Truman Everts was a 19th-century American public servant who took stewardship of money to some fairly impressive extremes.
Wilderness survival. A river of ink has been spilled on that thorny subject. “Survival Experts” of a variety of stripes have eked lucrative livings out of eating vile stuff on television in the name of besting nature. Reality is a bit different.
I spent more than my share of time in the boonies back when I was a soldier. On a couple of occasions, a handful of mates and I airlifted into the wilds of Alaska to spend a week living on Arctic grayling, ptarmigan, and whatever else we could scrounge. Don’t be impressed with that. Alaska in the summertime makes that pretty darn easy. If nothing else, the entire state is covered in a thin patina of berries.
I completed the Army’s Northern Warfare Mountain Survival course and the USAF Arctic Survival School. They called the latter “Cool School.” I would more accurately refer to it as the “US Air Force Food Appreciation Course.” I actually got hungry enough to eat a boiled rabbit, but that’s a story for another day.
The typical human can actually make it about 30 days without food. However, that’s in a safe, controlled environment. Do that in the 19th-century American wilderness, and something is going to eat your emaciated butt for dinner. Now, hold that thought …
Truman Everts’ wilderness adventures captivated America. This is an image from a period article on the subject.
The Guy
Born in 1816 in Burlington, Vermont, Truman Everts was one of six brothers. His Dad was a ship’s captain. During the American Civil War, Truman earned a position as assessor of Internal Revenue for the Montana Territory. Abraham Lincoln signed his appointment. He served in this role from 1864 until 1870.
I guess as a sort of retirement gift to himself, in 1870, Everts struck out as part of an expedition led by Nathaniel Langford and Henry Washborn into what would eventually become Yellowstone National Park. On September 9, Everts fell behind for some reason. In short order, he lost his packhorse along with most of his grub. Now bereft of both sustenance and equipment, Everts trekked along the southern shore of Yellowstone Lake in an effort at locating his comrades.
Meanwhile, Langford and Washborn were actively trying to find the lost tax man. They fired their weapons into the air and built giant fires. They had a pre-established rendezvous point. However, once the expedition arrived, there was no sign of Everts. Eventually, they just gave up.
Mount Everts in Yellowstone National Park named after Truman Everts.
A Serendipitous Turn of Events
On October 16, some 37 days after Everts wandered away from the group, a pair of local mountain men — George Pritchett and “Yellowstone Jack” Baronett — happened upon this half-dead tax assessor. The poor man was delirious, frostbitten, and burned from hovering around natural geothermal vents in an effort to keep warm. He weighed a mere ninety pounds.
Baronett and Pritchett had actually been dispatched to recover Everts’ body. Imagine their surprise when they discovered him wandering about, delirious, some 50 miles from where he had first become separated from his party. One of the two rescuers stayed behind to help nurse Everts back to health while the other trekked a further 75 miles to get help.
Everts had subsisted mostly on raw thistle roots. This particular plant was subsequently named “Everts’ Thistle” in his honor. Henry Washburn later christened a mountain peak near Mammoth Hot Springs “Mount Everts” in recognition of his remarkable feat of survival. Everts penned a book titled “Thirty-Seven Days of Peril” that gained him some modest notoriety. However, all was not unicorns and butterflies for Truman Everts.
Everts harrowing adventure still available in print.
Those two mountain men weren’t out hunting Everts’ moldy old corpse just for giggles. There was a reward for his recovery. However, Everts himself insisted that the reward not be disbursed. He claimed that he had been fine and would have successfully walked out under his own steam if only they had let him be.
Given his fame, Everts was offered the position of first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. While this was a prestigious thing, Everts turned down the offer as it paid quite literally nothing. He instead took a job in a post office in Hyattsville, Maryland. This unkillable guy eventually succumbed to pneumonia in his home in 1901. In the end, Truman Everts was indeed ever the tight-fisted tax man.