Wayne State group seeks to unlock mysteries surrounding lonely, South Dakota monument

LINCOLN — On the windswept plains of South Dakota lies a lonely, century-old historical monument holding a literary mystery and wrapped up in a legal conundrum.

The concrete capsule honors mountain man Hugh Glass, who crawled, limped and rafted 200 miles after being mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his colleagues in 1823 near modern-day Lemmon, South Dakota.

The amazing story of survival and forgiveness was made into a Hollywood movie, “The Revenant,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and was immortalized in the 1915 epic poem by John Neihardt, “The Song of Hugh Glass.”

But the monument, inscribed as an “altar to courage,” holds many unanswered questions.

Could a valuable, undiscovered literary work from Neihardt be hidden inside it, or just a handwritten copy of his epic poem?

Did flooding decades ago destroy the “original manuscript” he left?

Will the block of poured concrete have to be destroyed to unlock the time capsule inside?

Who now owns the monument and could the entity give permission to do that?

And who would have rights to anything that might remain inside?

A group of students led by Wayne State College history professor Joseph Weixelman is aiming to find answers and is en route to the lonely monument site this week.

The monument was erected in 1923 by Neihardt and members of a Neihardt Club from the Nebraska Normal College, now Wayne State College.

The writer, in a special edition of the college newspaper, said he left an “original manuscript” in the “bosom” of the monument. Neihardt also issued a challenge to the college to return to the monument and “commemorate the bicentennial of Hugh Glass as he (Neihardt) celebrated the centennial,” Weixelman said.

So the professor and three students in a special summer course called “Neihardt and the American West” have embarked on a quest to do that.

Weixelman said that Neihardt, who paid tribute to the mountain man’s excruciating crawl in his epic poem, gave some specific instructions on how to mark the bicentennial.

“He gave us page numbers from his poem to read. We have to start a fire with flint and steel — not a match — and we have to give the ‘mountain man yell,’ whatever that is,” Weixelman said.

The group met Friday morning with a local sculptor, John Lopez, whose depiction of Glass and the attacking grizzly stands at a state recreation area near Lemmon, a northwest South Dakota town that holds a Hugh Glass Rendezvous every August.

In the afternoon, the students placed a new time capsule near the site of a South Dakota State Historical Marker which commemorates Glass’ “adventure.” Weixelman said that they will also play some games, maybe cards and a foot race, activities that would have been common at a fur trade rendezvous.

A major objective for the class, he said, will be to answer the question: “Is history an art or a science?”

“Historians talk about this all the time: Is the purpose of history to tell a good story, or is the purpose of history to get the story correct?” Wiexelman said.

Neihardt’s poem dramatizes the horror of the mauling, Glass’ struggle to survive and his eventual decision to not kill the men who left him behind.

Wiexelman said there have also been accounts that cast doubt on whether Glass crawled all the way to the Missouri River, suggesting that he was picked up by local Indians.

But what about the time capsule placed 100 years ago by Neihardt and his party inside the monument?

This is where the story gets a little sticky:

The monument was moved some time around 1951, when the Bureau of Reclamation acquired the private ranch where it was originally placed. It now sits on the shore of Shadehill Reservoir, at a state recreation area established there.

Weixelman said that raises a question about who owns the monument now, and who could grant permission to break into it to search for the time capsule and “original manuscript” Neihardt left.

A Bureau of Reclamation spokeswoman said Thursday that while the agency supports what the Wayne State group is doing, it is still researching who owns the monument and its contents and what needs to be done to crack into a historical monument.

“It is difficult to say how long this process will take,” said Elizabeth Smith of the Bureau’s regional office in Billings, Mont.

So, the 100-year-old time capsule, for now, will keep its secrets.

Weixelman speculated that Wayne State might have a claim since it was a college club — though now long gone — that erected it.

The Neihardt family might also own the manuscript, he said, or the Neihardt State Historic Site in Bancroft, a repository of Neihardt works and artifacts.

But there’s also a question about whether the manuscript has survived the decades.

Weixelman said that 20 years ago or so, the reservoir flooded, inundating the monument. Whether or not a paper manuscript inside a tin time capsule would have been destroyed is a good question, he said.

“We may open it up and we’ll find nothing in there that’s worth anything,” Weixelman said.

The professor said that on a recent trip to the Glass monument, he found a local resident who said he had lifted and moved the monument, with a backhoe, to its current location.

Weixelman said he learned that behind the monument’s plaque is solid concrete — so it’s not a “door” leading to the time capsule — and that the monument sounds like it is hollow.

That means it will have to be broken into to access the time capsule, which leads to another question: How would you do that without destroying its historic value?

Coralie Hughes, one of Neihardt’s granddaughters, said she can’t remember her grandfather talking about a time capsule or literary work he might have left in the monument. But, she said, she’s intrigued by the current quest.

Tim Anderson, Neihardt’s biographer and a retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln journalism professor, said that 20-30 people attended the dedication of the monument in 1923, including the head of the South Dakota State Historical Society and Julius House, a history professor at the college in Wayne.

Water had to be hauled four miles to the site of the construction by the Neihardt Club of Wayne, Anderson said, citing a 1939 letter about the event.

“By the light of the fire, House read passages from The Song of Hugh Glass to an audience huddled in army blankets; the wail of a coyote just as he read the line about ‘antiphonary chants’ of wolves brought the program to a fitting close,” stated Lucile F. Aly, in her 1977 biography of Neihardt.

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