshall stating they had received box no. 1, something that Marshall had shipped on February 20, 1884. The Yale team was very pleased with a “forefoot” something Professor Marsh rivals the skull itself in importance.  He writes “that it was finally found caused rejoicing in our museum in 4 or 5 different languages.”

Two days later on March 21, Professor Marsh reiterates the importance of the specimen that had been shipped in box no. 1 stating there was one lump  “…as big as my two fists, which had in it nearly all of a fore foot … worth all the large bones in the quarry, as it enabled me to make a restoration of the foreleg.“

Professor Marsh completed his publication on Ceratosaurus and shared this with Marshall writing on the 31st of March “I will send you some pamphlets on Ceratosaurus tomorrow or next day. You will then see the results of all our work.”  

Marshall responded on the 11th of April writing; “I received the pamphlets on Ceratosaurus. We all think it is the grandest specimen yet.”  This must have been a proud moment in Marshall’s life.

The Forefoot

Not all the material had arrived that would go into Marsh’s April publication on Ceratosaurus in time.  Most notable were pieces of the forefoot which Marsh had declared was second in importance to the skull. It was these bones that delighted everyone at the museum. Upon receiving these bones, the museum staff prepared the drawing on the left below looking the same as when they arrived.  After analysis, they were drawn in a manner representing their place in the foot (below right).  

The skeletal drawing below of the Ceratosaurus skeleton discovered by Marshall and crew in 1883 is by Charles Gilmore. (Gilmore 1920)

Next Chapter: Without a Scratch

This chapter will focus on the time period in early 1884 up through the end of 1887 when the bulk of paleontology excavations would be completed.  It is a time period when remarkable skeletons of Allosaurus and Stegosaurus would be discovered along with an array of other materials.  Marshall Felch will complete what will be the best paleontology work he will ever do.  Sadly, this work comes during the time period when Marshall and Amanda’s youngest son Emerson Webster dies in a tragic farming accident.  Its both a very rewarding and painful time in their families history. 

Hold On a Second

Ostrum and McIntosh commented about Williston’s statement of “nowhere in comparison” in their book “Marsh’s Dinosaurs – The Collections at Como Bluffs”; 

“Subsequent work by M.P. Felch at Canon City (Garden Park) proved this judgment to be premature.  Felch worked Quarry 1, Garden Park for five years and others worked it subsequently.  The total yield of this quarry rivaled any single quarry at Como and included most of Marsh’s Jurassic dinosaur skulls”. 

In later years, Charles Gilmore with the National Museum of Natural History would stress the significance of the articulation of three skeletons in particular originating from the Marsh Felch quarry and how they enabled a much better understanding of  these well known dinosaurs; Allosaurus fragilus,  Ceratosaurus nasicornis, and Stegosaurus stenops. 

Canon City: The Late 1870’s 

This lithograph is from the 1882 bird’s-eye-view map of Cañon City shows that commercial development along Main Street focused on the area west of 6th Street(near the right).  The courthouse appears at the left edge of the map.  (Wellge 1882)

Marshall’s Defense

Marshall explained in his counter claim that he hit Amanda in self-defense;

“until at last plaintiff [Amanda] arose from her chair and advanced toward defendant in a threatening manner, hurling at him threatening and abusive words and epithets, when defendant being in a weak and excited condition caused by the nature of his malady and plaintiff’s conduct struck plaintiff a blow to defend himself from the attack that defendant recognizes the wrong he did by so doing and was about to ask plaintiff’s pardon and ask her to return.” (Wilson 1879)

Marshall denied that he;

“was guilty of extreme cruelty toward plaintiff but that on the contrary he at all times except upon the one occasion herein after mentioned and conducted himself toward the plaintiff as a kind loving husband and has done all in his power to make plaintiff happy”.

He disputed her assessment of the value of the ranch and stated he would be the more suitable parent to assume custody of Sarah, Ned, and Emerson. 

Marshall’s remaining remarks are an intense attack on Amanda’s character.  In particular, he accused her of having three affairs naming specific dates and people including Walter Weld in May, David Baldwin in the summer of 1878, and finaly James Murphy.  In particular he was particularly upset about Walter Weld and described Amanda as being involved in the grossest and most indecent conduct.(Wilson 1879)

David Baldwin

David Baldwin was the dinosaur digger who purchased the small crocodile fossil at the curio shop in Colorado Springs for Professor Marsh in 1877. Baldwin was in Canon City the summer of 1878 looking for alternative dinosaur dig sites of potential interest to Professor Marsh (Baldwin 1878) . Considering that both Marshall and Baldwin dug fossil bones at one time or another for Professor Marsh, they probably were acquainted. Baldwin continued to work in New Mexico after 1880 collecting for Professor Cope.  Late in life he seems to have died somewhat in obscurity.

