OUTDOOR SOUTHWEST - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

home. They found the possessions —
clothes, surgical instruments, medicines,
drawing equipment, sketches, bird and
plant collections, perhaps even a little
money—but on the return trip twelve
Ute Indians attacked and murdered
them, scattering the packs.
Ned and Dick were left penniless and
stranded. "The clothes we have on our
backs is all we have saved." But fortunately
their skills proved much in demand
in New Mexico. The army was
engaged in the herculean task of mapping
the whole province newly acquired
from Mexico. When Lieutenant James
H. Simpson, Topographical Corps, arrived
in Santa Fe with reconnaissance
orders, he could thank his guardian angel
at finding on the scene two trained
artists and topographers to help him.
He hired the Kerns immediately. Their
first task with Simpson was to map uncharted
Navajo country on a punitive
march with the army. It was a rich opportunity
to observe Indians in undisturbed
native haunts. How many men
did they know at the academy in Philadelphia
who would have given an arm
to be thus contacting Pueblos and Navajos!
Moreover, the Kerns would measure
a few more skulls for Morton; snare
some strange lizards for Leidy; and capture
for their own delight any number
of bright birds from a terra incognita.
During 1850 one topographic job led
22 / Desert Magazine / October, 1961
to another: ascertaining sites for army
posts, reconnoitering for dependable supplies
of water, wood, and forage grass.
The Kerns were hired by each successive
officer of the Topographical Corps
in New Mexico: Lieutenant James Simpson,
Lieutenant John Parke, and Lieutenant
John Pope. Finally, in the summer
of 1851 they each took surveying
jobs which ushered them out of New
Mexico on the long trail home. For
Dick it was a westward assignment with
Lieutenant Lorenzo Sitgreaves and Lieutenant
John Parke to survey the Zuni
and Colorado rivers. For Ned it was
north and east, blazing an improved
route between New Mexico and Fort
Leavenworth.
Thus, although the Fremont fourth
expedition was a bitter episode, it forced
them into experiences which broadly expanded
their knowledge of the West and
gave them an opportunity to carry the
image they were creating to a wider
audience. In James Simpson's report on
his trip from Fort Smith to Santa Fe,
two Kern lithographs appear, one a scientific
study of a fish with legs (what
strange monsters will these western lands
reveal?); the other, one of the earliest
views of Santa Fe. Simpson's account
of the Navajo expedition was studded
with both black and white and colored
Kern lithographs. There were Pueblo
Indians in ceremonial and in everyday
LAGUNA PUEBLO AS IT WAS FIRST SKETCHED BY ONE OF THE KERNS .
simple dress, in individual profile or in
group religious rites; there were reconstructions
of pueblo ruins, pottery patterns,
and rock inscriptions; and there
were views of precipitous passes in the
Tunecha Mountains and the barren deserts
around Chaco Canyon. To Lorenzo
Sitgreaves' record of the Zuni and Colorado
River expedition, Dick added
numerous sketches of Zuni weavers and
blacksmiths, views of the Colorado, and
sagebrush rolling into infinity.
Home again, the Kerns were courted
by the artistic and scientific worlds. Dick
wrote that fellow artists looked at him
"with veneration because I've seen such
places." He and Edward were in demand
as authorities on Indians, western
flora and fauna, they were sought to
discuss routes for a transcontinental railroad,
and their packs of birds and insects
and bones bolstered the collections
in the glass cases of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, while their stories
must have livened many a session in
its library and halls.
Dick's interest in the transcontinental
railroad route caused Ned facetiously to
call him the "Chief of Roads." There
was truth in the joke, and even the
United States Congress heard Dick's
opinions quoted. Captain John Gunnison
chose him as artist for the railroad
survey over the thirty-eighth parallel.