Herbert Eugene Bolton_Historian of the American Borderlands

by Albert L. Hurtado

  25 HEB to Paxson, 3/23/1932, BP Out. Bolton wrote Paxson three letters on the same day. The third is an undated draft but seems to follow the gist of the other letters.

  26 HEB, “Our New Historians,” 1932, BP Out.

  27 Turner quoted in Billington, Turner, 415.

  28 Ibid., 403 – 416; Bogue, Turner, 439.

  29 Ford to Farrand, 5/8/1933, TU:50A.

  30 His last letter to McMaster is 5/15/1927, BP Out, congratulating him for a new book.

  31 McMaster quoted in Goldman, John Bach McMaster, 158.

  32 Jacobs, “‘Turner As I Remember Him,’” 54 – 61.

  33 HEB to Rudolph L. Dalagher, 3/28/1932, BP Out; Jacobs, “‘Turner As I Remember Him,’” 60.

  34 HEB to Farrand, 11/21/1932, BP Out.

  35 The Significance of Sections in American History.

  36 HEB to Parish, 9/19/1931, BP Out.

  37 Parish, “Comment and Historical News,” 136.

  38 HEB to Joseph Ellison, 1/24/1931, BP Out.

  39 Boston: Little Brown, 1931.

  40 Bannon, Bolton, 182 – 183.

  41 HEB, “Our New Historians,” 1932, BP Out.

  42 HEB to Ford, 4/10/1931, BP Out.

  43 Bolton, “Epic of Greater America,” in Bannon, Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands, 302; first published in American Historical Review 38 (April 1933), 448 – 474.

  44 This and following quotations are from Bolton, “Epic of Greater America,” 324, 325, 328 – 329, 330, 331, 332, 332n8.

  45 Bannon, Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands, 299 – 301

  46 Hanke, Do the Americas Have a Common History? 185 – 189; Magnaghi, Bolton and the Historiography of the Americas, 83 – 131, summarizes the critics.

  47 Binkley quoted in Hackett to Lockwood, 11/25/1931, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  48 HEB quoted in ibid.

  49 Chapman to Lockwood, 2/29/1932, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  50 HEB, Teggart, et al., to Chairman of the Institute for Social Sciences, 10/18/1932, BP Out.

  51 Chapman to Lockwood, 2/29/1932, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  52 Argus Press Clipping Director to HEB, 1/5/1933, BP In, “A.”

  53 Hackett to Lockwood, 12/19/1932, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  54 Lockwood to Hackett, 1/4/1933, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  55 Lockwood to Hackett, 10/4/1932, 1/13/1932, MSS C-D 5064, Bancroft Library.

  56 Lockwood, “Adventurous Scholarship,” 185 – 194.

  57 HEB to Thomas C. Vint, 12/19/1933, BP Out.

  58 For examples, see Irving F. Morrow to HEB, 12/12/1933, BP In, U.S. National Park Service; HEB to Conrad L. Wirth, 6/16/1934, BP Out.

  59 For a typical letter recommending several students for National Park Service jobs, see HEB to Conrad L. Wirth, 4/17/1935, BP Out.

  60 A guide to Brooks's papers may be found at www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/brooksp.htm.

  61 See Information Science Pioneers, s.v. “Vernon Dale Tate,” accessed June 14, 2011, www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/isp/tatevd.htm.

  62 Neasham's biography may be found in “Guide to the Aubrey Neasham Collection,” Sacramento Archives and Collection Center, Online Archive of California, http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ktih4nc623&doc.view=entire_text&brand=oac.

  63 See The Handbook of Texas Online, s.v., “Dunn, William Edward,” accessed June 14, 2011, www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online.

  64 HEB to Philip C. Brooks, 5/25/1934, BP Out, gives some idea of Bolton's assiduous search for employment for his students.

  65 HEB to Dunn, 2/10/1932, BP Out.

  66 Gale Randall (HEB's granddaughter), interview with the author, 8/11/2010 (notes in author's possession).

  67 Bannon, Bolton, 154 – 155.

  68 Edward J. Lynch to HEB, 5/24/1933, 6/26/1934, 8/5/1937, 9/13/1938; John T. Regan to HEB, 6/10/1940, all in BP In, Native Sons of the Golden West.

