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.