Archives West Finding Aid

History of the 1909 Galloway-Stone Expedition:

Nathaniel Galloway and Julius Stone, two men from widely varied backgrounds, became friends as a result of their involvement with Robert Brewster Stanton's Hoskaninni Mining Company in the last years of the 19th century. Galloway was a trapper and orchard-keeper from Vernal, Utah, who had in the previous decade developed a light, flat-bottomed skiff, as well as a revolutionary technique for using it, to successfully navigate the rapids of the Green and Colorado Rivers. In 1898, he was hired as a boatman and hunter by Stanton. Stone was an industrialist from Ohio who invested in the Hoskaninni Mining Company venture. When he was touring the site in Glen Canyon, he met Galloway and the two became friends.

After his experiences in Glen Canyon, Stone was intrigued with the possibility of running the Green and Colorado Rivers in small boats. To learn more about it, he sought out Major John Wesley Powell in the latter's office in Washington, D.C, and interviewed other well-known river explorers such as Frederick Dellenbaugh and Robert Brewster Stanton. By 1909 the idea had crystalized to the point that Stone hired Galloway to travel to a boatyard in Illinois to supervise the construction of four boats. The boats were of the type later called "Galloway boats," a light, flat-bottomed skiff of lapstrake construction, about fourteen feel long, weighing about 400 pounds. Upon completion at a boatyard in Chicago, they were shipped to Green River, Wyoming, by rail. The party met in Green River, Wyoming, in the late summer of 1909, and started downriver on September 12. The party consisted of Galloway, who also served as the guide for the expedition; Stone; Stone's brother-in-law, Raymond Cogswell, who was a photographer; a friend of Stone's, C.C. Sharp, (who left the party at Hite, Utah, at the start of Glen Canyon); and Seymour Dubendorff, a young man of Galloway's acquaintance from Myton, Utah. Each man rowed his own boat, except for Cogswell, who needed to take photographs. Save for Galloway, who had been navigating the Green and Yampa Rivers for the previous decade, and had successfully run the same stretch of river, from Green River Wyoming to Needles, California, in 1896-97, none of the party had any experience running rapids.

Despite this lack of skills, the party proceeded without any serious mishaps--save for a capsize in Cataract Canyon, and another in the Grand Canyon about mile 140, and a few minor scrapes and bumps--and reached Needles, California, on November 19, 1909. The expedition is generally considered by historians of the Colorado River to be the first that was undertaken purely for pleasure, similar to modern river runners. The rapid in the Grand Canyon where Dubendorff capsized was later named for him, with features in the immediate area named for other members of the party. Hence Dubenforff Rapid, Stone Creek, Galloway Canyon, and Cogswell Butte memorialize this expedition. The whole story of the trip was told by Stone in his book Canyon Country: The romance of a drop of water and a grain of sand (New York, London : G. P. Putnam's sons, 1932.) This volume includes over 300 of Cogswell's photographs. The voyage is also described in detail by David Lavender in his book River Runners of the Grand Canyon (Grand Canyon, Ariz. : Grand Canyon Natural History Association, c1985.)