Richard Cotter

It was in the latter half of the 19^th century, during and after the 'Golden Age of Alpinism' that the exploration of the Alps reached its climax. Invariably, this drive to climb mountains was undertaken by people of substantial means. It required considerable resources to finance travel to the Alps, to spend at least a couple of weeks there and then pay the fees of the local guides and porters in order to attempt a particular climb. These local men who lived in the mountains and were familiar with the terrain may, themselves, have had little inclination to reach summits but through their work with the wealthy 'tourists' they soon became accomplished mountaineers in their own right. Their services as guides allowed them to become summiteers without having the wealth of their employers.

Richard Cotter

It seems unlikely that any Irish man would fit into this category. The impecunious John Tyndall must be ruled out. On his first visit to the Alps he 'got by very cheaply' but by the time he was attempting summits he had significant funds at his disposal.

It is Richard (Dick) Cotter who fits the bill perfectly. He was born in 1842 in Macroom, possibly in the townland of Coolnafiddane (Coolinadane), but in 1849 he was on an emigrant ship, the Bridgetown, from Cork to New Orleans, where they landed on 26^th December 1849 with his mother and siblings along with 260 other passengers. There seems to be some uncertainty about his family – the ship's passenger list indicates that his mother and two sisters accompanied him. Another source claims that he had three brothers before he left for the USA. A father is not mentioned and it seems likely that the family was traveling to join the father, who had already emigrated.

The complete family appears in the US census for 1850 in Springfield, Ohio. The father, James, is a labourer, aged forty four, and Richard, recorded as aged ten, is attending school. The mother, Mary was thirty three and there were three siblings, Ellen (aged 8), John (aged 4) and Mary (aged 2), all born in Ireland What happened to them after that in unclear but James C. Sutton, a rancher and businessman, is recorded as having 'taken Richard from an orphans home in St Louis and gave him a home and such education as the Sutton children received.' He may also have adopted Richard's siblings. At the age of eighteen Richard asked Sutton for permission to go west and seek his fortune in the gold mines, as some of the Sutton boys had already done.

Cotter on tent.  USGS

He didn't succeed in 'striking it rich' but was hired instead as a 'packer' on the California Geological Survey, from 1860-64, under Josiah Whitney its director and they were among the first non native people to visit the now famous Yosemite Valley. Initially he didn't show much skill in the work of packing the mules but learned quickly and became a firm friend of Clarence King, a member of the survey team.

In King's 'Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada' he describes his friend as 'our man-of-all work, to whom science already owes its debt'. As to his character he was 'stout of limb, stronger yet of heart, of iron endurance and of a quiet unexcited temperament...I felt that Cotter was one comrade I would choose to face death with, for I believed there was in his manhood no room for fear or shirk'.

Mt Tyndall from
Shepherd's Pass

Mt Tyndall

 This opinion was tested in 1864. It was during 'the first extensive exploration of the hitherto vaguely known regions of the High Sierra' when together, Cotter and King set out on a five day expedition from the survey's base camp in the Sierras to attempt to climb the highest peaks in the region. The summits had been declared impossible and inaccessible by the pair's companions. Undaunted, they set out with improvised rucksacs, each carrying forty pounds of supplies. They reached what appeared to be the highest summit after much tribulation only to see that there was another, higher peak ( later named Mt Whitney). By their records theirs was, to then, the highest mountain measured in the country. They returned to the camp but not before each had put his life in the hands of the other on the steep granite walls of the Sierras. As King recalled in his book, 'in all my experience of mountaineering I have never known an act of such real, profound courage as this of Cotter's.' 

 Their summit they named Mt Tyndall after the celebrated Irish alpinist. They had been familiar with Tyndall's Alpine exploits through his writing and King wrote to Tyndall informing him of their feat and the naming of the mountain in his honour, even inviting him to visit their camp in the Sierras.......

When the Survey of California was completed in 1864 Cotter joined the Western Union Telegraphic Expedition to British Columbia and Alaska from 1864 to 1867. This was the attempt to provide a telegraph link between Europe and America via Alaska and the Bering Strait. Cotter worked on the Russian American (i.e Alaskan) section of the expedition and wrote a report from Norton Bay on its progress in the Spring of 1866. They had worked through the severe conditions of the Alaskan winter unaware that the work was being superseded by the transatlantic cable that was completed in July 1866.The Russian American project was abandoned in 1867. Despite its apparent failure it has been regarded as the major reason for the purchase of Alaska by the United Sates....

