Page 97 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 84

He wrote this about the night of the 19th “didn’t sleep well last
night - got to thinking of home and business, seems as if we’re
almost there...”301 Hedges’ humility and unobtrusiveness would
explain most of this lack of notation of the idea in his journal. And
the following written in 1904, also sheds some light on the matter:

“It was at the first camp after leaving the lower Geyser basin
when all were speculating which point in the region We had
been through, would become most notable that I first suggested
the uniting all our efforts to get it made a National Park, little
dreaming that such a thing were possible.”302

But that night, September 19, Hedges “disturbing National Park
proposition” kept N. P. Langford awake half the night pondering
the idea.303 To all but one of the party, the idea was “met with a
quick and favorable response.”304 A nucleus of gentlemen were now
inspired with an idea which would ultimately grow to mean much to
millions of Americans who visit the National Parks each year.

On November 9, 1870, as one of a series of articles on the
Yellowstone country, Hedges first publicly proposed the creation of
a National Park, within an area to be attached to Montana. He wrote:

“This beautiful body of water Yellowstone Lake is situated
in the extreme northwest corner of Wyoming, and, with its
tributaries and sister lakes of smaller dimensions, is entirely
cut off from all access from any portion of that Territory by the
impassable and eternally snow-clad range of the Wind River
Range of mountains. Hence the propriety that the Territorial
lines be so readjusted that Montana should embrace that entire
lake region west of the Wind River Range, a matter in which we
hope our citizens will soon move to accomplish, as well as to
secure, its future appropriation to the public use.”305

From that point, many persons aided in the effort to establish
Yellowstone National Park. N. P. Langford delivered a series of
lectures on Yellowstone in New York and Washington, D.C., in
January, 1871. Many, such as William H. Clagett, Senator Pomeroy,
and Dr. F. V. Hayden, helped see the measure creating the Park
through Congress.306 Louis C. Cramton, in his Early History of
Yellowstone National Park, asserts that both Samuel T. Hauser and
Cornelius Hedges visited Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1870-
1871 and promoted the National Park idea.307