Captain Boyton and His Rubber Suit

Adventurer and amusement park owner Paul Boyton was born on this day in 1848 in either Dublin, Ireland or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Boyton gained world-wide renown for his ocean exploits performed while wearing a floating, air-tight rubber suit, designed with the help of C.S. Merriman. In 1874, notably, he jumped overboard into heavy seas from a transatlantic ship wearing the suit, a day's sail away from Ireland, and paddled himself -- feet first, kayak style -- back to Cork. His navigation of the Mississippi River in a similar fashion made headlines in the U.S.

As a paid mercenary, he swam in the service of the Peruvian government in 1885, attaching explosives to a Chilean man-of-war in the dead of night; the grateful Peruvians awarded him the rank of "Captain." Upon his return to the U.S., he helped to organize the United States Life-Saving Service, a precursor to the Coast Guard, and briefly served as captain of the Atlantic City ocean life-savers. In 1892, he published a popular memoir of his exploits in the water, The Story of Paul Boyton.

After his arrival in New York City in 1895, he bought 16 acres behind the Elephant Hotel in Coney Island, and opened Sea Lion Park, the first outdoor amusement park in the world. The park was best known for its Shoot-the-Chutes ride, in which flat-bottomed toboggan boats slid down a steep slide into a broad lagoon. Boyton also entertained guests with his 40 trained sea lions, a la Sea World, and with demonstrations of his famous rubber suit. The park enjoyed a modest success for a few years, overshadowed by George Tilyou's gigantic Steeplechase Park.

After a dismal rainy summer season left him financially hobbled in 1902, he sold the business and lived the rest of his years quietly (and mostly on dry land), and died April 19, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York.

Novus Mundus

Amerigo Vespucci -- explorer, geographer and merchant, the first to call the Americas "the New World" and the incidental inspiration for the naming of those continents -- was born on this day in 1451 in Florence.

Vespucci has long taken the rap for being a fraud who had never sailed anywhere special and who had misappropriated the naming rights to the continent discovered by his rough acquaintance, Christopher Columbus. As is usually the case, the real story is a little more interesting than that. Born of a noble family, the classically-educated Vespucci, who grew up with a love of literature, astronomy and geography, ingratiated himself with the powerful Medici family (who were easily impressed by intellectual types) and got himself hired as a sort of purchasing agent and sales rep for their ship-outfitting business in Spain.

A welcome visitor at the court of Isabella and Ferdinand, he watched Columbus' first 2 voyages with interest, and furrowed his brow each time Columbus returned to declare that he had discovered a Western sea route to India. He decided to get to know Columbus a little better, and through his salesmanship became Columbus' key supplier for his third voyage across the ocean in 1497.

Hearing nothing with his skeptical ears that suggested that the coarse Genoan had actually found India, Vespucci decided, as a scientist, that he needed to go and see for himself, so in 1499 he outfitted his own voyage West and set sail under the Spanish flag. Arriving at the northern coast of what would eventually be called South America, he explored the Amazon and promptly fell into the same trap that had snagged Columbus, in that Vespucci initially insisted on calling the Amazon "the Ganges." However, with his superior skills as an astronomer, he did develop a method for determining longitude which became the standard for 300 years, and was able to estimate the circumference of the Earth to within 50 miles.

On his second trip in 1501 (this time on behalf of Portugal rather than Spain), Vespucci made his breakthrough: tracing the coast of the continent down to within 400 miles of Tierra del Fuego, he charted his progress and came to the realization that the land was not India at all, but an entirely "New World" previously unheard of in the courts of Western Europe. With that also came the revolutionary realization that there were 2 great oceans rather than one separating Europe from Asia to the West -- one greater than the one that Columbus had crossed and which Columbus had never even reached because of the big continents that stood between them. Vespucci reported his findings to the Medicis in 2 brief but erudite letters, the first called Novus Mundus (or "New World"), which when published shortly thereafter caused a sensation. He died on February 22, 1512 in Seville, Spain.