Baldwin lived in the Canon City area during the summer of 1878. This is the time period when Marshall accused Amanda of having an affair with him.

James Murphy

The final accusation was launched again James Murphy who was the manager of the oil wells mostly just south of the ranch along the creek.  Marshall may worked for Murphy at times as an agent distributing oil in the local area. (Donald H. Kupfer, Ph.D. 2000)  Consideration of Mr. Murphy having an affair with Amanda seems as equally implausible as the other two men as the other two. 

Thoughts about Marshall 

Following his injuries at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Marshall went to Amanda at City Point for help. This moment doesn’t convey the feeling of a solider arriving from a traumatic injury but rather a friendly little story where he went to her somewhat in courtship. Field hospitals dealt with bloody injuries and death every day in the Civil War. Someone like Marshal with pain in his left side and neck would not rise to the level of needing attention beyond some hot rocks and pain medication.  At the time his injuries were hardly noticeable. 

Maybe the issues that led to Amanda filing for divorce were lingering effects of both physical and mental injuries that happened to Marshall in the Civil War and plagued him afterwards.  Let’s explore some of this and the ways he tried to deal with it seeking a possible link. 

Physical and Mental Injuries

Marshall went to Amanda after his spinal injury during the battle of Cedar Creek. His periodic episodes of debilitating pain in his left side and lost of strength and numbness in his left arm would not improve and in fact only get worse with age.  He arrived to the war with heart problems and came out of it with almost chronic diarrhea. In 1878 Amanda reported that “when he had cholera morbus [diarrhea] I felt his pulse, it would beat 3 or 5 times, then would skip 2 or 3 beats“. 

His problems weren’t just physical. In Marshall’s pension testimony Amanda stated: “He was also nervous then [In Montezuma in late 1860’s].  The boys would be drinking and (quarreling?) outside and that made him nervous, suppose his sickness helped to make him nervous.(Rodney Chipp 1890).  This implies PTSD. 

Pulling it Together

Though we don’t know the details of how Marshall and Amanda resolved the divorce filing, we do know it was dropped, and their marriage continued.

The drawing below by Loretta Bailey depicts Marshall, Amanda, Sarah, Ned, and Emerson working and playing at the ranch in various situations. This is the picture we hope for!

O.C. Marsh

By 1880 Professor O.C. Marsh was world renowned for his work in paleontology, most recently for dinosaurs. After leading the Yale Expeditions  to the West in the the early 1870’s, Professor O.C. Marsh stayed close to home in New Haven where he managed all the paleontology work going on with his collectors out west as well as at the Yale Peabody Museum. The Peabody opened in 1876 and by 1880 it was overflowing with materials including dinosaur bones arriving from Garden Park, Morrison Colorado, and Como Bluffs Wyoming.  It wasn’t like a natural history museum we think of today, it was actually more like a warehouse for all the materials that had been collected. Marsh had both collectors out west and a small army of professionals at the Peabody that was by now the worlds leading paleontology laboratory.  It was only natural that he stay at home. 

 He did periodically take the train out west to check out things. In 1879 he visited Como Bluffs and in 1880 Canon City. (Schuchert and LeVene 1940)

Professor Marsh was notoriously secretive and would have gone out of his way to avoid any fanfare so he arrived to slip in and out of town with little notice.  He figured it would only alert Professor Cope to what he was doing and he couldn’t let that happen. He may have even avoided staying in a hotel in town and boarded at the Felch Ranch to avoid publicity. 

Professor Marsh came to Canon City for two things.  First he would get to meet Marshall Felch and get a feel for his capabilities.  He probably noticed that Marshall had some physical limitations but that he seemed well educated and nicely organized.  He would have been looking more for brains than brawn so Marshall’s traits would meet his needs and in all likelihood Marshall could hire help for the heavy lifting. 

Certainly he would also go look at the old quarry where Marshall had worked with Professor Mudge and Samuel Williston three years earlier. Marsh first heard about the highly fractured nature of the bones back in the fall of 1877 from Samuel Williston, but like all good paleontologists he knew that bone near the surface tends to weather and break up. The hill had some hard rock layers in it that sloped up away from the cliff edge.  There was a strong hint of not only more skeletons, but also bones, that would be less fractured. Marsh logically would have looked over the edge of the cliff down at the dump where Samuel Williston had tossed fractured bones over the edge.  Of course he was wondering what might be in that pile that he needed, he always encouraged collecting every scrap. 

