From an alum’s historic dive to a former faculty member’s early exploration of the Grand Canyon, historian Tom Emery explores this month in Illinois State University history.
August 5
On this date in 2002, the turret from the Union Civil War ironclad ship Monitor was raised to the surface for the first time since the vessel sank in 1862.
The raising of the Monitor from its wreck site off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is considered an outstanding event in naval history, with one of the best-organized, and most productive dive expeditions ever attempted.
Barbara Scholley, a 1980 Illinois State University graduate and a distinguished officer in the U.S. Navy, was on the dive team. Scholley is considered one of the finest Navy divers of her generation and held a variety of commanding officer positions in her career.
The Monitor is best known for its duel with the C.S.S. Virginia, better known as the Merrimack, in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. It was the first time that iron ships met in combat in world naval history.
The Monitor, which spawned a class of ironclad warships generically known by that name, measured 172 feet long and 41 feet wide, weighing 1,200 tons with a 10.5-foot draw. The vessel sat so low in the water that she was barely discernible, if not for her turret, the defining feature of the ship.
The circular, revolving turret measured 20 feet across and 9 feet high and concealed two guns. The turret allowed the guns to be fired at nearly any angle, compared to previous ships (including the Merrimack), which often had guns only on broadside, at the bow, or stern.
A small pilothouse was one of the few other protrusions from the deck. Because of its unusual appearance, the Monitor was dubbed a “cheesebox on a raft.”
The Monitor battled the Merrimack to a draw at Hampton Roads, forever revolutionizing naval warfare. Strangely, neither ship survived for long after the duel. The Merrimack was scuttled two months later to prevent her capture by advancing Union forces.
On December 31, 1862, the Monitor was being towed en route to joining the blockade of Charleston when she foundered in heavy seas 16 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. The ship’s entire crew of 16 men was lost.
Efforts to locate the wreck of the Monitor began as early as 1973, and by 2002, a comprehensive effort to raise the wreckage began. The divers were led by Scholley, who in 1992 had been only the fourth woman to command a commissioned Navy ship, the USS Bolster, a diving and salvage vessel. She had been the Navy’s first female Supervisor of Diving from 1997-99.
Scholley made 19 dives over the two summers on the Monitor project, working at a depth of 245 feet at a maximum of 35 minutes per dive. One source states that her team “did the necessary salvage work, which included manually fastening the cables that hoisted the engines and gun turret.”
The ship’s 20-ton steam engine was raised in 2001. The raising of the turret in 2002 was the centerpiece of the project, which garnered national media attention and was covered in documentaries on The History Channel and other outlets.
“It is by far the best dive a Navy diver can make,” said Scholley of the Monitor project. “It’s physically and technically challenging. But it’s cool to be working on the forefather of our modern Navy … it’s really wonderful. Being part of history, especially naval history, is really something you can’t put into words.” Scholley considered the Monitor expeditions as “the highlight of my 24-year naval career.”
Prior to that, Scholley held leadership positions on the dive project that recovered wreckage from TWA Flight 800, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off New York on July 17, 1996. On that project, she supervised a team of 200 divers and was on many dives herself.
She was also a leader in the dive recovery of the USS Cole, which was destroyed in a bombing while in a Yemen harbor in 2000.
Scholley graduated from the Basic Diving School in Panama City Beach, Florida, in 1983. A 2000 graduate of the Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, she retired with the rank of captain in August 2005.
In 1994, Scholley was honored as the Illinois State University Distinguished Young Alumni Award, and four years later, she received an honorary doctorate from ISU. She was inducted into the school’s College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 2005-06.
August 11
On this date in 1948, the Vidette ran a news piece on the Illinois State library, proudly declaring “Milner Ranks with Best in Beauty, Size.” The article was reflective of the stature that the library holds on the Illinois State campus, then and now.
Milner Library was housed in present-day Williams Hall until moving to its present location in 1976. Ground was broken on the new facility in the fall of 1938, and the dedication was held on June 10, 1940.
The library was named for Angeline Milner, the first Illinois State University librarian, who held the position from 1890-1927. Milner was replaced by the highly capable—and often underrated—Eleanor Weir Welch, who served ISU from 1929-59.
Among Welch’s many achievements, she exponentially increased the size of the library and traveled the nation to learn about creating the best possible library space. She also ensured that librarians had faculty status, a rarity at the time.
The old Milner Library was also known for its striking architecture. The program for the 1940 dedication described the building as “Georgian in style, with the characteristic white stone trim and gray-blue slate roof. Its beauty is the beauty inherent in the architectural design, a beauty of proportion, of simplicity, and dignity.”