 In a local newspaper article of 1923, L.A. Osborn described the 'Passing of the Placer Miner' noted that 'Cotter lived in a little, low, log cabin..(in Jimtown)...he was the most fearless, bluff, outspoken man I ever knew. He had a deep religious tinge under all his high-fallutingness. He never drank...and has never received credit enough...(for his exploration of the Sierras and Alaska)'.

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Gravestone.  Findagrave.com

Signature. Smithsonian Inst.

Outside the Alps

Bryce.  Wikipedia

 The Golden Age of Alpinism is generally agreed to have ushered in a sustained period of mountain climbing in the Alps that made fashionable the idea of mountaineering as a sporting activity.  In the period between 1854 and 1865 thirty six summits higher than 4,000m (13,000 ft) were first climbed, 31 of them by British parties and their guides: we have seen that a significant number of the climbers were Irish.  

A notable feature of the people undertaking this activity was that they were wealthy.  It required substantial financial resources to travel to the Alps, spend at least a couple of weeks there and to hire the necessary porters and guides to undertake expeditions that may have lasted for a number of days.  John Tyndall's initial foray to the mountains may have been an exception because he 'got by very cheaply' but that was before he did 'serious' climbing.

The local people who climbed summits did so mainly at the behest of the 'wealthy tourists' who employed them as guides and porters because their knowledge and experience gained through hunting and other activities.

Russell. Wikipedia

Cotter

Many of the 'summiteers' wrote of the experiences and the result was that  the interest in climbing mountains spread to many other regions in the years following the Golden Age.  Some of the Irish who were involved in the second half of the 19th Century were the following and not all were wealthy:

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Richard Cotter in North America.

James Bryce in many places

Henry Russell in the Pyrenees.

William Spotswood Green in Canada and New Zealand.

More about all these to follow.

John Tyndall

 John Tyndall has been regarded as Ireland's first Great Mountaineer.

Born in Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow, in 1820/21 (he wasn't sure himself), after attending a local National school he joined the Ordnance Survey as a Civil Assistant working in Carlow and Cork before transferring to northern England  during the railway mania of the mid 1840s.  After this he worked briefly as a teacher at Queenwood College in Hampshire before going to Marburg in Germany, taking a doctorate at the University there.  It was from Marburg that he first visited the Alps.  On his return to England he spent a short time at Queenwood school, gave a brilliant lecture to the Royal Institution in 1853 and soon after was appointed as its Professor of Natural Philosophy and took over from Michael Faraday as superintendent there in 1867.

The Ascent of John Tyndall by Roland Jackson is the first major biography for over 70 years, in which he paints a detailed portrait of John Tyndall and his world and describes both Tyndall's scientific achievements and his major mountaineering expeditions.

It was on his return to the Alps in 1856 along with Thomas Huxley for research purposes, that his passion for the mountains really began and although he never neglected the scientific aspects he later declared that 'glaciers and mountains have an interest for me beyond the scientific ones, they have been for me the well-springs of life and joy.'

The Weisshorn is regarded by some as the finest peak in the Alps because of its scale and shape and
relative remoteness.  Its first ascent, in August 1861, along with guides Bennen and Wenger, was Tyndall's finest mountaineering accomplishment - one of the great ascents of the Golden Age.  The mountain had rebuffed a number of previous attempts and on reaching the summit Tyndall was emotionally overwhelmed - 'the delight and exultation experienced were not of Reason or Knowledge, but of Being...in the transcendent glory of Nature I forgot myself as a man.'

Of course he carried out many other mountain exploits.  He was a serious challenger to Edward Whymper in his attempts to climb the Matterhorn and he reached a point on the mountain - the highest before it was finally climbed, Pic Tyndall - that still bears his name.

Tyndall was a prolific author and as well as publishing many works on scientific subjects his books on mountaineering went a long way to popularise the activity. 

Compared to his Alpine climbing his walking/hiking/climbing in Ireland would pale into insignificance.  However, it is recorded that he undertook some adventures here.  In his 'Hours of exercise in the Alps' he has a chapter entitled 'Killarney' where he recounts some of these adventures, including his climb of Eagle Rock, that the local lads would not attempt.  Also, in 1864 he undertook a walking tour in northern Ireland with his friend Tom Hirst and climbed the Slieve League sea cliffs - the first recorded ascent - as well as scrambling on the Antrim headlands.

