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Show -y . W . , . - ' V ? . " - i W .4 ) This W6 photo shos o,m,- 1U1I Mow land and his family returning from Passing of "Beaver Bill" Howland Marks An nc o on Era on the Green River ' C - - F-rV 0 4?,- V.-. - t i p i -t r - r . Long-time Green River resident Bill Howlandpass-ed Howlandpass-ed away Oct. 16. His passing marked the end of an era in Green River boating history. By Pearl Baker With the passing of William W. Howland on October 1G, a ch.iptcr of river lore of the Green - Colorado closed. "Beaver Eiill" added a great deal of color to this area with his river stories, and the Friendship Cruise next year will not be quite the same without him. The llowl.inds came to this country before the turn of the century. Harry Howland, Bill's father, went through with his father when he was just a child. He returned a few years later and married Mary (Mamie) Ross, who had grown up here, partlyon Valentine Val-entine Bottom on the Green, which her sister-in-law Paddy Pad-dy Ross, and her husband Joe lud homesteaded. The Rosses had planned to open a resort there when boating was becoming be-coming a going thing, with the Undine planning 1o plv from Green River to Moab and back. The Undine sank above Moab. and the project was abandoned, so the Rosses moved out of Valentine Bottom. Bot-tom. Worked on Railroad Harry Howland worked on the railroad most of his life, one of his first jobs being to furnish game and fish for the crews and for the boarding houses along the line. He hunted hun-ted and fished first in Nevada and then in Colorado, and it is said his catches from Fish Lake in Utah, w hich he salted and cured for transportation to the railroad later, ran many hundreds of pounds. When that era closed, he moved mov-ed to Green River where he worked operating the pumping pump-ing plant while his boys were growing up. Born in 1896 Bill was born in Denver, March 6, 1896, and he had two younger brothers, Harry (Babe) and Vassar. Oneofthe pictures in the family album shows the family going down the river in a heavily laden ,xad, with Bill, about ten years old, pulling one set of oars and his father the other. Lashed on the back of the load is an old coaloil lantern. In 1911, when he was 15, Bill set out in a rowboat to spend a while on the river. He took some staples and his 30-30 rifle, and planned to live off the land. He floated down to the confluence and then rowed up to Moab, being probably the youngest river rat to accomplish this. When Vassar was a baby in 1910, the family boated down to the mouth of Indian Creek for a trip, returning toGreen River. At that time they were probably either hunting beaver bea-ver country or just exploring the river. Howlands held one of the earliest permits to trap beaver, probably getting it as soon as it was required. Bill and his brother Babe trapped all the time when they were kids, and Bill was still running run-ning a trapline as late as the 1940's. Their permit covered the river from the bridge at Green River to the mouth of Indian Creek. Married in 1920 Bill and Marjorie Dufford were married at Elgin, at the Dufford home, on March 12, 1920. They lived for a while in the Howland home in Elgin, then bought the Dufford place, which has been home since the boys were small. They had three boys, Billy, Jr., Samuel Sam-uel E. and Lee A., all of whom survive. Marjorie also is still living and four grandchildren and one great -grandchild survive him. Began Ranching Bill managed the Midland Garage for more than 25 years, then retired and began l ancliiun, which he had always wnuted to do. He bought the Henry Wilcox ranch, and ranged ran-ged cattle and sheep on the public domain also. He was u veteran of WWI, and a member of the Ameri-' can Legion Post 102; he also Mimed to the Kastern Utah Cattle-grower's Association and was u member of Orient Lodge No. 15, '& AM. In 1970, the family held open house for the ltowland's 50th Wedding Anniversary, and people aame from all over the country to pay their respects. re-spects. Sports writers and boaters boat-ers all over the country knew Heaver Bill well, and enjoyed en-joyed his many river stories. Kdwiu Bauer printed a picture pic-ture of him in "Outdoors" magazine, acclaiming him as one of the ten best guides he had ever had; Bill was the only guide from the United States, and the others were from all over the world, even Africa. Many magazine ar ticles have been written around ar-ound him and his exploration of the river, and the people who looked forward each year to meeting him during the Friendship Cruise time will miss Iii in greatly. They won't hear his wonderful stories, like this one, told to Mike Korologos of the Salt Lake Tribune: "In 1925, my brother Vassar Vas-sar and 1 were on the river, just boating and hiking ami exploring and we found a Mokl cave that had never been discovered dis-covered before. We spent some time in it, although we didn't really disturb it much. Usually we didn't take anything any-thing out of the Moki caves, but we found a flat rock in tliis one with what looked to us like a map carved on it. We took it back to camp, intending to bring it back home, but somehow I forgot it and have never been able to find it since. It sure was interesting." Bill was a true ecologist long before most of us knew what the word meant, and few men knew the rivers as did Beaver Bill, and his love of the outdoor and its little wild people set him apart as one of Canyon-lands' Canyon-lands' really great men. |