Ephraim George Squier

Ephraim George Squier

Squier 1870

Ephraim George Squier (born June 17, 1821 in Bethlehem , New York , † April 17, 1888 in New York City ) was an American journalist, newspaper publisher, engineer, diplomat and pioneer of archeology in North America .

Life

Squier came from the family of a Methodist preacher. Due to a lack of financial resources, he received little formal education at the age of three in a secondary school. At the age of 19 he founded a poetry magazine, which was unsuccessful. His second founding, Poet's Magazine in 1842 in the state capital Albany , only saw two issues. Since 1841 he was the assistant editor of the New York State Mechanic , a workers magazine with political claims. He also edited an influential book by George Tradescant Lay, a British scientist and diplomat, on his reflections on Chinese culture. In 1844 he co-founded the Hartford Journal , a newspaper that clearly positioned itself on the side of longtime Whig politician Henry Clay . Squier and the Journal were a major contributor to Clay's election victory in Connecticut , but he lost at the federal level. Squier went to Chillicothe , Ohio and became editor of the Scioto Gazette . He worked full time as a secretary for the Connecticut government and studied at Princeton College , where he graduated in engineering in 1848. In his spare time, he explored prehistoric, Native American earthworks in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers . Together with Edwin H. Davis , he founded the scientific and archaeological research into the elongated ramparts and mounds , artificial mounds of earth that had developed from graves and are now assigned to the Hopewell culture and the Mississippi culture . They dug around 200 mounds and 100 other facilities. The Mound City Group that he excavated is now the core of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park . In 1848 they published the work Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley as the first volume in the series of the newly formed Smithsonian Institution . An abstract was published in Transactions , the scientific journal of the Ethnological Society , at the instigation of Albert Gallatin . Squier went back to New York and also excavated there on behalf of Smithsonian and the New York Historical Society, from which the band Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York emerged .

In 1848 Henry Clay lost in the Whig Party primary to Zachary Taylor , who subsequently won the presidential election. Squier was in 1849 in recognition of his services to the party to the charge d'affaires of the United States in Guatemala and Nicaragua appointed, where he successfully attempts Britain counteracted, their reserve boundaries Mosquitia expand at the expense of Nicaragua. In addition, he conducted two archaeological expeditions in Central America and brought stone steles back to the Smithsonian Museums. On his return he published The Serpent Symbol and the Reciprocal Principles of Nature , a book on the symbolic power of the snake. The subject came from his discovery of the Serpent Mound in Ohio in 1846. He also wrote a two-volume work on Nicaragua. Having become prominent through his publications, he traveled to Europe several times in the early 1850s at the invitation of scientific societies and received various honors there. Since then he has been a corresponding member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory . From 1853 to 1855 he worked for a railway project in Honduras , which was never realized. During that time, other books on Central America with an emphasis on ethnography, economics and geography were published.

In 1857 he married Miriam Florence Follin and turned back to journalism. For the publishing empire of Frank Leslie gave Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and wrote himself a variety of topics. At this time he was considered a member of New York high society . From 1863 to 1864 Squier was able to go to Peru as Commissioner of the Union States , where he carried out further excavations. Back in New York, he prepared several publications on his findings, but was sidetracked by his resumption of work for Leslie. At that time he was editing the first two volumes of Frank Leslie's Pictorial History of the American Civil War . In 1868 Squier was appointed Consul General of Honduras in New York. In 1871 he became the founder and president of the short-lived Anthropological Institute of New York . His wife divorced him in 1873 and married Frank Leslie the following year. Squier suffered a nervous breakdown that led to a serious mental illness. His stepbrother and guardian Frank Squier supported him so much that he was able to publish a book on Peru in 1877 and a short work on Honduras in 1880. He died in Frank Squier's Brooklyn home in 1888.

Publications

• Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848)
• Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York (1851)
• The Serpent Symbol and the Reciprocal Principles of Nature (1851)
• Nicaragua: Its People, Scenery, Monuments, and Proposed Interoceanic Canal (1852) - also German as The Central American State of Nicaragua: in relation to its people, its nature, etc. its monuments; together with a detailed treatise on the projected interocean channel. Translated by Eduard Hoepfner, Leipzig, Dyk Verlag, 1854
• Notes on Central America (1855)
• Waikna, or Adventures on the Mosquito Shore (1855)
• The States of Central America (1858) - also German as The States of Central America: In particular Honduras, San Salvador ud Mosquito Coast . Published by Karl Andree, Leipzig, Senf Verlag, 1865
• Monograph of Authors Who Have Written on the Languages ​​of Central America (1861)
• Peru: Incidents and Explorations in the Land of the Incas (1877) - also German as Peru: Travel and research experiences in the land of the Incas . Leipzig, Spohr Verlag, 1883
• Honduras and British Honduras (1880)

literature

• Robert E. Bieder: Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology. University of Oklahoma Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8061-1995-0

Web links

• New York Times: Death of EG Squier , April 18, 1888

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, this chapter is based on: Terry A. Barnhart: Ephraim George Squier . In: American National Biography Online , February 2000 (online: Ephraim George Squier - limited access database)
2. ^ ^{A b} Obituary in the New York Times: Death of EG Squier , April 18, 1888
3. ^ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley . 1848. Retrieved July 29, 2013.