(see Carloviana, 2020 pp 82)

Read some of John Tyndall's mountaineering works:

Mountaineering in 1861
Glaciers of the Alps
Hours of Exercise in the Alps
Forms of water

He gained worldwide fame through his science and mountaineering, as a result of which numerous geographic features around the world have been named in his honour:

Mount Tyndall (Sierra Nevada, USA)
Mount Tyndall (Tasmania)

Mount Tyndall (New Zealand)

Tyndall Glacier ( Torres del Paine Nat Park, Chile)
Tyndall Glacier and Creek
(Colorado, USA)
Tyndall Glacier (Mt Kenya) 
Tyndall Mountains (Antarctica)

Also;
Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, USA: and
Tyndall, Manitoba, Canada.

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The life o' Reilly

Courtesy: Alpine Club

 In the Summer of 1864, Edward Whymper, the doyen of British Alpinism during its Golden Age, was climbing in the Mont Blanc area, making a number of 'First Ascents'.  His climbing partner was Anthony Miles William Adams Reilly, who hailed from Belmont House in Ledestown, just outside Mullingar in Co Westmeath.  Together they decided to continue the season in Switzerland by climbing the Matterhorn by the Hörnli Ridge.  However, Whymper was required to return to London on urgent business so the climb was not attempted.  As he says in Scrambles amongst the Alps "... if we had not been obliged to part, the mountain would, doubtless, have been ascended in 1864."  Whymper returned to Zermatt in 1865 and by the same route he succeeded in making the first ascent of this iconic mountain.  Such are the 'might have beens' of mountaineering.

With such a surname it might be expected that Reilly had Cavan connections.  Indeed, his great-grandfather was Thomas O'Reilly of Roebuck, Co Cavan.  Over a few generations the O' was lost, the Adams was gained, along with property in Westmeath and Cavan.  Anthony was known to most as, simply, Adams Reilly.

Little is recorded of his early years in Mullingar.  He was educated in Rugby school, where he was sent, aged 12, on the death of his father in 1848 and at Brasenose College, Oxford.  There, he came under the influence of George Barnard, the Drawing Master and later a member of the Alpine Club, and probably read Travels through the Alps of Savoy (by J D Forbes).  He later acknowledged that it was Forbes' book that first aroused his interest in the Alps.

1861 was his first substantial season of Alpine climbing - with Leslie Stephen he made the second attempt on the East arête of Lyskamm, climbed Monte Rosa and Mt Blanc (twice, by different routes), all of which helped him gain membership of the Alpine Club in March 1862.  Later that year when he was back again in the Mt Blanc region he was struck by the deficiencies in the maps being used.  Not alone were the heights of peaks and extent of glaciers inaccurate but some non-existent summits and ridges were shown.  He decided to remedy the situation himself by carrying out a survey of the Mt Blanc massif himself.  He was encouraged in this by meeting with J.D. Forbes whose book had inspired his early interest in the mountains, in early 1863.  Through Forbes' persuasion he decided to undertake a thorough survey of the Mont Blanc chain the following year.

Edward Whymper saw Reilly as 'a man of wonderful determination and perseverance' who might make a suitable companion for renewed attacks on the Matterhorn.  The invitation was issued and gladly accepted by Reilly, but only on condition that  Whymper would assist with the revision survey.  Thus it transpired that they were climbing together in July of 1864 in the Mont Blanc area making a number of first ascents (Mont Dolent, Aiguille de Trélatéte, Aig d'Argentière).  The survey was completed, the map published by the Alpine Club in 1865.  He had assisted the French surveyors in their work and they subsequently named a number of mountain features near Chamonix in his honour ( Aiguille Adams-Reilly, Col Adams Reilly).

He was well liked by his climbing colleagues and locally in the Alps.  At Chamonix "almost every man, woman and child...had a pleasant smile for him and a 'bon soir' M. Reilly".  He lived for some years around 1870 in Mullingar and difficulties in Ireland troubled and affected him so that in 1881 he determined "to dwell amongst his own people" and he moved to Delgany, Co Wicklow but suffered from ill health.  He died in April 1885, the result of a stroke and is buried near Nenagh in Co Tippersary where his Alpine Club friends arranged the erection of an impressively carved Celtic cross in white marble to mark his grave.  C.E Mathews, who attended the burial, paid moving tribute to his dear friend and climbing partner - "...I never once heard him say anything to anyone's disparagement or pass an unjust judgement upon a single human being.  What wonder that there should be so many who loved him so well and who miss him so sorely?...one of the sweetest souls ever given to the sons of men; but memory of his friendship remains behind a pure, a sacred, and priceless possession".

