ON THE FIRST day of the year 1854 the reconnoitering party of Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple came to a shallow pool of water, perhaps twelve feet in diameter, that had served their mule herd the night before. It was "about a mile west" of their bivouac, which in turn was southwest of Sitgreaves Mountain in north-central Arizona. It had three inches of ice on top but the "amount of water was not perceptibly diminished by what the mules had drunk" and, "It therefore appeared to be a permanent spring." Whipple named it "New Year’s Spring." He soon started southwest toward Bill Williams Mountain but the previous evening he had sent a soldier of the escort with two Hispano muleteers back to Leroux Spring at the foot of San Francisco Mountain with orders for Lt. Joseph C. Ives to bring up the whole caravan of the expedition.¹  

            Next day a train of fifteen wagons and two ungainly carretas, accompanied by nearly eighty men, wheeled into a prairie near Mount Sitgreaves. They had come 235 miles across the high desert of what was then western New Mexico Territory from the Indian Pueblo of Zuni. This was their ninety-fourth camp since leaving Fort Smith, Arkansas, on July 15, 1853. As white, vee-shaped tents went up on the soggy ground, camp tenders went to the conical hole in the prairie to draw water for the men before some 135 mules and other livestock were allowed to drink. Snow lingered in tree shade, and as the "spring" dwindled the explorers melted snow for camp water. Men, beasts, and wagons would remain here for a week while their commander explored over a hundred miles of the surrounding country, trying to find a practical way for a railroad down the western slope of the Colorado Plateau. It was their longest stay in any camp between Zuni and California. Whipple, meanwhile, had already scouted many miles southwest.²

            Although the weather at Camp 94 was milder than at Leroux Spring, snow-squalls and frigid wind – and boredom -- made everyone miserable. Some were sick with a mild form of typhoid. Farriers were kept busy repairing wagons and shoeing mules, their hooves chewed up by volcanic scoria. A flock of sheep and beef cattle had to be constantly guarded against Indians. More intrepid men, including the expedition artist, Balduin Mollhausen, hunted for grizzly bears. But they were all glad to leave and no one else is known to have used this water til the advent of stock-raisers in the 1880s.⁴

            New Years Spring is a memorable place in the history of exploration on the Thirty-fifth Parallel. That Whipple'’ expedition stopped here a week, and that this was the beginning of the Santa Fe Railway and of highway Route 66, both of which pass nearby, is common knowledge. Why has no one proposed to erect a marker on a nearby highway?⁵  Because, til now, no one knew for certain where it was.

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IN JUNE OF 1986 I drove out to the El Paso Gas pumping station northeast of Williams, Arizona, to find Whipple’s Camp 94, which I assumed was at the head of Pitman Valley not far from the natural gas pipeline. I had studied exploration of the Colorado Plateau for several years and had looked up a few railroad survey sites. Because this was one of the most significant of all the unlocated campsites, I expected to wind up my field work in a few hours of a pleasant spring day and the write something new about Whipple. I had in hand Will C. Barnes’ Arizona Place Names that said the

Only map which shows this spring under name New Years is Smith, 1879. This locates it 18 miles southwest of Leroux spring. Shows it as due south of Sitgreaves mountain at Pitman’s Ranch. Doubtless this is Pitman valley of today. There is an unnamed spring in sec. 17, T.22N, R.4E on Flagstaff quad, 1912, that fits it nicely.⁶

            That spring in Section 17 is today called "NE Spring" and is too far east to qualify but I liked the location of Pitman Valley. It seemed to fit the description of Lt. David S. Stanley, Whipple’s quartermaster, who wrote in his diary on Jan.2, 1854, "March nine miles to-day [total 24 from Leroux Springs] through a pine wood and encamped upon a spring in a beautiful little valley, north of Williams Mountain."⁷

            I also had Whipple’s account with me, an extract from his diary in the Oklahoma Historical Society. He wrote on the last day of 1853,

    At 9:45 AM we continued our march. [Because of snow} our mules... made little progress... Snow becoming less deep & soft we progressed more rapidly and at 2 ½ PM bivouaced upon a hill side where abundance of green grass and cedar fuel invited us to remain for the night. Ascending the hill our course from Leroux Spring appeared to be due west and the distance travelled is estimated at 20 miles... Looking west we were greeted with the view of an open valley apparently the course of a stream limited only by the blue mountain range far distant. Sending a man to explore he soon returned with the acceptable report of the existence of water in the valley half a mile below.⁸

            Next day he visited the waterhole in the valley and named it. At the time I paid no attention to Whipple’s mention of "an open valley apparently the course of a stream" to the west of his hilltop observation post.

