Walter Mason Camp collections

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

December 12, 2022 by Ryan K. Lee - Special Collections Blog

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new landing page for the Walter Mason Camp collections (MSS 57 and MSS P 16). This new landing page will provide increased access to researchers of these important collections with links to the finding aids and digital collections to both the Walter Mason Camp papers (MSS 57) and the Walter Mason Camp photographs (MSS P 16). Previously only a selection of Camp photographs had been available online digitially. Now, all original photographs in the collection have been digitized and are available online. Some of the photographs include disturbing images, and warnings have been provided to researchers as needed.

Also available on the landing are links to the finding aids of two other signficant Camp collections at the Lilly Library at Indiana University-Bloomington and Denver Public Library. The Lilly Library has also digitized their collection.

L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU is one of three primary repositories of the papers and photographs of author, editor and researcher Walter Mason Camp. Camp is most known for his interviews of hundreds of Native Americans and white soldiers involved in the American Indian Wars of the late 19th century. Along with BYU Special Collections, papers related to Camp and his research are housed in the Lilly Library on the campus of Indiana University-Bloomington and the Denver Public Library.

The Walter Mason Camp papers (MSS 57) at BYU consist of 9 boxes (4 linear ft.) of materials pertaining to Camp’s research on the Indian Wars of the Plains (1864-1890), with an emphasis on the Battle of Little Bighorn of 1876. The collection Includes his personal correspondence with officers, enlisted men, and Indian Scouts of the U.S. 7th Calvary. It also contains Walter Camp’s interviews with Native American individuals associated with the battles, general research and field notes. The collection is arranged into seven series or groupings: 1) Biographical information; 2) Correspondence; 3) Interviews; 4) Notes; 5) Typescripts of selected interview; 6) Writings; and 7) Research and reference file. These papers were compiled by Camp with the end purpose of being drafted into a book on the topic. Materials are largely textual comprising correspondence, notes, clippings, typescripts, publications, blueprints, maps, and related printed material. The collection materials date from approximately 1870 to 1943.

BYU also houses a large photograph collection related to Walter Mason Camp and his research (MSS P 16). These photographs were acquired at the same time as the Walter Mason Camp papers. The collection contains over 200 photographs of battlefields and Native American groups and portraits of noted individuals who were prominent in the Indian Wars including George A. Custer and other U.S. Army and Native American participants. Original prints (albumen, cartes-de-visite, cabinets, etc.) copy prints, postcards, halftones, engravings and selected copy negatives prepared by the repository staff. The bulk of the collection was compiled by Walter Mason Camp and pertains almost exclusively to the Indian Wars of North America from 1865 to 1890.

Camp on Weir???

Correspondance

archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/ltpsc/archival_objects/0b44ba2a5737cdd9dc445f4f75ec69ab

[johnson1941]

Some of my fave's - great shot of those guys on the Hill at Custer Lookout, and of Camp/Godfrey on Martin's / SS Ridge, with Weir Hill behind it.

Also a nice link to Kanipe's letter, with an introduction of Thompson; and plenty of interesting letters beyond...lots of nice little details in there!

Thanks!

Attachments:

[Yan Taylor]

Amazing, what would Camp and Godrey give for a metal detector

Ian

[johnson1941]

Yep!


Very nice thing WMC got to investigate 1st hand - to be shown by men that were there the very locations he read about and was told about by guys like Godfrey, Varnum, Martin, Ryan, Edgerly, Hare, Curley etc. etc...
It would have been a hell of a book


Varnum
"We started on the 28th to go down and bury the dead and in going down I was on a trail which I supposed was General Custer’s, and when we got to a high hill that had a pile of stones and Indian medicine bags and other things on it, I went there to see what they were and rode off the trail"

Godfrey
"When we got to the ridge in front of Reno's position I observed some Indians making all haste to get possession of a hill to the right. I could not see the rest of the command, and I knew that that hill would command Reno's position...”

Ryan
"...The company on the right of my company had a number of men killed in a few minutes. There was a high ridge on the right and an opening on the right of our lines, and one Indian in particular I must give credit for being a good shot."

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

seq-5.pdf (855.9 KB)


June 21, 1919; Lewistown - Sallie Anderson of McGinnis-Gilt Edge country, was brot in yesterday on a charge of dynamiting the dam on the Burnett ranch. Little Bighorn valley from the bench at thr Garryowen loop on upriver to the big bend was extensively covered with irrigation ditches , the Reno Canal and the headgate for it which has recently been renewed.

Reno Canal headgate - The irrigation project was undertaken and begun by Walter A. Graves, of all people. You might have come across his name at bottom left of R.B. Marshall's iconic Nat Geo map published 1907/8 after his visit in 1891 to plot the markers. The railway went along the valley in 1895, followe by irrigation work ever since and a number of major road building projects.

One problem encountered in surveying LBH vally was, strange behaviour of electromagnetic fields. I'm quite serious. Oh yes. They flutuate and are noted to do it.

[johnson1941]

Another good find - from the Herendeen RIP article:

"Two years ago Mr. Herendeen was
the guest of honor of M. L. Wilson, dean of the state agricultural college
and Mr. Camp, a historical writer from NewYork. They took him over the places
where he had made history in the early days and he was able to give them much
new information that had never been known authentically. He went over the
Custer battlefield with them and marked out a number of places of interest that had never been marked before and other-wise would have been lost historically, He attended the Pioneers' convention at that time and met a great number of other men who had helped to make history at the same time."


contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/p15999coll31/id/51174/rec/7

contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/p15999coll31/id/40000/rec/13

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

Nice find. There is a lot of interesting correspondance, for example with Hugh L. Scott and the pair dancing around each other in visits. If I remember, Camp was intending to visit when Scott did the 1919 interviews on the ground and boy, oh boy, that would have resolved the dilemma's of interpretting what the four of them were saying. Scott had been God, as far as the tribes were concerned link. Step on his toe, or spit, and.......... find yourself surrounded by 309th, 310th, 311th and 312th infantry regiments, supported by the 307th, 308th and 309th artillery Regiments.

But White Man Runs Him said......... 'Bwark!" Yes. didn't he...........

In 1917, Godfrey was involved in laying out the Custer Trail......... Herendeen was refused accompanying that jaunt.

Aaaah.... old age setting in. The point, Camp was with Godfrey in 1916 and 1917, I believe, when that trail was investigated. Trail goes here. Marker is here. sssssh.................. slap!

But general........... Shut up!