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Confirming Custer's Report of Gold In the Black Hills
Ex-Library of Congress copy of Henry Newton's important view and map of the Black Hills, published during the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush.
The view shows the geography of the Black Hills in the style of a birdseye view, a popular illustrative genre of the period.
The first reports of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 were reported by an expedition led by George Armstrong Custer. A subsequent expedition was sent out by the United States Geological Survey to further explore the region.
Newton-Jenny Party
The Newton–Jenney Party of 1875, led by Henry Newton and Walter P. Jenney, and escorted by a military detachment led by Lieutenant Colonel Richard I. Dodge, and known also as the Jenney-Newton Party, was a scientific expedition sponsored by the United States Geological Survey to map the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Newton-Jenney expedition was established in response to the Black Hills Gold Rush, which had been escalated the previous year by General George Armstrong Custer's expedition into the Black Hills.
The Newton–Jenney Party included many figures who would gain notoriety in the 19th century, including Calamity Jane, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, and California Joe Milner. The expedition confirmed Custer's claims of gold and prompted an increase of miners in the Black Hills region, which in turn antagonized events leading to the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.