Meanwhile, Vespucci himself never presumed to name the new continent for himself; the name came from a map published by a German preacher named Martin Waldseemuller in 1507, who mistakenly declared Vespucci the discoverer of the continent, and upon that claim quite naturally decided it should be named for him. Columbus, for his part, never gave up believing that he had found the route to India, and though he continues to get all the credit for having discovered the New World, it was Vespucci who figured out that it was "New."

Berlanga

Tomas de Berlanga, a Dominican friar and bishop of Panama, died on this day in 1551 in Berlanga, Spain.

Berlanga made a career out of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As bishop of Panama, he was directed by Charles V to go to Peru to intercede in the conflict between the joint captains of the newly established Spanish colony in Peru, Francisco Pizzaro and Diego de Amalgro. On his way from Panama to Peru, however, his ship went off course and drifted out into the Pacific Ocean, where he accidentally discovered the Galapagos Islands -- a collection of desolate lava piles which would become important 300 years later in the works of Charles Darwin, whose writings would shake the foundations of the Church which sponsored Berlanga's mission. By the time Berlanga reached Peru, Pizzaro had already sent Amalgro to Chile, rendering fruitless any attempt by Berlanga to arbitrate their dispute. Pizzaro later had Amalgro put to death.

Speaking of fruit, a persistent legend holds that Berlanga is responsible for the cultivation of bananas in the New World, having picked them up in an unscheduled stop in the Canary Islands on his way from Spain to Santa Domingo.

If an Explorer Falls Down in the Forest . . .

Frederick A. Cook -- explorer, oil promoter and convicted fraud -- was born on this day in 1865 in Calicoon Depot, New York.

Trained as a physician, Cook served as surgeon on three expeditions to Greenland led by Robert Peary (1891, 1893, 1894) and a Belgian Arctic expedition (1897). In 1906 he led his own expedition to Mt. McKinley, and claimed to be the first to successfully ascend the peak, although the Explorers Club of New York and the American Alpine Club refused to acknowledge Cook's claim after reviewing the evidence. Next Cook claimed to be the first to reach the North Pole on April 21, 1908 and was greeted as a hero on his return, but Peary publicly questioned his claim, and a report by Copenhagen University discredited Cook's story, paving the way for Peary to claim to be the first to reach the Pole the following year.

Cook enjoyed popularity on the lecture circuit for a time, but drifted into oil well promotion, eventually starting the Petroleum Producers Association in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1922 and raising funds through the sale of stock. A year later, however, he was indicted and convicted for fraudulently disbursing stock-sale proceeds as dividends to early investors, claiming revenue from non-producing wells and misrepresenting the company's financials. He was sentenced to 14 years, 9 months in prison, but was paroled after 7 years in Leavenworth.

Cook was pardoned by President Roosevelt shortly before his death on August 5, 1940 in New Rochelle, New York. The Frederick A. Cook Society continues to advocate on behalf of Cook's claims of priority on Mt. McKinley and at the North Pole.

'Madonna of the Expedition'

When Sacagewea was about 11, a band of Minataree warriors attacked her Shoshone encampment near the Missouri River in Montana and kidnapped her. Eventually, she was "purchased" by Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trapper, who "married" her.

In 1804, at the mouth of the Knife River in North Dakota, Charbonneau was hired by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to be an interpreter of Native American languages for the duration of their expedition across North America, but they specified that he bring along Sacagewea (whom Clark nicknamed "Janey") and her newborn child Baptiste (nicknamed "Pomp" by Clark), because Sacagewea was the only person available who understood Shoshone.