That beauty became a hallmark feature of the old Milner and attracted interest from visitors around the United States and Canada. However, that was not the only reason to visit Milner in 1948, or any other year.
The Vidette article from August 1948 noted that the ISU library was the fifth-largest college library in Illinois, trailing schools with much larger enrollments than Illinois State at the time. Clearly, ISU had an unusually large library to meet its student needs.
At the time, Milner Library held 124,431 volumes, with 447 different current periodicals and eleven current newspapers. Holdings also included 36,358 uncatalogued pamphlets, 2,766 pictures, 1,495 maps, 736 slides and film slides, 825 microfilms, and 2,323 sound recordings.
The library also had an outstanding collection of papers, diaries, and manuscripts. Just four months before the August 1948 report, the library had received the longhand original draft of Harold Sinclair’s acclaimed novel, American Years, as well as 17 letters to Gov. Joseph Fifer, a Bloomington product, that were donated by his daughter, former state senator Florence Fifer Bohrer.
The Fifer collection included letters from Robert Todd Lincoln, Eugene Field, John J. Pershing, Joseph Medill, and the father of famous Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfield.
Other events at Milner in 1948 included an art exhibit in July that featured nearly 100 “colored reproductions” of “old and modern, American and European” paintings. The works were sold through the ISU art department.
In February, an exhibit called “Scandinavian Skills,” including metalwork, textiles, wood, glass, and clothing from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, was on display at Milner. The following month brought a photographic exhibit of ancient Maya to the library.
Then and now, Milner Library is recognized worldwide for its excellence, and drew an array of international visitors, like Phyllis C. Wang, a University of Illinois student who was also the acting librarian at Lingnan University in Canton, China. Wang visited ISU in December 1948 to “study library procedure,” in the words of the Bloomington Pantagraph. It was just one of many activities of note at Milner Library, a cherished facility at Illinois State that was busy that year, and every year before and since.
August 24
On this date in 1882, the 25th anniversary gala for Illinois State University began. The gala was one of the signature events in the early history of the University.
Illinois State was founded in 1857 as the state’s first public institution of higher learning and had survived the uncertainty of its first years, various financial woes, and a host of other issues.
Indeed, there was plenty to celebrate. At the time of the 25th anniversary celebration, 968 former Normal students were teaching in 88 of the 102 counties of Illinois. Another 104 held teaching positions in seventeen other states and territories.
In addition, many Normal graduates were superintendents of either county or city schools, while some had become college presidents.
Planning for the 25th anniversary gala had begun in May 1881, 15 months before. The festivities kicked off on Thursday evening, August 24 amid poor weather, though the large, enthusiastic crowd did not seem to care. A cornet solo was followed by an address from Charles Hovey, the first president of the University, who had returned from his home in Washington, D.C., for the occasion.
On Friday morning, the assembly room of Old Main “was crowded to its utmost capacity,” in the words of Normal graduate John Cook, who would later serve as the University president. Alumni, early educational leaders, and top citizens of Bloomington-Normal spent “nearly an hour … in having a good, old-fashioned sociable,” as Cook described.
Some alumni traveled great distances for the celebration, while one female graduate visited the campus for the first time since her graduation 18 years before. The crowd was rather raucous at times as everyone, in Cook’s words, “returned to the familiar halls to renew their allegiance to their ‘cherishing mother.’”
A string of addresses were part of the program, as was the alumni business meeting at 3 p.m. on Friday in the Philadelphian Hall. On the docket was a subscription for a memorial to Joseph Howell, a member of the Class of 1860, who was killed at the Civil War battle of Fort Donelson in 1862.
Cook, though, believed “the event of events” was the banquet, which was prepared by Miss Carrie Pennell, an undergraduate who lived off-campus in Normal. The hall was decorated with “festoons of evergreens” on the chandeliers, “flowers scattered about in profusion,” and a “shower from a fountain in the center of the hall [which] fell upon a huge circular basin filled with plants and blossoms.”
The deceased graduates of Normal were commemorated on tablets hung from the walls, while “class pictures, crayon designs, and various other appliances completed the decorations.” A local orchestra provided the music.
An impressive procession of alumni filed into the hall at 6 p.m., “taking their places at the tables by class.” Cook himself was master of ceremonies for the gathering, which numbered 220.
At the close of business, an array of toasts followed. Toasts were an integral part of 19th-century celebrations and dinners, and there were plenty in the gala at Normal. Many of the early graduating classes were toasted, and speakers were selected from each class. Among them were Enoch Gastman of the Class of 1860, who is considered the first student in ISU history, and John Burnham of the Class of 1861, who became a successful builder of iron bridges.
There was also Sarah Raymond of the Class of 1866, who was the Bloomington school superintendent. The dinner was another ground-breaking moment for the indomitable Raymond, as most of the other speakers were men.
