Conviction and Courage: Father and Son (cont.)
The Son: Robert Brewster (Bob) Stanton (1846-1922)
Bob Stanton fondly recalled the pleasures of his new home in Oxford: two acres served as pasture for a horse and a cow and a "wonderful garden [which] after the first plowing and planting" he cultivated for healthy exercise ("Reminiscences"). He also began a year of intense study of Latin and Greek in preparation to enter Miami University. Bob graduated in 1871 as valedictorian. He was also Class Historian and a member of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity.
Among his professors, one stood out, Robert White McFarland. Bob recalled him as his "most wonderful and perfect teacher" ("Reminiscences"). McFarland helped advance Bob's study of higher mathematics and theory of engineering, but as an engineer and surveyor himself, McFarland also insisted on Bob's self-reliance in solving practical problems in the field and on his keeping detailed notebooks of every day's work. With McFarland as his mentor, Bob was well prepared to enter his chosen field, civil engineering.
The year 1871 was bittersweet for the Stanton family. Bob's academic success was shadowed by his father's resignation. To address the Stanton family's dire financial straits, the Stanton House had to be sold. Stanton hoped Miami University would purchase it, but when the university could not offer enough to cover Stanton's debt, the house eventually went up for auction at a sheriff's sale. In a twist of fate, the house was purchased by Prof. Robert McFarland, who rented it out for more than a decade while Miami was closed as a university and while McFarland established and chaired the Department of Mathematics and Civil Engineering at Ohio State University in Columbus. When Miami's board of trustees re-opened the university, they asked McFarland to return as president of "New Miami." Thus, the Stanton House became again what it was built to be: a magnificent dwelling for the president of Miami University, though still privately owned.
To travel to his first job after graduation, Bob Stanton had to borrow money from a friend. The summer of 1871, he worked for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in Indian Territory where his mettle was tested in rough terrain among rough men. That fall, he sent his first paycheck--all $200--to his parents. His mother was still living in Oxford; his father was looking for work in New York City. Bob joined his family that December for probably their last Christmas in Oxford. Bob's parents settled in Madisonville, near Cincinnati; his father continued to write, edit and publish.
After Bob's Wild West adventure with the A & P Railroad, he became in 1872 an assistant engineer for the Cincinnati Railroad, building a line between Cincinnati and Chattanooga (1872-1880). For a time, Bob re-joined the A & P Railroad for horseback reconnaissance in Indian Territory where the railroad party needed military escorts for protection from the Comanche, Apache, and Arapaho nations. From 1881 to 1883, Bob was chief engineer for construction of the Georgetown Loop in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a major achievement. By 1884, he was a division engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad. His most challenging job, however, and the one that made him famous, came as chief engineer of the Denver, Cañon and Pacific Railroad beginning in 1889. Though married and raising a family in Denver, Bob signed on to a very dangerous venture: surveying the Colorado River, from its principal tributary, the Green River in Utah, to its emptying into the Gulf of California in Mexico. His purpose was to assess the feasibility of building a railroad through the Grand Canyon.
The survey began in May 1889. Tragedy struck in early July. The owner of the railroad company, Frank Brown, and two other members of the expedition drowned in the Colorado's treacherous waters. With insufficient supplies, the remaining men made an arduous retreat, scaling the walls of the mile deep canyon. Stanton was determined to reorganize the expedition and to return to complete the survey. He did, in late November, with ample supplies, better boats, and life jackets. Another disaster occurred January 1, 1890. The photographer Franklin Nims suffered critical injuries in a fall. With great difficulty and risk, Nims, was evacuated. He survived thanks to the heroic efforts of Bob and his men. In the canyon, Bob taught himself how to use Nims' equipment and became photographer as well as surveyor of the great river and its sublime chasms. In April 1890, Bob led his party to their destination. An earlier expedition, led by John Wesley Powell, had been first to navigate the length of the Colorado River. Bob Stanton's expedition was second, but his was first to survey the Grand Canyon for a possible rail line. This prospect proved unprofitable; however, valuable knowledge of the Grand Canyon's ecology has come through later study of well over a thousand excellent photographs taken by Stanton.
Robert Brewster Stanton's career as a civil and mining engineer took him from Canada to Mexico to the East Indies. He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of the Advancement of Science, the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He was elected fellow of the American and National Geographic Societies. Miami wanted to honor Bob and his late father at the university's centennial in 1909, but Bob declined. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa when Miami established its chapter in 1911. This was an honor he did not decline. Like his father, uncle and aunt, Bob was a published writer, but the book he wanted to reach the public, his lengthy account of his Grand Canyon expedition based on his field diaries, did not find a publisher in his lifetime. He died in 1922, still writing his personal "Reminiscences," which are among the Robert Brewster Stanton papers in the New York Public Library. The United States Geographic Board honored him posthumously by giving his name to a rock spire on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Stanton Point.
