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How do we know what we know about the quarry?

The Felch to Marsh letters were acquired in 1989 by Donna Engard and Pat Monaco of the Garden Park Paleontology Society on a trip to the eastern United States. Numerous institutions were visited during that time period including:

• Philadelphia Academy of Sciences/Wagner Free Institute in Philadelphia
• American Museum of Natural History in New York City
• Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
• Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven Connecticut

The Felch to March letters provided only one side of the story. Also collected were some Cope diary information and other notes pertaining to the Canon City area.

In the early 1990's when the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was doing work in Canon City, Kenneth Carpenter followed up on Pat and Donna's initial investigation with a second trip back east to the same locations. During that trip, Ken collected considerable additional information including maps, field notes, etc. All of this information was put into files and notebooks that are housed at the Dinosaur Depot. Still missing were the Marsh to Felch letters that were not found at the Yale Peabody Museum.

Over time, Pat Monaco and Donna Engard continued to correspond with other interested individuals on the information that had been collected about the Marsh Quarry. Sue Ann Bilby from the Vernal Area in Utah reported that some of the missing correspondence may be located at the University of Utah Library in Salt Lake City. In the mid 1990's Pat Monaco and Donna Engard made a trip to the University of Utah and after some research were able to locate the missing letters in the Earl Douglass files. Apparently these were given to Mr. Douglass by Sadie Felch who wanted to see the letters preserved (see discussion below).

Pat Monaco and Donna Engard made a second trip to the Smithsonian in the 1990's and took many pictures and gathered some additional information pertaining to the Marsh Quarry. Information about the Marsh Quarry was increasing dramatically but still lacked the Marsh to Felch letters to help fill in the story.

This paragraph tells the first part of the story of the Marsh to Felch letters. Sarah Felch Zimmerman (Sarah E. "Sadie" Felch) was the daughter of Marshall Felch, the primary excavator of the Marsh Quarry. She participated in the quarry work during her childhood and was liked by Marsh for the help she gave her father. She even provided some of the sketches that went into the letters. She went east in 1888 and while there visited Marsh. She is the only Felch offspring known to have done so from the letters.

Sadie apparently married and lived for some time in a tent on the "Reservation" in the Uinta Basin of Utah. At one point, a storm came and blew into her tent that contained a box in which the letters of Prof. Marsh to Mr. Felch had been stored and preserved. The letters blew out of this box and were scattered. Mrs. Zimmerman picked up and preserved what she could find. When she was in Salt Lake City she offered to give these to Mr. Douglas of Dinosaur National Monument fame if he cared for them. The offer was gladly accepted as he had wished for a long time to know more about the field operations of Prof. Marsh. He realized the fact that these should be carefully preserved so he offered to have them deposited in the library of the University, if this could be done, subject to the order of disposal of Mrs. Zimmerman and himself. Apparently Mr. Douglas took them to his home, read and arranged them and kept them for the purpose of getting the data for the "working up" of the skeleton of the carnivorous dinosaur in the University of Utah, and for the studying and compiling of the other information which they contained.

The letters Marsh wrote to Felch were therefore actually located in the University of Utah although this was not known until discovered by Donna Engard and Pat Monaco of the Garden Park Paleontology Society. The letters are complete with the exception of the 1885 time period, a relatively rainy period here in Canon City. This is an important year in the Marsh Quarry and it would make sense to continue searching for these letters either at the University of Utah or the Yale Peabody Museum.

Over a period of about three years, Donna Engard, Pat Monaco, and Georgine Booms began the process of transcribing the letters. Initially Donna made scans of all the letters including special scans of all the maps and notes and drawings in the letters. Then they as a team began a slow meticulous process of transcribing the letters. Georgine was in the lead for most of this process. As part of this process, she would make an initial attempt at the transcribing and putting the information into a word document. She would then read the transcribed letter onto a voice tape. Following this step, she would then play back the letters while reading the original to double check her information. In those cases where historic railroad terminology was utilized, Georgine would consult with Brad Bowers of the Pueblo Railroad Society. She also used a historic dictionary to help with a few terms no longer used. Georgine feels that the letters are very accurate with the exception of a few names of individuals that are good but not perfect.

Pat Monaco and Georgine Booms feel that they have a fairly complete collection of information pertaining to the Marsh Quarry with the exception of the missing 1885 Marsh to Felch letters. Some of the original letters may be housed at the Sterling Memorial Library Archive, Yale University, New Haven, CT and the 1885 Marsh to Felch letters may be at the University of Utah. These are mysteries waiting to be solved! Another mystery is that there are still original unopened bone boxes now housed at the storage site used by the Smithsonian that may contain notes and packing slips.

In addition to the collection, transcribing, and research on the letters, June Hines at the Dinosaur Depot has also been conducting research on the genealogy of the Felch Family. Marshall P Felch is reported to be buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Canon City. June is trying to locate Felch relatives.

The specimens from the quarry and the original Felch map are housed at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

The quarry excavations as told through the correspondence of Marshall P. Felch and Professor Marsh are a story by itself. The fact that some of these letters even survived is amazing. Most of Marsh's correspondence is located in the Archives at the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. Among the prominent persons represented on this correspondence are: Alexander and Louis Agassiz, George Jarvis Brush, Edward Drinker Cope, James Dwight Dana, Charles Darwin, Leonard and Thomas Huxley, Simon Newcomb, Benjamin Silliman, Sr. and Jr., Eli Whitney and Ulysses S. Grant. At the peak of his fossil collecting activities in the 1870's and 1880's, Marsh's most prolific correspondents were his 'bonediggers', two brothers named Felch (Note that Charles Felch wrote only once from Quebec concerning a curiosity he had found and mentioned his brother Marshall by way of introduction.), John B. Hatcher, Arthur Lakes, Benjemin F. Mudge, Samuel W. Williston, and W.H. Reed. As each specimen reached New Haven it was assigned an identifying number, and this was inscribed in a parallelogram on each letter pertaining to that particular specimen. (This number in the "diamond" is the accession number of the related specimens when determined.)

The story of how we know what we know is a celebration of the achievements of Pat Monaco, Donna Engard, Georgine Booms, and Kenneth Carpenter. Other individuals who are also very informed on the Marsh Quarry include:

• Michael Brett-Surman - Smithsonian (has original quarry map)
• Matt Carrano - Smithsonian
• John McIntosh - retired - Weslyan University

This small piece of the history of the Marsh Dinosaur Quarry is only one reason for the interest in this outstanding site. The story started 150 million years ago and it continues today!

I find it hard to represent on a map—how the different bones lay, for in taking them out in the rock, sometimes in very large blocks—we do not know in a general way what the different groups contain.

M.P. Felch
February 11, 1886