When he left he must have been confident the quarry held promise and Marshall could handle the work.  His only constraint was money. By this time in his life he had spent a sizable percentage of his inheritance so he needed additional income to go after these bones.  

The Chair

In 1926, Sarah (Felch) Zimmerman was sitting with the paleontologist Earl Douglass at the University of Utah. She recalled the time Professor Marsh visited their ranch in 1880 when she was about 12 years old.  Earl Douglass commented in his notes that Marsh was known to be cold and unaffectionate so what Sarah told him next was definitely a surprise. 

He kissed her when he first saw he which somewhat perturbed her mother…

This was not good but its what happened next that is something Sadie would never forget; 

…and when she set a chair for Prof. Marsh it landed him on the floor.  Her mother reproved her severely and she was much mortified herself.(Douglass, Earl 1926)

It appears that she pulled out a chair from the table for him and when he sat down she may have pulled it back a little more landing him on the floor.  Regardless of exactly how it happened, there are a great many people (especially those that worked for him) that would have paid a lot of money to have seen this.

The story does one more thing; it lets us know that by 1880 the family was back together. 

Not an All Male Institute

In 1979 a local historian by the name of Doc Little wrote a very interesting article entitled “Civil War times saw women in institute”  His opening paragraph stated;  “ You think that admission of young women to the nation’s military academies in the last three of four years [1975 or 76] is something new?  Wrong. Girls were part of the military school life as far back as 1881 – at least they were at the Colorado Collegiate and Military Institute”…The institute administration realized that the region was too small to support an all-male cadet corps and voted to accept girls as well. The school catalog for the school year 1881-82 listed a student body of 66 of whom 18 were girls. One was from London, another from Abergele, North Wales, and some students from Kentucky, Michigan, Kansas, and Pennsylvania… Tuition, which included meals was $300 per year for boarding cadets.  Day students paid $40 for the year.  Dress uniforms were $25 and they were patterned after female dress uniforms from West Point at the time of the Civil War.  (Little 1979)

It is possible that because of Marshall and Amanda’s role as Civil War Union Veteran’s that they may have received other beneficial treatment in sending Sadie to school. 

Being that the institute was a military academy military drills and the course work included; Greek, Latin, calculus, orthography, surveying, mining engineering, chemistry, English literature, French elocution, and literary essays.   (Little 1979)

There is no way that Marshall and Amanda could have afforded the three hundred dollar tuition per year so Sadie was a day student and that mean’t getting back and forth to school on a daily basis and the institute was about 8 miles from the ranch. Sadie will come to be known as excellent rider of horses so maybe she rode a horse to school.  In a combination of walking/trotting/ and galloping she could have made it in less than an hour.  Marshall and Amanda may also have had friends in town that could have boarded Sadie for some of the week nights, particularly when the weather turned cold.

Regardless of the exact circumstances of Sadie attending the institute, it demonstrates in a major way that Marshall and Amanda had patched things up in a significant way, at least functionally.  Anything short of that would not have enabled what would remain of their remarkable accomplishments yet to come. 

The Letter

In 1881 John Wesley Powell was appointed the second director of the just formed United States Geological Survey (USGS).  He succeeded Clarence King who guided its initial formation.  In 1882 he hired Professor Marsh to be the chief paleontologist and provided an annual budget of about $15,000 a year for Marsh to use to assist with the western scientific work. Some of the work that he had been planning involved Marshall Felch, specifically to have Marshall Felch reopen the old quarry.   Marsh could tell within a few months if it would prove productive.  

Not long after Marsh received his appointment, Marshall received a letter that would dramatically change the course of his life. 

Yale College Museum
New Have, Conn.
March 30 1882

Dear Mr. Felch,

What are you going to do this summer? Do you want to collect “fossils” in your region if there is a good chance? 

