Richard D Cotter

Richard D. Cotter, also known as Dick Cotter, (September 17, 1842 - March 12, 1927) was born in Ireland. He was a member of the first California Geological Survey.

Background

He was orphaned and emigrated to the United States in 1850 with his brother John, who moved to Bowling Green, Missouri. There were at least three other siblings - Jeremiah and James Cotter and Mary Cotter Leahey. [The Helena Independent, page 3 "Estate of R.D. Cotter ordered distributed by District Judge" September 26, 1928]

Cotter was taken in from an orphan's home and educated by John C. Sutton, a St. Louis, Missouri blacksmith, farmer and inventor of the Sutton plow. At the age of 18, Cotter asked Sutton for permission to go west and seek his fortune in the gold mines as some of the Suttons had done. [ [http://www.his.state.mt.us Montana Historical Society The Sutton Papers - Box 3] ] Instead, scouts of the Whitney Surveying party offered him a job and Cotter took a position as packer on the California Geological Survey under Josiah Whitney from 1862 to 1864. Hired as a packer, Cotter did not actually know much about packing, but caught on quickly.cite book
last = Farquhar
first = Francis
authorlink = Francis P. Farquhar
title = History of the Sierra Nevada
publisher = University of California Press
date = 2007-10-01
location = Berkeley, California
pages = 134
isbn = 978-0520253957] Clarence King called Cotter "our man-of-all-work, to whom science already owes its debts".cite book
last = King
first = Clarence
authorlink = Clarence King
title = Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada
publisher = Kessinger Publishing Co
date = 2007-01-17
pages = 25
url = http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/mountaineering_in_the_sierra_nevada/02.html
isbn = 978-1430497301 ] and described him as "Stout of limb, stronger yet in heart, of iron endurance, and a quiet unexcited temperament, and better yet, devoted to me, I felt that Cotter was the one comrade I would choose to face death with, for I believed there was in his manhood no room for fear or shirk."cite book
last = King
first = Clarence
authorlink = Clarence King
title = Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada
publisher = Kessinger Publishing Co
date = 2007-01-17
pages = 90
url = http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/mountaineering_in_the_sierra_nevada/03.html
isbn = 978-1430497301 ] and, "in all my experience of mountaineering I have never known an act of such real, profound courage as this of Cotter's."cite book
last = King
first = Clarence
authorlink = Clarence King
title = Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada
publisher = Kessinger Publishing Co
date = 2007-01-17
pages = 51
url = http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/mountaineering_in_the_sierra_nevada/04.html
isbn = 978-1430497301 ] In the "Exploration of the Sierra Nevada", Francis Farguhar describes Cotter as, "an indomitable mountain-climber whose Services were of great value in more than one branch of the work".cite book
last = Farquhar
first = Francis
authorlink = Francis P. Farquhar
title = Exploration of the Sierra Nevada
publisher = California Historical Society
date = 1925
pages = 18
isbn = B0000D6C22 ]

Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous states was first discovered in July 1864 by Clarence King and Richard Cotter.cite book
last = Hill
first = Mary
title = Geology of the Sierra Nevada
pages = 99
publisher = University of California Press
isbn = 0520236955]

After Cotter completed the mapping in Yosemite late 1864, he signed up to work on the Western Union Telegraph Expedition to British Columbia and Alaska, with the goal of providing a telegraph link from Asia through Alaska by way of Bering Strait. The project was abandoned in July 1866, when completion of the submarine Atlantic cable established a link from the United States to Europe. However, the public interest stimulated by the Alaskan project is credited with influencing the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million.cite book
last = Moore
first = James Gregory
title = King of the 40th Parallel: Discovery in the American West
publisher = Stanford University Press
date = 2006-02-15
location = Stanford, California
isbn = 978-0804752237 ]

Cotter joined Clarence King on the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel in 1867, resigned after two years and settled in York just outside Helena, Montana. In 1875 he travelled to Washington Territory and kept a short diary. [ [http://mtscprod.msl.mt.gov/uhtbin/cgisirsi/5JCFkujFNs/MT-HIST/75590479/88 Richard D. Cotter Diary - Montana Historical Society] ]

Among his occupations in York, he had been a Sunday School superintendent, postmaster, mine owner, ranch owner and a Justice of the Peace. He spent the last eight years of his life in the county hospital in Helena where he died on March 12, 1927. [ [http://mtscprod.msl.mt.gov/uhtbin/cgisirsi/5JCFkujFNs/MT-HIST/75590479/88 Richard D. Cotter Diary - Montana Historical Society] ]

Mount Cotter, located in the Kings Canyon National Park is named after Cotter.

References

External links

* [http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/up_and_down_california/ Up and Down California in 1860-1864 by William H. Brewer]
* [http://www.mohistory.org/content/LibraryAndResearch/DownloadFiles/SuttonPapers.pdf The Sutton Papers] (PDF)
* [http://www.his.state.mt.us Montana Historical Society]
* [http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/302847/mount-cotter.html Mount Cotter]
* [http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/up_and_down_california/images/5-1-4.jpgPicture of Richard Cotter]
* [http://online.wr.usgs.gov/outreach/highlights/enlarged/cotterpole.html Fortieth Parallel Survey Picture 1967]