  69 Becker, Modern History.

  70 Becker to HEB, 12/1/1935, BP In.

  71 Bolton to Mrs. Henry Gratton Doyle, 12/6/1935; HEB to Becker, 12/6/1935, BP Out.

  CHAPTER 12

  1 Arredondo's Historical Proof; Bolton and Ross, The Debatable Land.

  2 HEB to Ross, 7/22/1920, BP Out; Ross, “The Anglo-Spanish Conflict in the Caribbean Area.”

  3 HEB to Ross, 7/22/1920, BP Out.

  4 HEB to Ehrman, 6/26/1925, BP Out.

  5 Arredondo's Proof, facing p. xviii, facing p. 80.

  6 “French Intrusions and Indian Uprisings”; “The French on the Savannah”; “The Spanish Settlement of Santa Elena”; “The Restoration of the Spanish Missions in Georgia”; “With Pardo and Boyano on the Fringes of the Georgia Land.”

  7 New York Times, 6/3/1934, quoted in Floyd, “Certain Tabby Ruins,” 182.

  8 Floyd, “Certain Tabby Ruins”; Thomas, “Saints and Soldiers”; Weber, The Spanish Frontier, 349 – 350.

  9 Floyd, “Certain Tabby Ruins,” 4.

  10 Bolton, “On Wisdom's Trail,” 19 – 29.

  11 HEB to Conrad L. Wirth, 6/16/1934, BP Out. See also Dudley C. Bayliss to HEB, 11/26/1934, BP In, U.S. National Park Service.

  12 HEB to James A. Hall, 6/18/1934; HEB to Conrad L. Wirth, 6/16/1934, BP Out.

  13 Floyd, “Certain Tabby Ruins,” 26 – 27, 37 – 40, 58 – 60, 174 – 177, 180 – 181.

  14 Dudley C. Bayliss to HEB, 5/1/1935, BP In, U.S. National Park Service; Edmund Abrahams to HEB, 11/17/1939, BP In, U.S. National Park Service.

  15 Pomeroy to author, 8/22/1990 (letter in author's possession).

  16 The essential story of the plate is in Hanna, Lost Harbor, 242 – 262. See also Hurtado, “More Shadows on the Brass.” On the Clampers’ involvement in the fabrication of the plate, see Von der Porten, Spitze, et al., “Who Made Drake's Plate of Brass?”; and Chandler, ECV. I have also benefited from an unpublished manuscript: Edward Von der Porten and James Spitze, with Raymond Aker and Robert W. Allen, “The Mystery of the Plate of Brass: California's Greatest Hoax and the Search for Its Perpetrators,” which the authors generously shared with me.

  17 Chandler, ECV, 3 – 5.

  18 E Clampus Vitus, Credo Quia Absurdum, 9.

  19 “The Knave,” Oakland Tribune, quoted in Chandler, ECV, 15.

  20 Camp and Mood, “George Ezra Dane,” 91 – 93.

  21 As will be seen, some interested parties claimed that the plate was discovered in 1933.

  22 Von der Porten, Spitze, et al., “Who Made Drake's Plate of Brass.?” 122; E Clampus Vitus, Ye Preposterous Booke of Brasse, 2.

  23 Josephine Hyde to HEB, 8/6/1921, BP In, Drake Association.

  24 E Clampus Vitus, Ye Preposterous Booke of Brasse, 55.

  25 Shinn quoted in Hanna, Lost Harbor, 243.

  26 Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass,” 1.

  27 Ibid., 1-16; Watson, “Drake and California,” 19 – 24.

  28 Undated note; Bill of Sale, 3/3/1937, both BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  29 Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass,” 2.

  30 Chickering to Templeton Crocker, 2/23/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  31 The next day, Chickering, the careful lawyer, typed his recollection of the day, A. L. C., “Memorandum,” 3/1/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  32 A. L. C., 3/3/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  33 Ibid.

