Emmons family.

George Foster Emmons, a career officer, began training at the Brooklyn naval school in 1828. Upon completing his studies in 1834, he married Antonia Thornton, daughter of Francis Anthony Thornton, who was head purser of the United States Navy.

From 1830-33, Emmons served on the frigate Brandywine cruising in the Mediterranean. His next assignment took him to South America where Emmons would spend most of his career. He served on several ships before 1838 when he joined the Wilkes expedition exploring Antarctic. He returned to South America for most of the 1840s, although in 1847 he was sent to the Pacific division to patrol the California coast. In the 1850s Emmons alternated between commanding the frigate Savannah off South America and serving in the naval Bureau of Construction and Equipment, Washington, D.C. During the Civil War, Emmons guarded the Texas coast as part of the West Gulf Blockade Squadron. In 1866 he became captain of the U.S.S. Ossipee in the North Pacific Squadron and the following year escorted the American commissioners to take official possession of Alaska.

Emmons last duty was commandant of the Navy Yard in Philadelphia in 1870-72. He attained the rank of commodore in 1868; in 1872 he was promoted to rear admiral and retired from active service.

Emmons spent the early part of his career gathering data on the navy which was published The Navy of the United States, from the commencement, 1775 to 1853; with a brief history of each vessel's service and fate as appears upon record (1853).

George Thornton Emmons, son of George Foster Emmons, was a career officer who graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1874. His first posts were aboard ships attached to the European Station. Emmons attained the rank of master in 1881 and became a lieutenant in 1883.

In 1882, Emmons was transferred to the U.S.S. Pinta, which was stationed in Alaska. He continued on duty in Alaska until 1891 and served there again in 1894-96. In Sitka, Alaska, he met and married Kittie Baker in 1886. During this period, Emmons collected artifacts and compiled notes on the natives of southeastern Alaska, especially the Tlingit and Tahltan Indians. From 1891-93 Emmons was assigned to the Interior Department as a special agent to accompany the Alaskan exhibit in the World's Columbian Exposition. Most of Emmons's subsequent duty was determined by his Alaskan experience.

Emmons was retired from active service in 1899 and ordered on a series of special projects for various branches of the federal government. The State Department sent Emmons to Alaska in 1901 to locate Russian stone markers which were crucial to the resolution of a boundary dispute between Canada and the United States. He gathered evidence from Indians and white settlers through 1904. In 1902 the Department of Agriculture asked for Emmons's advice regarding Alaskan game and forests, while the Treasury Department requested information on Alaskan salmon fisheries. Starvation among the Copper River Indians led Emmons in 1904 to ask President Roosevelt for permission to investigate conditions among Alaskan natives. Roosevelt supported him, and in 1905 Emmons's report was presented to Congress.

Emmons's interest in Alaskan Indians brought him into close association with the American Museum of Natural History. He had amassed a large collection of Alaskan Indian artifacts which he sold to the museum in the 1890s, and continued to sell, donate, or exchange items with the museum for the next three decades. In 1896 F. W. Putnam, curator of the American museum, asked the navy for Emmons's help on a report about the Alaskan Indians. The following year the museum repeated its request, and this time the navy not only acquiesced, but officially ordered Emmons to write "Ethnological report on the Native tribes of Southeastern Alaska, elaborated from the museum collections" and detached him from active service. Emmons became a regular contributor to The American Museum Journal (forerunner of Natural History ) and other scholarly periodicals. He corresponded regularly with Franz Boas, a member of the museum's anthropology department, and with P. E. Goddard, curator of ethnology.

From the guide to the Emmons family papers, 1821-1925, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)