John Williams Gunnison

John Williams Gunnison (November 11, 1812 – October 26, 1853) was an American military officer and explorer.

Biography Gunnison was born in Goshen, New Hampshire, in 1812 and attended Hopkinton Academy in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. He graduated from West Point in 1837, second in his class of fifty cadets. His military career began as an artillery officer in Florida, where he spent a year in the campaign against the Seminoles. Due to his poor health he was reassigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers the next year. Initially he explored unknown areas of Florida, searching for provision routes. However, his health soon forced him out of Florida entirely.

From 1841 to 1849 Gunnison explored the area around the Great Lakes. He surveyed the border between Wisconsin and Michigan, the western coast of Lake Michigan, and the coast of Lake Erie. On May 9, 1846, he was promoted to first lieutenant.

Attack and massacre

The weather was beginning to turn "cold and raw" with snow flurries, and Captain Gunnison sought to speed up mapping before returning to winter quarters. Several miles upstream of Sevier Lake (about the site of the present Gunnison Bend Reservoir), the team was divided into two detachments. Gunnison and his party of 11 men moved downstream, while the other party moved upstream. On the morning of October 26, 1853, Gunnison's party was attacked by a band of Pahvants (Ute). In the resulting massacre, Gunnison and seven of his men were killed. Several survivors of the attack alerted the other detachment of the survey team, who rode to aid Gunnison and his party. An additional survivor of the attack and the bodies of the victims were retrieved later that day. The remains of the eight dead were found in a mutilated state. Killed with Gunnison were Richard Hovenden Kern (topographer & artist; 1821-1853), Frederick Creutzfeldt (German botanist), William Washington Potter (Mormon guide; 1819-1853), Private Caulfield, Private Liptoote, Private Mehreens, and John Bellows (camp roustabout). The site of the massacre was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 30, 1976.

Publications

(Housed at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California) (Housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison ) (Housed at the University of California, Berkeley Library in Berkeley, California)

Footnotes