William Henry Holmes

William Henry Holmes (December 1, 1846 – April 20, 1933), known as W. H. Holmes, was an American explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, scientific illustrator, cartographer, mountain climber, geologist and museum curator and director.

Early life and education

William Henry Holmes was born on a farm near Cadiz, in Harrison County, Ohio, to Joseph and Mary Heberling Holmes on December 1, 1846. One of his forebears was the Rev. Obadiah Holmes, who emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts in 1638. William Henry Holmes graduated from the McNeely Normal School, Hopedale, Ohio in 1870 and afterward briefly taught drawing, painting, natural history, and geology at the school. In 1889 the school awarded him an honorary A.B. (Bachelor of Arts) degree. Later, in 1918, Holmes received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. for his work and achievements.

Hayden Survey

In 1871, he went to Washington, D.C., to study art under Theodore Kaufmann. His talent soon came to the attention of the scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, notably Fielding Bradford Meek, and Holmes was employed drawing and sketching fossil shells and shells of live mollusks. In 1872, Holmes became an artist/topographer with the government survey of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, replacing Thomas Moran. His first trip out West was to the newly established Yellowstone National Park. During the 1870s, Holmes gained a national reputation as a scientific illustrator, cartographer, pioneering archaeologist, and geologist. His work on the laccolith influenced Grove Karl Gilbert's own work on the same. In the field, Holmes worked closely with the photographer William H. Jackson and back in Washington he helped produce Hayden's great achievement, the Geological and Geographical Atlas of Colorado, And Portions of Adjacent Territory (1877, 1881).