Please let me know soon,

Yours truly
O.C. Marsh

Next Chapter:  Marshall Digs Dinosaurs

In April of 1883 Marshall Felch begins a full time job excavating dinosaurs for Professor Marsh. This quickly becomes a major dinosaur quarry and over the next year, Marshall and his workers will uncover several major dinosaur skeletons and four very rare dinosaur skulls. One of these discoveries will initially be called by Marshall, an ugly character.  In early 1884 Professor Marsh will unveil this discovery to the public, a new genus and species of meat eating dinosaur with the name Ceratosaurus nasicornis. 

fill in later

1877

At the end of my sophomore year in Oberlin College my financial condition was pretty low (minus!). I borrowed $50.00 for a trip to Colorado. Before starting I consulted Prof. A.A. Wright, Prof. of Geology as to the possibility of making up some study and what sort of study in geology I could work out myself. He said, “Quite impossible without class work.” I said, “I’m going to the Rocky Mountains.” He said, “By all means take up geology.” I had previously written to my father [David Lucas] to secure for me the village school in Canon City, if he could. One member of the school board had a friend he wanted to put into that position so father failed in getting that position for me.

By the time I had arrived home schools in neighborhood had most of them engaged teachers. The school in Garden Park, 9-10 miles north of Canon City, where my sister Lucy [Ripley] and her family lived was not engaged so they employed me for the six months school – a small school.

While engaged in teaching this school I occasionally went into the hills hunting deer. One day, toward night – one Saturday – a couple of miles from my boarding place I had shot at a deer. The deer ran off. I could find neither hide nor hair of him!

Disappointed, I wended my way back over the ridge to my sister’s where I spent the holidays. Passing over the ridge of hills homeward I picked up a piece of rock, about three inches long and as wide as my hand, the shape of a cross section of a fish. Upon examining it closely I found there were fine white streaks running lengthwise. I at once decided that it must be petrified bone instead of a fish.

Looking in the vicinity I noticed a little lump of dirt, 3 or 4 inches above the level of the ground. Taking a stick, I poked the dirt away and found a petrified bone 5 or 6 inches in diameter at the smallest place and 3 feet long. Greatly surprised, as I had never seen a petrified bone, I covered it up very carefully waiting for an opportunity to take it out.

My first opportunity, I dug it out and carried it down to my boarding place. I had to make two trips as it was more than I could carry in one load.

The next Saturday, I investigated the neighborhood, looking around in the vicinity, and came upon a bed of petrified bones with numerous pieces scattered around.

From this bed I eventually took out a femur bone 6 feet long and about 10 inches in diameter in the smallest place and a shoulder blade 5 ½ feet long and 3 feet wide at the widest place and quite a number of vertebrate, joints of the back and the tail and pieces of ribs.

Image by Arthur Lakes. He who drew many similar drawings of ongoing paleontology work. O.C. Marsh (right) lunching near Robber’s Roost with his fossil collectors. Most images were of work in the Como Bluffs Wyoming dinosaur quarries, 1879.  Image courtesy Linda Hall Library, Scientist of the Day Blog, December 21, 2015. Original image stored at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven Connecticut. 

This Moment in Time

This is the moment when Marsh clearly understood the implications of what was before him. Cope was about to one up him, at least in regards to dinosaurs. Most paleontologists and historians describe this moment in time to be the single event that triggered the “dinosaur bone war” between the two scientists. The war was already well underway with other fossils but it was about to dramatically escalate. 

When Marsh found out that Cope was involved, he was all in. He let Lakes know what to do next; contact Cope and instruct him to forward all the bones that Lake’s had first sent to Cope to Marsh which Lakes did.  Cope obliged but now he had a good idea of what Marsh was receiving.  

Marsh made one more request to Lakes; do not to publish anything about the discovery. When Lakes heard this request he explained he couldn’t comply. The article describing discoveries of large bones had already been published in the Colorado Springs Gazette. 

Marsh then instructed Professor Mudge, a paid fossil excavator working in western Kansas, to immediately head to Morrison and take charge of the work. 

A $3.00 Souvenir

David Baldwin was a paid fossil excavator working for Professor Marsh, who happened to be living in Canon City in the winter of 1876-77 because it had particularly good weather in the winter, at least for this part of the world. At the time the Canon City area was not known for the types of mammal, bird, or lizard fossils that Marsh had so much interest in.  He was actually planning to dig fossils in northern New Mexico the next season but he must have taken notice of the January newspaper report describing the very large bone Charles and Marshall Felch had found(Charles Felch 1914). In early February of 1877, at the very end of a letter to Professor Marsh, he shared that there had been some local fossil discoveries;  “there are bones of large animals in the Jura near here” (Baldwin, David 1877).  In the same manner that Marsh had not responded to Arthur Lakes, Marsh didn’t pay attention to what he was reading or possibly not that interested as he did not comment on this rather important statement.  

