summer 03 / 16:2 - Grand Canyon River Guides

The Madness of Jack SumnerOn May 24, 1902, exactly thirty-three yearsfrom the day John Wesley Powell and JackSumner launched their expedition for thegreat unknown, the Denver Rocky Mountain News,founded by Sumner’s brother-in-law William Byers,carried a bulletin:Captain Jack Sumner Victim OfMysterious Stabbing In UtahSpecial to The News. Grand Junction,Colo., May 23—Captain Jack Sumner, who leftthis city on Tuesday for Utah, was found aboutnoon Wednesday near the town of Green River inan unconscious condition. He was brought to thiscity last night and taken to St. Mary’s hospital. Dr.Hanson was called and found that Mr. Sumner wasin a serious condition from a wound in the groin.He has since been in a half dazed condition andfrom what he says at times he must have beendrugged and then stabbed. Word from the hospitalthis evening is that the captain is resting easy andthat if no complications set in he will recover.An accompanying article, headlined “Poor Old Jack,”recalled Sumner’s life, and concluded: “What motiveanyone could have had for stabbing him, except forpurposes of robbery, his friends in this city are at a lossto understand. While as brave as a lion, he was astender-hearted as a child…While he has possessed arugged constitution, he has seen much exposure andendured many hardships,…all of which will render hisrecovery slow, if not doubtful.”But there was more to this story, and it offers adeep look into Jack Sumner’s psyche. Exactly onethirdof a century after Sumner set off on the boldhopeful adventure of his youth, an ailing and defeatedSumner set off for the Green River again. Upon seeingthe Green River, he needed little imagination to seethe ghosts of himself and Powell going down it. Yetwhile Powell’s river had carried him to great fame andpower and security, Sumner’s river had led to decadesof obscurity and broken dreams and poverty. PerhapsSumner had heard that this January Powell hadsuffered a stroke, which in September would endPowell’s life. This third-of-a-century anniversary wouldseem to offer Sumner a powerful focus for assessing hisown life and passing judgment upon its value. All weknow for sure is that Jack Sumner, standing there quitealone, took out his knife, and took down his pants,and castrated himself.He did an effective job of it too, judging from thenotes Dr. Hanson made on his medical examination ofSumner four years later: “Both testicles have beenremoved by himself. Operation was very successful.Done at a time of supposed temporary insanity.” Giventhe severity of such a wound, and given Sumner’sapparent isolation, we have to wonder if this was actuallya suicide attempt. Dr. Hanson may have beenthinking so when he said the insanity was “supposed.”In an examination two years earlier, Dr. Hanson saidsimply: “He did this while in state of despondency.”Jack Sumner had good reason to be despondent abouthis life. Years of trouble had left him with little toshow for it. At the end of the Powell expedition,Sumner went through ten months of trouble just toget back to Denver. William Byers had already sentPowell a scolding letter for leaving Sumner so far fromhome without any money, and when Sumner finallygot back, Byers published a tribute to him and adenunciation of Powell:Brave by nature, inured to hardship, and fearlessin the face of all danger, he was during all thatterrible voyage its leading and ruling spirit, thecommander of the signal boat which led the waythrough canon and rapid and torrent…The expeditionwas a success, thanks to the dauntless manwho led it, as much as to him who has clothed aportion of its history in the elegant diction of thelecture room…we promise our readers at no distantday a new unwritten chapter in the history of thePowell expedition which may demonstrate that truthmay really be stranger than fiction.Powell historians, eager to defend Powell againstSumner’s complaints against him and Sumner’s claimsfor his own importance, have held that it was only latein life that Sumner became embittered against Powell.But here in the summer of 1870 the Sumner grievanceis already filed, and not by Sumner, but by a man whohad been one of Powell’s most important backers.Sumner was only one of many who made a consistentcomplaint that Powell had no loyalty to historicalfacts or to those who served him. Because Sumner’scomplaints and claims were often overwrought, hemade it easy for Powell’s defenders to dismiss him, orportray him as a crank.Byers never did publish his promised truth aboutthe Powell expedition. Perhaps Byers, an astutepromoter of Colorado who had cultivated friendshipswith major shapers of western expansion, recognizedthat Powell was emerging as a major shaper. ForSumner, the fact that even his own brother-in-law wasreluctant to challenge Powell’s self-aggrandizing legendmust have made it seem futile to hope for validationfor his own leadership role. For the next thirty years,page 42grand canyon river guides