A R's Mt Blanc map detail.   Alpine Club

From Whymper's 'Scrambles'

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See Journal of IMEHS Vol 2, 2002 for more details of Anthony Adams Reilly

at:  Here

and In search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, by Frank Nugent, Collins Press, 2013.

The Golden Age of Alpinism - Ireland's contribution

 In Search of PEAKS, PASSES & GLACIERS is Frank Nugent's account of the Irish Alpine Pioneers who made a significant contribution to Alpinism during its Golden Age and the following fifty years.

The Golden Age of Alpinism is generally agreed to have begun with Alfred Wills' ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 that was the beginning of a sustained period of mountain climbing in the Alps that made fashionable the idea of mountaineering as a sporting activity.  Something of an austere figure, Wills was a judge of the High Court of England and Wales; an Irish connection was that it was he who passed judgement on Oscar Wilde.

John Ball

One of Wills' close friends and climbing companions was John Ball and he  '...was a man whose work in the Alps may...be characterised as that of the chief pioneer of mountain exploration, whether in its scientific, its practical or its literary aspects'. (WAB Coolidge, Ball's Obit.)

Some background:

John Ball, born in Dublin on 20 Aug 1818, a Roman Catholic, he was descended from a Cromwellian officer (Jonathan Ball) and was the son of Nicholas Ball, a barrister, a supporter of Catholic Emancipation and Daniel O'Connell, MP for Clonmel and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Nicholas's eldest sister Cecilia Ball (1784–1854) was superior of the Ursuline convent in Cork; his second sister Anna Maria Ball was a noted philanthropist; and his youngest sister Mary Teresa (Frances) Ball  introduced the Loreto order to Ireland. (D I B).

A precocious youngster, his first view of the Alps was at age nine and he was smitten.  His education took him to he Jesuit college at Oscott and later to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied under a number of eminent scientists (Airy, Henslow, Sedgwick) but his religion prevented him taking a degree.

Peaks, Passes & Glaciers

Details of his Alpine career are recorded in many places. He visited the Alps almost every year from the mid 1840s until his death.  He made the first ascent of  Monte Pelmo.  He crossed the main Alpine chain 48 times by 32 different passes, and another 100 passes on lateral ridges.

He was chosen as first president of the Alpine Club, instituted and edited its annual Peaks, Passes and Glaciers in 1859, the forerunner of the Alpine Journal; Ball's Alpine Guides,  published in three volumes ((1863-8), became, famously,  his most influential work.

During the 'Great Famine' in Ireland he was appointed an assistant poor law commissioner (1846–7), an experience that led him to write a tract, What is to be done for Ireland? (1847). His health broke down from overwork and he resigned, but returned as second commissioner (1849–51).   An unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Sligo borough in July 1848, he was elected liberal MP for Carlow county (1852–7), advocating church disestablishment and land reform...appointed .. under-secretary for the colonies (1855–7). He used the position to promote his scientific interests, notably the Palliser Expedition (1857) which discovered several possible rail routes across Canada.  After failing to be elected for Sligo county in April 1857, he stood for Limerick city at a by-election in February 1858, ... he was narrowly defeated... disillusioned him with politics .... to devote himself to science and travel, usually spending part of his summers in Ireland (he had a house at 85 St Stephen's Green, Dublin) and his winters in Europe or North Africa.

As Poor Law Commissioner he had an opportunity to visit many parts of this country to do some hiking. It was in about 1846, when he was visiting the Dingle Peninsula, that he noted features that were attributable to the action of glaciers.  Two years later he had an opportunity to examine the area more closely and reported signs of glaciation around Lough Doon, near Connor Pass, and that he walked along the moraine that extends down to the lower Lough Beirne.  He discussed the glacial features around Lough Cruite under Brandon Peak and the former existence of a small glacier on the NE side of Purple Mountain, where its moraine '...offers to the pedestrian the only path wherein his foot does not sink in the spongy masses of sphagnum...'  All this about ten years before the formation of the Alpine Club  [(See Journal of the Geological Society of Ireland IV for his report (1848-50)] and this shows that he undertook some mountain activities in his own country.

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Others to follow.:

John Tyndall

Anthony Adams Reilly