Before Baldwin headed south, he learned of a small fossil for sale in a curio shop in Colorado Springs. He knew enough to know that Professor Marsh was intensely interested the evolution of birds and he suspected this fossil might be a bird.  The specimen had actually been collected earlier by a John Jennings of Canon City and a S.C. Robinson of Colorado Springs. Baldwin contacted Marsh letting him know about this fossil and Marsh, in turn, instructed him to purchase it which he did for $3.00. Baldwin sent the fossil by express with it arriving at the Yale Peabody Museum on May 8, 1877 where it was accessioned into their collections. A few months later Marsh described the specimen as a “very small dinosaur” which he designated Nanosaurus victor (Marsh 1877).   He later renamed it Hallopus victor but kept it in the dinosaur family while recognizing there was something distinctly different about it. (Ague, Carpenter, and Ostrom 1995)

Hallopus victor, YPM 1914, in all its “incomplete but leggy glory” by Jaime A. Headden.  Artwork is from the blog “Better Know a [Crocbeak] – Macelognathus and Hallopus” 

The image above is of an Iguanodon as they were presented in 1852 in the Crystal Palace Park display in London .  Picture by Ian Wright available in Wiki-commons. 

Someone Well Versed in Paleontology

Oramel was well educated and that obviously helped him understand his own limitations. The last line of his June 21, 1877 newspaper article read;

“I propose soon to send portions east to someone thoroughly versed in paleontologic science, that if possible, positive knowledge of species and name may be had”(Lucas, Oramel 1877c).

By Lamplight

Professor Mudge arrived the next day in Colorado Springs where he had a layover and had time to check out a local curiosity shop.  He learned that they had information about the fossil locations in Canon City and may have been the same shop that Baldwin purchased what he thought were bird fossils.

He spent the night and arrived about sunset on Saturday night the next day in Canon City. He wrote to Professor Marsh the next morning stating that when he arrived on that Saturday night he immediately;

“lost no time in looking at the bones…I only saw the bones by lamplight [is] poor at that, and the man in charge did not appear willing to visit his store today – Sunday – nor didn’t appear to have too strong an interest in the matter.” (Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877)

Based on the June 14, 1877 newspaper report, the place Mudge visited was Weston’s Curio Shop. The owner of the building was Eugene Weston and the man in charge of the business.  The majority of Oramal’s dinosaur bones must have been stored in the back. 

Could Oramel be Persuaded? 

Mudge had developed a good eye for noticing distinct features in the shapes of various bones, something vertebrate paleontologists are well skilled at.  He noticed similarities and differences between the bones he had seen before and had an excellent background to grasp what he was now seeing in Weston’s curio shop.  One obvious difference was that these bones were larger. One bone he described in the August 12th letter as “one quarter larger”  while he simultaneously described the overall skeleton to be “10 to 30 percent bigger”.  He considered the skeleton to be well represented by bones of all parts including the legs, pelvis, shoulder, etc. with the exception of the head at least from what he could see.

He also observed that some of the bones had already been sent to Professor Cope and some were being packed and ready to ship. Mudge would need to do what he could to persuade Lucas to work with Marsh knowing that like everything else in the fossil world, Marsh wanted it all. Upon receiving Mudge’s letter, Marsh fired off a telegram on August 18 to Mudge to purchase the specimen.  By then it was too late,  Cope had already responded and had an understanding and agreement with Lucas in place.  Lucas was not going to break it. 

He Missed the Boat

Mudge was aware that David Baldwin had been here in Canon City.  He expressed dismay to Marsh in his letter of August the 12th stating that Baldwin had not secured the area where the bones, including the Hallopus fossil were coming from.  He continued; “I exceedingly regret that Baldwin did not secure them for you, as he might when there were first discovered”(Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877a). This disgust was obviously conveyed by letter from Professor Marsh to David Baldwin who in turn responded on September 16, 1877 writing;

…I did not suppose that you cared anything about them as I had written to you and that there were more large bones in the Jura near Canon and received no notice whatever from you. I spent two or three weeks in looking around spotting localities hoping you would write and let me know that you wanted some from the Jura but hearing nothing from you I quit… (Baldwin, David 1877b)

The lack of response from Marsh to Arthur lakes is well noted.  Here in Canon City it becomes clear that he further failed to respond to both Oramel Lucas and David Baldwin as well. 