            That June afternoon I did find a promising natural waterhole in a shallow, rocky ravine just south of the gas pipeline and at the head of Pitman Valley. It is called descriptively Tanque Piedra. I could imagine Whipple’s caravan camped out on the prairie just to the east and Lt. Stanley gazing southward out on Pitman Valley. At home, however, I realized that Tanque Piedra would not answer as a spring (and it was obviously only a catch basin) just a mile west of some hill used by Whipple for an OP. Before I could identify New Years Spring I would have to find that hill, and to reconcile it with Whipple’s valley view. At first I was concerned to find a relatively small hill, for in another part of his railroad report he had described it as only "about 200 feet" above New Years Spring.⁹

            Over the next five years my quest engrossed many hours of outdoor exercise at intervals between more important research and teaching. I even took a summer school class out to look for the hill and waterhole. I thought I had found them in 1987. A stock pond called Moss Tank is just south of Tanque Piedra, below a hill that met every detail of Whipple’s description. The only trouble with this hill, elevation 7,216 feet, was the view to the west: one cannot see an "open valley apparently the course of a stream limited only by the blue mountain range far distant"—Bill Williams Mountain was barely visible. Nor did Moss Tank agree with the description of Balduin Mollhausen that I had lately dug up: "Not far from the foot of Mount Sitgreaves we found the water...which consisted of a sort of pond or lake" that verged on a "wide expanse of plain" due west.¹⁰

            I redrew a part of Whipple’s map superimposed on present landmarks, including his geographic positions of camps from the Little Colorado River to Aztec Pass. I carefully measured distances between each site, most of which he had fixed by astronomical observations. Plots of known locations suggested Whipple had consistently measured latitudes close to true, but most were somewhat south. All his longitudes were too far east. Three facts became apparent: First, where we can compare known campsites, his errors in longitude are nearly uniform; on average, they are slightly less than four minutes short. Thus four known sites are on his map about 3 2/3 miles east of their actual positions. Second, with the exceptions of Camp 99 (Picacho) and Camp 87 (Leupp), the estimates of latitude are within one minute of true. Third, if one were to overlay Whipple’s map on a modern map of exactly the same scale and then shift his locations of Camps 89 through 96 about 3 2/3 miles west and slightly north, Whipple’s locations would fall very close to all known locations, viz. Turkey Tanks, Leroux Spring, a camp on Government Prairie, and the camp in Martin Dam Draw.¹¹

            Another thing about distances: There are two tables of distances with the reports on the Thirty-fifth Parallel Survey: Table B in the preliminary 1854 report and Table D in the final 1856 report. In addition, Whipple frequently mentions distances in his narrative. These three sources seldom agree.¹²  But I knew that a wagon in Whipple’s caravan was equipped with a "viameter," a primitive odometer that counted the revolutions of a wagon wheel. Why weren’t the tables, presumably based on the viameter, the same? And occasional wide variances with the narrative were puzzling.

            Studying new military maps of the Williams area in 1988, I saw that the hill by Moss Tank was nearly the same height as one behind the El Paso pumping station called Radio Hill, 7,265 feet. Joining the Williams sheet to the San Francisco Mountain sheet, I saw there was a clear line of sight between Radio Hill and Fort Valley near Leroux Spring. Heretofore I had assumed that Sitgreaves Mountain would mask a due east view from a point so far north.¹³  I now saw that Radio Hill could be Whipple’s OP. On a snowy day in January, 1988—not unlike the weather of January, 1854—I climbed the hill. I was amazed to find the summit sparsely wooded with a few big trees and a clear view in all directions. I could see the valley of Leroux Spring; Wing Mountain, which Whipple and Leroux had climbed; Bill Williams Mountain; and, westward, I had the view described in Whipple’s journal. On the south side, was a gentle, open, grassy slope for a bivouac. So Radio Hill was Whipple’s observation post. New Years Spring was somewhere west of its summit.

            Later in 1988 Mary Gordon published the diary of John P. Sherburne, Whipple’s brother-in-law whom he hired as a meteorological observer and assistant surveyor. This new account gave more details about the camp at New Years spring. Sherburne noted, "AS far as the eye can reach is a beautiful valley, without snow." I finally realized that valley must be the stream Whipple drew on his map as "Park Creek" northwest from Camp 94, and a comparison with modern maps left an inescapable conclusion: Park Creek is Red Lake Valley. Whipple could not see its lower end (even from his OP above New Years Spring) and he thought it joined another stream he called Lava Creek about ten miles northwest from Camp 94. Sherburne also revealed that he was responsible for the viameter. He recorded in his diary distances traveled and they were the basis for Whipple’s preliminary Table B. In a few places where the expedition track can be measured, Sherburne’s figures are in error, but why Whipple altered nearly all the viameter measurements for Table B is still puzzling.¹⁴

            As I reviewed the information about New Years Spring, I noted many striking descriptions of the next campsite to the west—Camp 95 at a "large pool of water undoubtedly a permanent spring which we called ‘Santo Domingo.’" This is the water Whipple calls "Lava spring" in his published report. He says in his diary, "It is at the head of canyon about 30 feet in diameter of unknown depth." On his map he shows it as a tributary to a stream called Lava Creek, which he shows flowing into Park Creek. By now I could guess that not only was Park Creek really Red Lake Valley, but also that Lava Creek was Cataract Creek, the head of which Whipple thought began nearly nine miles northwest of New Years Spring. I decided it might be easier to find Camp 95, then backtrack to Camp 94.¹⁵  I surveyed on foot each southward arm of Cataract Canyon that Whipple might have taken for the head of the stream, but I could find no such break in the volcanic caprock as every diarist had described. I gave it up for over a year.