Though the revelry was memorable, there was some regret at dignitaries who were unable to attend. Gov. Shelby Cullom had to cancel due to illness, giving his place to the lieutenant governor, John Hamilton. Not surprisingly, Hamilton was toasted by the crowd.
Another who received a toast was Dr. Newton Bateman, an early member of the Board of Education, who had to catch an afternoon train to his home in Galesburg. Cook wrote that Bateman was toasted, “a sentiment (that) was greeted with loud cheers.”
Jesse Fell, the business powerhouse who is responsible for the University being located in Normal, also could not attend. Fell was forced to leave for Iowa on business three days before the gala. Cook lamented that Fell’s absence was “a serious disappointment to the company.”
In his speech, Hovey told the crowd that “a goodly number of people have been engaged, at one time or another, in one way or another, in founding this great school.” It was an accurate statement, because the founders, early faculty, and students of Illinois State carved a path of success for generations to follow.
August 29
On this date in 1869, an expedition led by John Wesley Powell sailed out of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River in the first official exploration of the canyon. At the time, Powell was on the staff of Illinois State University, which helped pay for the expedition.
Today, Powell is considered one of the great scientific minds, as well as a foremost explorer in American history. But his burning ambition and personal ego helped end his time in Normal three years after the Grand Canyon expedition.
Born on March 24, 1834, in New Jersey, Powell studied at Wheaton College, Illinois College, and Oberlin College in Ohio before service in the Civil War. He lost his right arm at the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, but remained in service for the rest of the war.
In 1865, Powell joined the faculty at Illinois Wesleyan and became active in the Illinois Natural History Society, which had been established in Bloomington in 1858. The society’s museum was on the third floor of “Old Main,” the original campus building at Illinois State, and was renowned as one of the best geological collections outside of the East.
The museum was chronically disorganized, however. Sensing an opportunity, Powell persuaded the state to supply an annual appropriation, including money for a curator position. He received the appointment to the position in March 1867.
In his time at ISU, he also taught natural history and botany, though that was not his only connection to the University. Later that year, he organized an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, with a party that included former Normal graduate T.J. Burrill.
Many at the University were excited about Powell’s plans, including President Richard Edwards, who declared that “to the Normal University will belong the credit of having been among the first to explore (the West) in the interest of science.” On his journey, Powell provided regular letters to the Bloomington Pantagraph as residents shared the excitement over the expedition.
The University provided an appropriation to partially pay for the trip, which brought large quantities of specimens back to the museum at Normal. The massive amounts of new material, though, helped to further clutter the museum, which remained in a disorganized state.
Powell eventually resigned from Illinois Wesleyan and ostensibly focused on the museum in Old Main. However, he quietly accepted a professorship at the new Illinois Industrial University (now the University of Illinois), an event that few in Normal knew of.
Meanwhile, a second, larger Western expedition was planned, and Illinois State paid for part of that one as well, supplying $600. That journey, in 1868, is considered, in the words of one reference, “a prelude to the Grand Canyon voyage of 1869.”
The Grand Canyon voyage, which was also documented in letters to the Pantagraph, made Powell into a national celebrity. Illinois State provided $400 for that trip, which is considered the first official exploration of the canyon, a harrowing journey that not only threatened the lives of the party, but also resulted in a near-mutiny.
Powell returned to Bloomington, delivered a thrilling lecture at a local music academy, and spent several months focusing on his duties as curator. The expeditions had literally resulted in tons of materials added to the museum in Old Main, but most of it was uncatalogued, and strewn about in storage crates in the museum and the hallways. Some discussion was held about constructing a new, fireproof museum for the massive collections.
But Powell clearly had other ideas. He actually resigned his position at the Industrial University before filling it, and when that development came to light, many at Normal were rankled. Powell returned to the Colorado River in 1871, building his scientific reputation even further while his support at Normal suffered.
He bought a home in the nation’s capital in early June 1872, further making his intentions clear. Powell resigned as museum curator that June 28.
Powell, who died in 1902, went on to one of the most remarkable scientific careers in American history, holding longtime positions with the U.S. Geological Survey, the Smithsonian, and others. Back at Normal, the museum was transferred to the Industrial University in 1884.
Though Powell’s integrity is suspect, his impact on American science is indisputable, as is the role of Illinois State in supporting some of Powell’s ground-breaking expeditions that explored some of the nation’s treasured natural landmarks.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher who, in collaboration with Carl Kasten ’66, co-authored the 2020 book Abraham Lincoln and the Heritage of Illinois State University. Watch for another feature by Emery later this month focused on Redbirds who made Olympic history.
