Saturday, March 11, 2023

Western Surveyor, Map Maker, and Explorer, Hubert Page

Hubert DeForest Page is my great-grandfather.  He was born in 1865, three miles from the shores of Lake Ontario, in Richland, Oswego County, New York.  By age five, he had moved with his family to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he attended school.  After high school, he started working in the office of county surveyor H. I. Bliss. This was to be the start of his career as a noted surveyor, map maker, and civil engineer.  


 

Hubert married my great-grandmother, Emma Kaiser, in Box Elder County, Utah, in 1890.  My great-grandmother was a seamstress, making her wedding dress and most of her other clothing.  She made a lovely dress for a dance she was going to attend and this is where she first met Hubert. 

      
                                             Emma Kaiser and Hubert Page Wedding
                                                          Collection of the author

Their union would lead this couple and their eight children on years of adventures around the western United States.  Their first son, Hubert, was born in Vancouver, Washington.  The rest of the children were born in Utah and Idaho.  The 1890 census shows Hubert as being a surveyor operating out of Brigham City.   

 

Returning from an 1892 survey for the government in the Blue and La Sal mountains of southeastern Utah, Hubert said, “he is deeply impressed by the future possibilities in the La Sals and predicts great mining activity in that section.”  An 1896 newspaper article from Salt Lake City notes the return of the family from California, “where they have been living for the past few months.”  Another article notes that H.D. Page was running the field crew in 1896, surveying a route for the Salt Lake and Pacific railroad into Deep Creek territory in western Utah, along the Nevada border.  This was a short spur route going into the gold fields surrounding Gold Hill. 


                                                        newspapers.com

In 1899, Hubert Page and James Lentz were subdividing the southeasterly most township in Utah.  While completing the survey in the area of the Four Corners, they discovered the original Chandler Robbin’s monument for the corner was broken and disturbed.  Page and Lentz marked and set a new stone in the original location of Robbin’s marker.

 

                                                           Four Corners Marker
                                                        Creative Commons Zero

By 1902, the family had moved to Salt Lake City, where Hubert was listed in several city directories as a civil, hydraulic, and mining engineer. He went to San Francisco in April to submit a bid for the grading of the Ogden-Lucin railroad cut-off west of the Great Salt Lake.  The work was expected to cost $350,000.  Later, in 1902, Hubert was surveying various mining claims in the Deep Creek region, where he had been involved in developing the spur railroad line.  He describes a find of a high-grade lead-silver deposit in the region of Dutch Mountain.


                                                                Hubert D. Page
                                                           Collection of the author

In June 1905, a large article was printed in the Salt Lake Herald regarding the opening of the Uinta Indian Reservation.  The article was technical in nature, referring to various legal descriptions of the area.  It was some time before I realized the map that was printed with the article was the same map I had framed on my wall.  He would later sell copies of the map to settlers for 55 cents. The map was made to facilitate opening Ute land to white settlers. 


                                                      Page Map of High Unitah
                                                        Collection of the author


 By 1906, Hubert was involved in a very large project called the Payette-Boise Irrigation Project.  This included building the New York Canal.  Hundreds of men and some women were employed on the project. Total costs for the project were expected to exceed $7,800,000.  Funding for this project had always been problematic.  The original private developers ran out of money, and the federal government did not pay their bills in a timely manner.  My great-grandfather had to get some of his payment through a special congressional bill shepherded through Congress by his senator. 


                                                                 New York Canal
                                                           Collection of the author

Page Camp Cookhouse
Collection of the author

Hubert had been to Washington D. C. several times pursuing claims against the U. S.  Government for lack of compensation for the Payette-Boise Irrigation Project.   C. C. Calhoun was his lawyer during these disputes with the government.  He wrote letters home describing his trials and tribulations, including his deteriorating health.  He also kept a small journal.

                                                   Page 1913 Journal                                                     
                                           Collection of Hubert "De" Page

A frustrated and worn-out Hubert died on his final trip to Washington on the 21st of June 1913 with my great-grandmother, Emma, by his side.  He was 47 years old.  Hubert was a 32nd-degree Mason.  My great-grandmother enlisted the assistance of the Masons in procuring transportation by train back home to Idaho, where he was laid to rest in the Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise.

                                                              
     Page Family
                                                            Collection of the author


I used dozens of newspaper articles to flesh out the details of Hubert's life.  Hubert became a true Westerner.  He rode by horseback to many of his assignments and camped under the stars while he worked.  He would be gone for many days, even months, while he pursued his work, leaving Emma at home alone to raise their children.

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