While Charbonneau proved himself to be something of a boorish lout, being reprimanded at least once by Captain Clark for hitting his young wife, Sacagewea proved useful in a number of ways: she became a badge of goodwill to the tribes the expedition encountered, since a war party would not have traveled with a woman; she helped identify edible plants for the expedition; and on one occasion during a freak storm she saved a store of supplies from being swept down the Yellowstone River while Charbonneau flailed and panicked. While she was helpful to the expedition with her knowledge of western Montana, she was not Lewis and Clark's principal guide, as schoolchildren are often misled; this claim was fabricated by Eva Emera Dye in her historical novel The Conquest (1902), who called Sacagewea the "Madonna of the Expedition," and has endured as a pleasant fiction ever since.

In November 1805, the expedition reached the Pacific Ocean. Sacagewea, Pomp and Charbonneau left the expedition upon its return to North Dakota in August 1806. Captain Clark noted in his diary that Charbonneau was a "man of no peculiar merit" but that his wife "was particularly useful," offering that "she has borne with a patience truly admirable the fatigues of so long a route encumbered with the charge of an infant." Clark paid Charbonneau $500.33, but paid no wages to Sacagewea.

Most scholars claim that Sacagewea died of "putrid fever" on December 22, 1812 at the age of 25, based on a subsequent entry in Captain Clark's journal and the fact that Clark appears to have adopted Pomp and Sacagewea's younger daughter Lisette shortly thereafter. Another, less accepted view is that the diary entry may have referred to Charbonneau's other Indian wife, Otter Woman. This view holds that Sacagewea survived into her 90s, leaving Charbonneau after he gave her a particularly cruel beating, marrying again and wandering throughout the West from reservation to reservation, staying for a time with the Ute wife of frontiersman Jim Bridger. Whoever that second woman was, she died on this date in 1884 at Fort Washakie, Wyoming at the age of about 96.

South Pole Widow

Lady Kennet, sculptor and widow of polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott was born Kathleen Bruce on this day in 1878 in Carlton-in-Lindrick, Nottinghamshire, England.

Perhaps no English woman of her time found herself as much in the way of fascinating circumstances in which to live as Kathleen Bruce, and few lived with as much gusto. Convent-educated after the death of her parents by the time she was 8, Kathleen went to Paris to study art when she was 23. She first immersed herself in painting, inspired by the work of Augustus John, but later took up sculpture, ultimately earning the right to be addressed by the great Rodin as "colleague."

She took a detour in 1903, joining a Macedonian relief expedition until illness forced her back to England, where she met and fell in love with the dashing explorer Con Scott. The attraction was instantly mutual, as Scott fell prey to the fiery young woman's "rare smile" and vivid blue eyes. In the months before and after their marriage in September 1908, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Con's decision to conquer the South Pole, and after the birth of their son Peter (named after Peter Pan, the creation of Peter's godfather James Barrie), Kathleen and Con Scott sailed to Australia, where she met (but did not get along well with) the timid wives of Con's expedition mates. "If Con ever has another expedition," Kathleen wrote, "the wives must be chosen more carefully than the men -- better still, have none."

She was waiting for Con's return in New Zealand in April 1913 when word came that Con and his men had perished. Although deeply anguished, she refused to be conquered by her grief, but bore her loss, as she wrote, with gratitude for the time she had with Con Scott. Soon thereafter, she returned to sculpting by forging her masterpiece, a memorial to her husband at Waterloo Place in London.

During World War I she helped to establish an ambulance service and worked as a factory hand in an armament factory. In 1922, she married Lt. Commander Edward Young (later Baron Kennet), and spent much of the rest of her life sculpting famous men (including Asquith, Lloyd George and Yeats), working charity and relief efforts, and completing her memoirs. She died on July 25, 1947 in London.

"No happier woman ever lived." -- Lady Kennet.

Kapurats

John Wesley Powell -- geologist, ethnologist and explorer -- was born on this day in 1834 in Mount Morris, New York.

