Stanton, R. L. (Robert Lodowick), 1810-1885

Epithet: of Birchmore, county Bedfordshire; Sheriff of county Bedfordshire

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000245.0x00007b

Robert Brewster Stanton, civil and mining engineer, was born in Woodville, Mississippi on August 5, 1846, the son of Robert Livingston Stanton (1810-1885), Presbyterian clergyman, and Anna Maria Stone. His father, a descendant of Thomas Stanton, one of the founders of Stonington, Connecticut, was educated for the ministry at Lane Seminary in Kentucky and held pastoral posts at Blue Ridge (1839-1841) and Woodville (1841-1843) Mississippi, at New Orleans, Louisiana (1843-1851), and at Chillicothe, Ohio (1855-1862). From 1866 to 1871 he served as president of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. Previously, he had been president of Oakland College in Mississippi (1851-1854), and professor of pastoral theology and homiletics in Danville Theological Seminary (1862-1866).

During the Civil War years the Stanton family resided for a time in Washington, D.C. where the father's friendship with President Lincoln earned the young Stanton numerous meetings with the president. These encounters as well as other memories of his childhood in the deep South and later life are recorded in his manuscript reminiscences.

Robert Brewster Stanton was graduated from Miami University in 1871 with the A.M. degree. The same year he became an assistant engineer on the survey and location of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in Indian Territory. From 1872 to 1880 he was employed as resident engineer on the location and construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad through the Cumberland Mountains between Cincinnati and Chatanooga. During the next four years (1880-1884) Stanton was division engineer on the Union Pacific Railway in charge of all work in Colorado (excepting for the South Park Road). During this time he also served as chief engineer of the Georgetown, Breckinridge and Leadville Railway in which capacity he was responsible for building the “Georgetown Loop” railway.

His work as a consulting engineer in private practice upon which he was engaged from 1884 until his retirement took him to various parts of the United States, and to Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the East Indies. Traces of his varied professional and business activities appear in his personal papers under such headings as `Cuban Manganese Properties', `Great Bras d'Or Gold Mining Company', `Tripple Trip Mining Company', and the like.

The great adventure of his life, however, began in Denver in 1889 when he became involved in a scheme to build a railroad through the canyons of the Colorado to the Gulf of California. As chief engineer of the newly-formed Denver, Colorado Cañon and Pacific Railroad Company Stanton was eventually to lead a survey party through the Grand Canyon, becoming, after the Major Powell party of 1869, the second such party in history to navigate successfully the perilous gorges. The vicissitudes of the voyage are recorded in his field notes and in a book published after his death ( Down the Colorado edited by Dwight L. Smith, 1965) which was edited from his voluminous manuscript, The River and the Canyon, large sections of which still remain unpublished.

In addition to his work on the Colorado Stanton wrote a rough draft of his reminiscences and published several articles and monographs relating to his Canyon voyage.

In 1881 he was married to Jean Oliver Moore of Denver, Colorado. They had 5 children: Robert Brewster, Jr., Harold, Edwin, Jean and Anne who married Lewis Sayre Burchard. Stanton died in 1922.

From the guide to the Robert Brewster Stanton papers, 1851-1960, 1890-1950, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)