            In 1989 David Miller of Cameron University allowed me to see his translation of Reisen in die Felsengebirge by Balduin Mollhausen. This work has never been available in English. It recounts the author’s experience as Lt. J.C. Ives’ artist on the 1857-1858 expedition up the Colorado River and across northern Arizona. Ives, after completing his duties with Whipple, had been given the job of mapping the Rio Colorado. In the spring of 1858, after ascending the river, Ives sent his steamboat back to Fort Yuma and with a small party passed northeast to the Grand Canyon and then southeast toward Bill Williams Mountain. From there Ives would go east to Fort Defiance. On April 25, 1858, Mollhausen wrote that they "passed by [Whipple’s road] just north of the Lava springs, and within an hour were far to the south of them on the edge of a prairie, from which the Bill Williams Mountains rose up two miles to the south."¹⁶  He thus had passed between Cataract Canyon and Lava Spring.  Miller and I subsequently fixed exactly Ives’ camp near the present town of Williams.  Mollhausen had made evident the probable vicinity of Lava Spring.

            In October, 1991, I found a water hole that was a likely candidate. It lies at the foot of an earthen dam at the neck of a crack in the fifty-foot thick lava sheet northwest of Williams. From the ground only a half-mile north it is hidden by the elevated roadbed of the Santa Fe railroad. On the Kaibab National Forest map, the pond behind the dam is called Canyon Tank. The open ground suitable for a large camp of wagons below Canyon Tank should be about 365 feet lower than the site of Whipple’s bivouac on New Year’s Eve, 1853.¹⁷  The drainage running north from Canyon Tank should be Lava Creek, and the main channel of Cataract Creek is 2.75 miles downstream.

            Whipple’s geographic positions for Camps 94 and 95 are 8.75 miles apart and Table D gives 8.7. On the USGS fifteen minute Williams quad I drew an arc nine miles east from Canyon Tank. Then I drew an arc of one-mile radius west from the summit of Radio Hill. The intersecting arcs should contain Camp 94. The only water found in that area is Hitson Tank in Section 4, Township 22N, Range 3E. This is approximately 112° 4’ 40 ½ " west longitude, 35° 19’ 8" north latitude.

            In January, 1992, I enlisted a colleague with an airplane, Prof. Harvey Becher of NAU. We flew his Grumman Tiger over the scene of so much hope and concern. There below was a perfectly round hole in the prairie, brimming with melted snow. It isn’t your ordinary cattle tank. Its capacity has been increased by bulldozing a berm around it, but it’s not a pond created by a dam. There is no visible stream entering or leaving. When I visited the place early in March, I found a wooded gully a mile north west of Hitson Tank. This proved to be a break in the lava that has been dammed to form a stock pond similar to Canyon Tank. This could be the place where Whipple’s geologist, Jules Marcou, collected a sample of "carboniferous limestone."¹⁸

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MY BELIEF THAT modern Hitson Tank is coincident with Whipple’s "New Year’s spring" is supported by five pieces of evidence.

            First, the geographic position of Hitson Tank is consistent with Whipple’s observations. His latitude of 35° 17’ 28" is about a minute and a half south of Hitson. Although nearly two miles, Whipple’s figure is not further off than most of his others along the Thirty-fifth Parallel and, like most, is too far south. Correcting his longitude of 112° 1’ 0" by adding four minutes west puts it within twenty seconds of Hitson’s position—less than a mile.

            Second, the most likely site of Whipple’s bivouac of New Year’s Eve, 1853, on Radio Hill, "a hill side where abundance of green grass and cedar fuel invited us to remain," is only 1,200 yards from Hitson Tank on a magnetic azimuth of 293°.¹⁹  This is consistent with Whipple’s statement that the spring lay "about a mile west" of his bivouac. The summit of Radio Hill is .875 miles east-southeast of Hitson.

            Third, Hitson Tank is 20.125 miles airline from Leroux Spring, just about Whipple’s placement on his map. The longer distances recorded by Sherburne and others are, of course, indirect ground tracks.

            Fourth, Hitson Tank is 8.85 miles airline from the camp at Lava Spring. The distance Sherburne recorded traveling from Camp 94 to 95 was 9.77 miles, which was in a slight, southward curve according to Whipple’s map.

            Fifth, all descriptions of New Years Spring reflect the vicinity of Hitson Tank. The modern stock pond appears to be an improvement of a natural hole in the prairie, perhaps a seep. Radio Hill meets most requirements for Whipple’s OP. The rocky ravine to the north west would suggest to Whipple the beginning of a major drainage, "Park Creek." The adjacent cinder cones fit the representations of hills on his map. And the gentle ridge dividing Pitman Valley from the drainage of Red Lake Valley matches Whipple’s description of the ‘wide gap’ in the range of hills stretching from San Francisco Mountain to Bill Williams Mountain: he says the ridge flattens near New Years Spring, becoming "almost inappreciable."²⁰

Northern Arizona University