With little formal education and a lot of spare-time exploring, young John Wesley Powell developed an interest in natural history and archaeology, collecting Indian artifacts, rocks and fossils around his home in Illinois. Prior to the Civil War, he farmed and occasionally taught school; but with the War's onset, at age 27 he joined the 20th Illinois Volunteer Infantry for the North as a private, and within a year he was captain of an artillery unit. At Shiloh, under U.S. Grant, he lost his right arm below his elbow to a musket ball, but returned to fight at the siege of Vicksburg and the battle of Nashville, receiving his discharge in 1865 with the rank of major.

On the basis of his reputation as an amateur naturalist, after the War Powell became a lecturer in natural history at Illinois Wesleyan College and Illinois Normal University -- but he still had an eye for adventure. With some of his students, he began staging reconnaissance expeditions in the Colorado Rockies, and in the winter of 1868, he explored the upper tributaries of the Colorado River, studying the culture of the Utes and seeking grants from his universities, the Smithsonian and the U.S. Army for a full-fledged journey down the Colorado.

On May 24, 1869, the intrepid one-armed Powell and his crew of 9 other men embarked on what would become one of the last epic explorations of the continental U.S., a treacherous boat trip down the Colorado, through the monolithic gorges of the Southwest that had scared off prior expeditions. By the time he emerged from the Grand Canyon (so named by Powell himself) on August 29, 1869, Powell had succeeded in laying the groundwork for a good map of the Colorado, at the cost of 3 men who were killed along the way; developed an influential theory of how the Colorado preserved its level; established relations with the Utes and Shivwits of northern Arizona and southern Utah (who recalled Powell as "Kapurats," or "right-arm-off"); and was hailed as a hero in the East.

Congress responded by funding Powell to map and study large areas of the West. In 1872, Powell was appointed special commissioner of Indian Affairs, but in addition to providing advice to the government as one of the nation's foremost experts on Native American culture in the West, he began to concern himself with the natural limits of the American settlement of the West.

In his prophetic Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States (1878), he observed that the region to the west of the 100th meridian (roughly running through present-day Erick, Oklahoma, among other places) lacked the abundant water that had supported the growing populations in the East and Midwest. Therefore, he argued, for the West to grow within the bounds of its resources, the U.S. government would be required to carefully control homesteading, limiting it to self-reliant (not federally subsidized) communal authorities gathered around water and natural watershed areas where irrigation ditches might easily transport water to crops. Powell argued that this kind of control was required to encourage conservation, minimize conflicts over water rights, and reduce inefficiencies inherent in transporting water over long distances.

Powell's Report fell on deaf ears, however: while newspapers and speculators, aided by crackpot scientists, promised that water would somehow appear wherever civilization chose to install itself, politicians in Washington bristled at the notion of imposing so much control over the settlement of the West, arguing that it would interfere with free enterprise.

Between 1880 and 1930, the population of the Western states would increase by almost 10 times without a federal water conservation policy; within the same period, a city like Los Angeles would swell from a sleepy pueblo to a metropolis of 2 million people on the back of William Mulholland's nefarious Owens Valley aqueduct scheme, supplemented every decade or so by greedy grabs of additional water sources further and further Eastward and by billions of dollars of federal dams and reservoir projects; and by 2000, a city like Las Vegas, which would not have even existed under Powell's plans, would become the fastest growing city in the country -- with the highest per capita (and most conspicuous) water use in the West, an overdrawn aquifer, and fewer and fewer options other than to drill for water on federally-protected lands. So much for conservation and self-reliance.

With Powell's visionary plans doused, however, he was consigned to the federal bureaucracy; but as head of both the Bureau of Ethnology (from 1879) and the U.S. Geological Survey (from 1881), he turned his agencies into model government science organizations, fostering the publication of numerous classics of Native American anthropology, as well as topographical maps and land studies. His continual attempts to get in the way of unfettered development in the West ultimately got him fired in 1894, and he retired, somewhat bitterly, to write epistemological works that have been described by one writer as "abstruse." He died on September 23, 1902 in Haven, Maine.