  34 Thirteen of the nineteen donors had graduated from the university. Chickering to Sproul, 4/12/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  35 HEB to Sproul, 3/5/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  36 Announcement, California Historical Society Luncheon, 4/6/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  37 “Drake's Plate of Brass,” typescript [April 1937], BP In, Drake Correspondence. The published version is Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass,” also issued separately as “Drake's Plate of Brass,” in Drake's Plate of Brass.

  38 “Drake's Plate of Brass,” typescript [April 1937], BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  39 Caldeira's statement
, taken by Chickering, is in “Personalia and Marginalia,” California Historical Society Quarterly 16 (June 1937): 192.

  40 Edwards “Ned” Metcalf, in conversation with author, 4/15/1993, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

  41 “Interview with William Caldeira,” 4/9/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence; “Drake Plate Theory upset by Oaklander,” Oakland Tribune, 4/16/1937, 1, 2.

  42 Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass.”

  43 Chickering to Sproul, 5/6/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  44 “The Cross of Saint Thomas and the Plate of Brass, or Parson Fletcher Vindicated,” BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  45 Quoted from photograph in Von der Porten, Spitze, et al, “Who Made Drake's Plate of Brass.?” 125. The authors do not believe that the maker of this plate forged the first one. However, he may have used the same tools and brass stock.

  46 ECV, Ye Preposterous Booke of Brasse, 9 – 10.

  47 Haselden, “Is the Drake Plate of Brass Genuine?” 271 – 274.

  48 Sproul to HEB, 5/3/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  49 HEB to Sproul, 5/6/1937; Sproul to HEB, 10/29/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  50 This bit of lore is from Peter Blodgett, H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator, Western American Manuscripts, Huntington Library.

  51 Haselden, Scientific Aids, 4, 61 – 67.

  52 There are hundreds of Drake plate letters in HEH, IA 32.5.11.7.

  53 Vincent Harlow to Haselden, 7/22/1937; Robin Flower to Haselden, 9/1/1937, HEH, IA 32.5.11.7. Flower, a British Museum expert, had already responded to an inquiry from Chickering. Flower included a copy of his letter to Chickering in his letter to Haselden.

  54 HEB to Haselden, 7/28/1937, HEH-IA.

  55 Haselden, “Is the Drake Plate of Brass Genuine?” 274.

  56 Chickering, “Some Notes with Regard to Drake's Plate of Brass,” 280.

  57 Bocqueraz, “Finding of the Drake Plate.”

  58 Haselden to Caley, 9/16/1937, HEH-IA.

  59 Haselden to Sproul, 9/30/1937, HEH-IA.

  60 HEB, “Comments on Captain Haselden's Letter of October 16, 1937,” BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  61 Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass,” 11.

  62 Chickering to Ralph L. Phelps, 4/30/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  63 Sproul to HEB, 10/29/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  64 Ibid.

  65 Fink to Hildebrand [November 1937?], BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  66 Allen L. Chickering to Hildebrand, 12/3/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  67 Haselden to Caley, 9/25/1937, HEH-IA.

  68 Fink to HEB, 3/21/1938; HEB to Fink, 3/26/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  69 HEB to Chickering, 3/26/1938; Chickering to HEB, 3/16/1938, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  70 Chickering to HEB, 5/18/1939, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  71 This and following quotations are from Fink and Polushkin, Drake's Plate of Brass Authenticated, 11, 14, 18, 25.

  72 Haselden to Sproul, 12/8/1938; Sproul to Haselden, 12/21/1938, HEH-IA.

  73 Haselden to Douglas S. Watson, 12/10/1938, HEH-IA.

  74 Caley to Haselden, 12/30/1938, HEH-IA.

  75 Bolton, “Francis Drake's Plate of Brass,” 7.

  76 Eli R. Deming to HEB, 4/17/1937, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  77 William A. Hamilton to HEB, 2/7/1939, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  78 “Signed ‘Francis Drake,’” BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  79 HEB to R. G. Ellis, 6/8/1938, BP In, Drake Correspondence.

  CHAPTER 13

  1 Hicks et al., “Final Report of the Committee of Ten.”

  2 Edgar E. Robinson to Dexter Perkins, 12/16/1938, AHA-LC, Box 86, Secretary file, 1935 – 39.

  3 “Financial Aid Given by the American Historical Association to the Pacific Coast Branch,” Garver, “History,” PCB-LMU.