Oramel made that clear to Prof. Mudge that he was honest in his dealings, and regardless of what he was selling the bones for he had an agreement with Cope, and that he would abide by his contract. Mudge noticed though that Oramel described what he was selling to Cope as big bones so Mudge asked whether or not the contract included the small bones.  Oramel gave some thought to this and with some obvious encouragement from Mudge decided that it didn’t.  Oramel must have figured that all the excitement seemed to be about gigantic dinosaurs. Mudge continued in his August 15th letter to Marsh that Oramel had agreed to sell some small bones;  

“ bones which look to me like birds… He has agreed to send it to you, and we have just packed it for express.  Whatever it is he will sell it when you have decided what it is; and whether it is a bird or not.  At any rate it looks to me to be new, and valuable… This specimen is from the sandstone about ten feet above the big saurian he is now taking out and in the same geological horizon as our Morrison specimens. I shall look over the ground for more fragments.”  (Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877)

500 Pounds of Bones

Mudge fully understood that he could not likely sway Oramel Lucas to switch sides. He and Marshall looked in several locations but started working at a location that Marshall had shown him.  Mudge understood that Marsh wanted a presence in the area.  They started working at a spot not far from the ranch that was exposed along a ledge with a vertical drop-off below.  

On the 19th of August, Professor Mudge wrote to Marsh;

“In the afternoon, I found that one of my specimens will prove better than I expected.  I have already taken out six bones worthy of saving, and the spot appears to contain many more.” (Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877)

By the 31st of August Professor Mudge and Marshal sent east 500 pounds of fossil bones on the train with scarcely any rock. Mudge noted that the bones were in a crumbling condition but some sufficiently solid to have some good parts preserved. (Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877a)

Sarah

Sarah collected many specimens of agates and other things. By the time she was 17 she had a collection covering a sideboard that was about eight feet long.  She was even  offered a year’s worth of school at a ladies school for this collection and she estimated its value to be about $300. She liked to explore and was always showing people the marble cave located a few miles north of her home. (Douglass, Earl 1926)

In future years she provided sketches of bones and was a part of the work in the quarry. She would be the only family member to ever go to the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven Connecticut where Professor Marsh would give her a personal tour.  

On July 21, 1926 Sarah came to Salt Lake City both to visit her daughter and to meet with Earl Douglass at the University of Utah, the well known dinosaur excavator who had developed the great quarry at Dinosaur National Monument.  Sarah Felch and Earl Douglass already met once in 1925 and she knew he was working on a dinosaur skeleton for the University. She was there to give him the letters that Professor Marsh had written to her father Marshall thinking they might be helpful to him with this new project.  He graciously accepted them and later placed them into the University archives.  During their meeting she told him some of the stories she remembered about the dinosaur discoveries. He took notes and wrote down that she said that she was “the first to discover what would come to be known as the Marsh Dinosaur Quarry”. (Douglass, Earl 1926).  

Sarah Felch loved the outdoors and future Marsh Felch Dinosaur Quarry would have been easy for her to visit after school or on weekends.  Young students often have a good eye for fossils and she must have seen something that looked like fossil bones peaking out of the rock, something she told her father Marshall about.

There is no doubt in the mind of this author that Sarah was the first to find fossils at the Marsh Felch Dinosaur Quarry.  

A Bird in the Hand

On the 6th of September Professor Mudge wrote to Marsh;

“I wish Williston were here.  He could assist on this delicate work to great advantage and make an artistic drawing of some bones which I cannot preserve. It appears as if a months’ time would be required on this spot without going to the other place where I proposed to put in a blast.” (Mudge, Benjamin F. 1877b)

About thirty years after working in Canon City, Samuel Williston recalled; “I was sent to Cañon City to help Professor Mudge, my old teacher, and Mr. Felch, who had begun work there in the famous ‘Marsh Quarry.’” (Williston, Samuel 1915)

On Friday the 21st, Samuel Williston wrote to Professor Marsh letting him know that he had arrived three days earlier and had taken a look around at the area including the quarry Mudge and Felch were working.  Initially, he wasn’t pleased with what he was seeing;

“I am very sorry to find that Cope is getting by far the best lot of fossils…the bones are well preserved and many of them entire.  Where we are at work …the bones…are so extremely friable and broken that it seems almost useless to ship them… Prof Mudge thinks we had better work out these than use time in the risk of not finding better”.

In the same letter he’s trying to understand how to excavate the bones safely as he is seeing what appear to be something different;

“may we glue together fragments when it will save you time in hunting them out there…I think here must be a number of new species of those dinosaurs if we can only get good bones.”

The small party continued digging out the “bird in the hand,” finding the bones better as they went deeper due to less weathering.(Williston, Samuel 1877)