  4 Quoted in ibid. For membership figures, see “Pacific Coast Branch Report,” AHA-LC, Box 102, Secretary file, PCB.

  5 Thomson to Read, 3/12/1938, AHA-LC, Box 110, Secretary file, PCB.

  6 Thompson to Read, 3/21/1938, AHA-LC, Box 86, Secretary file, 1935 – 39.

  7 “Status of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association,” AHA-LC, Box 110, Secretary file, PCB.

  8 Hicks et al., “Final Report of the Committee of Ten.”

  9 The students were Charles Hackett, Irving B. Leonard, J. Fred Rippy, and Arthur Scott Aiton. HEB to Hull, 9/19/1935, BP Out.

  10 Johnson to “Dear Mother” [fall 1935], copy in author's possession.

  11 HEB to Sproul, 9/19/1935; HEB to Hull, 10/14/1945, BP Out.

  12 HEB to Hull, 9/14/1937, BP Out.

  13 HEB to Leonard, 11/1/1938; HEB to Sproul, 11/28/1938, BP Out.

  14 HEB to Sproul, 11/26/1938, BP Out.

  15 HEB to [Gertrude Janes Bolton?], 12/5/1938, BP Out.

  16 Ibid.

  17 HEB to Cherrington, 3/14/1939, BP Out.

  18 HEB to Leonard, 3/14/1939, BP Out; Dunn to HEB, 4/27/1939, BP In.

  19 HEB to Leonard, 3/14/1939, BP Out.

  20 HEB to Caughey, 4/7/1939, BP Out.

  21 HEB to Cherrington, 4/22/1939; HEB to Willard E. Givens, 8/11/1939, BP Out.

  22 HEB to Mood, 9/18/1939, BP Out.

  23 DeConde, A History of American Foreign Policy, 538 – 543.

  24 HEB to Amelio L. Guerra, 8/10/1939, BP Out.

  25 HEB to George F. Gerling, 11/28/1939, BP Out.

  26 “Bolton Boss Debunker,” newspaper clipping, BP Out, Box 152.

  27 Bolton, Pageant in the Wilderness.

  28 Nussbaum to Preston T. Hutchins, 12/13/1939, BP In, Nussbaum.

  29 Nussbaum to Hutchins, 12/13/1939, BP In, Nussbaum.

  30 Paxson to HEB, 5/2/1939, BP In.

  31 “Annual Salaries, 1931 – 1940,” December 1939, BP Out. Bolton penciled in Kerner's new salary and wrote “2 additional” at the foot of the page.

  32 Sproul to HEB, 10/12/1938, BP In, California, University, President.

  33 Lerner, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz.”

  34 Schevill quoted in HEB to Sproul, 6/27/1939, BP Out.

  35 Lerner, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz.”

  36 HEB to Kantorowicz, 7/24/1939, BP Out.

  37 HEB to Miss Schieber, 5/8/1920, BP Out.

  38 “Reply form,” 1920, BP Out (emphasis in original).

  39 HEB to Sproul, 4/15/1940, BP Out.

  40 Kinnaird, “American Penetration of Spanish Louisiana.”

  41 HEB to Monroe Deutsch, 8/14/1939, BP Out.

  42 HEB to Sproul, 1/9/1940, BP Out. Bolton's recommendation took the form of eight letters to Sproul, all dated 1/9/1940. For convenience I cite them here and below as one communication.

  43 Ibid.

  44 HEB to Sproul, 4/25/1940, BP Out.

  45 Ibid.

  46 Ibid.

  47 Brucker, May, and Hollinger, History at Berkeley, 52; Puryear, Bingham, and Maslenikov, “Robert Joseph Kerner”; Riasanovsky, Feldman, Roseberg, and Segal, “Raymond James Sontag”; Barth, Brown, Hammond, and Strong, “Walton Elbert Bean”; Alden, “Engel Sluiter.”

  CHAPTER 14

  1 HEB to Edward W. Mumford, 2/8/1940, BP Out.

  2 Catholic University of America (1929), Saint Mary's College (1929), University of San Francisco (1930), Marquette University (1937). “List of Honorary Degrees,” January—February 1950, BP Out. Bolton had also received honorary degrees from the University of Toronto (1931) and the University of New Mexico (1937), but these were not included in the above-mentioned list. Bannon, Bolton, 236.

  3 Peter T. Conmy to HEB, 3/19/1940, BP In, Conmy; HEB to Conmy, 4/29/1940, BP Out.

  4 Paxson to Allen L. Chickering, 5/14/1940, BP In, Paxson.

  5 HEB to Andres Pastoriza, 5/23/1940, BP Out.

  6 HEB to Mrs. Boyle Workman, 7/18/1940, BP Out.

  7 Bolton, Coronado, 427.

  8 A detailed account of the trip may be found in Neasham, “Coronado's Trai
l,” November 1941, BP In, Neasham.

  9 HEB to Gertrude, 8/19/1940, 8/16/1940, BP Out.

  10 HEB to Gertrude, 8/19/1940, BP Out.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Bolton, Coronado, 427; HEB to Neasham, 9/7/1940, BP Out.

  13 HEB to Cherrington, 1/28/1941, BP Out.

  14 HEB to Gertrude, 1/23/1941; HEB to Cherrington, 1/28/1941, BP Out.

  15 HEB to Nettels, 3/5/1941, BP Out.

  16 HEB to Gertrude, 3/7/1941, 3/10/1941, 3/14/1941, 3/18, 1941, 3/22/1941, BP Out.

  17 HEB to Hillory Tolson, 4/4/1941, BP Out.

  18 Dickson to Bolton, 5/14/1941, BP In.

  19 [Dickson], “Centennial History of California” [1941?], BP Out. This document is in the front of the first 1941 folder. Though unsigned, it conforms with the ideas that Dickson expressed in other correspondence.

  20 HEB to Sproul, 6/13/1941, BP Out.

  21 5/6/1941, BP Out.

  22 HEB to Gregory Crampton, 7/15/1941, BP Out.

  23 Bolton mistakenly wrote “hitch-hiking” to Rainbow Bridge, in ibid. Cf. “Boat Trip Down the San Juan and Colorado Rivers,” BP, Part III, Carton 1, Notes, Santa Fe trip, 1939.

  24 HEB to Gregory Crampton, 7/15/1941, BP Out.

  25 HEB to Powell, 7/31/1941, BP Out.

  26 HEB to Marten Ten Hoor, 4/2/1941, BP Out; Borah to HEB, 10/15/1941, BP In.

  27 HEB to Claudius O. Johnson, 11/6/1941, 12/22/1941, BP Out.

  28 [HEB], “Charles Edward Chapman,” BP In, Chapman. This appears to be a eulogy that Bolton read to the Native Sons.

  29 Bannon, in Bolton, 218, claims it was a stroke. Bolton, writing at the time, described Priestley's illness as “heart trouble.” HEB to Claudius O. Johnson, 12/22/ 1941, BP Out.

  30 HEB to Claudius O. Johnson, 12/22/1941, BP Out.

  31 HEB to Mrs. Alvin Bolton, 2/7/1942, BP Out.

  32 Lawrence Kinnaird, Frederic L. Paxson, and Lesley Byrd Simpson, “Herbert Ingram Priestley,” InMemoriam, 1944, BP In, Priestley.

  33 HEB to Sproul, 3/12/1942, BP Out.

  34 Dickson to HEB, 12/13/1941, BP In.

  35 Dickson to Sproul, 12/26/1941, BP In, Dickson.

  36 HEB to Sproul [1942], BP Out. This draft may not have been sent to Sproul.

  37 HEB to Rippy, 3/25/1942, BP Out. This is a “Rough draft much revised,” as indicated in the margin.

  38 HEB to Rippy, 9/4/1942, BP Out.

  39 Rippy to HEB, 9/7/1942, BP In; HEB, “Rippy” [9/1942?], BP Out.

  40 Dickson to HEB, 1/19/1942; Dickson to James Corley, 2/17/1942, BP In.