James Dempsey Hutton was an artist, surveyor

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

, cartographer

Cartography

Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...

 and early photographer

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 active in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and North Dakota in the years before the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. He served as an engineer in the Confederate States Army

Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...

 in that conflict, and died in exile in Mexico in 1868.

Early life and California

Hutton was the middle son of James Hutton (d. 1843) of Washington, D.C. and his wife, the former Salome Rich, sister of bibliographer Obadiah Rich

Obadiah Rich

Obadiah Rich was an American diplomat, bibliophile and bibliographer specializing the history of Latin America. He was credited with making the field of Americana a recognized field of scholarship by the bibliographer Nicholas Trübner.-Life and career:Obadiah Rich was born on Cape Cod, at Truro,...

 and botanist and explorer William Rich

William Rich

Major William Rich was an American botanist and explorer who was part of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842.William Rich was the youngest son of Captain Obadiah Rich who commanded the brig Intrepid in the American Revolutionary War, and his first wife Salome Lombard...

. His brothers were the artist and civil engineer William Rich Hutton

William Rich Hutton

William Rich Hutton was a surveyor and artist who became an architect and civil engineer in Maryland and New York in the latter half of the 19th century...

 adnd architect and engineer Nathaniel Henry Hutton

Nathaniel Henry Hutton

Major Nathaniel Henry Hutton was an American architect and civil engineer. He worked as a surveyor in the American West in the 1850s before participating in the Union Army defense of Baltimore in the American Civil War. After the war, he established an architectural practice in Baltimore...

. James Hutton and his older brother William traveled to California in 1847 with their uncle William Rich, who had been appointed paymaster with the rank of Major to the US volunteer forces in the Mexican-American War. James was hired to survey San Jose, California

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 in July 1847, but was suspended the following January. He is assumed to have joined his brother and uncle on many of their travels around California in the late 1840s; a number of his sketches survive from this period. He served as county clerk of San Luis Obispo County, where his brother William was surveyor, from 1850 to 1852.

Raynolds Expedition

On April 22, 1859, James Hutton was appointed as topographer at a salary of $120 a month with the Raynolds Expedition

Raynolds Expedition

The Raynolds Expedition was an United States Army exploring and mapping party which left St. Louis, Missouri May 29, 1859 and was intended to map the unexplored territory between Fort Pierre, Dakota Territory and headwaters of the Yellowstone River. Led by experienced explorer and topographical...

 led by Captain William F. Raynolds

William F. Raynolds

William Franklin Raynolds was a U.S. Army Colonel, explorer, engineer, Mexican War and Civil War officer who is best known for leading the 1859-1860 Raynolds Expedition while serving as a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers...

 of the Army Corp of Topographical Engineers to explore the northern Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 from Fort Pierre

Fort Pierre, South Dakota

Fort Pierre is a city in Stanley County, South Dakota, United States. It is part of the Pierre, South Dakota Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,078 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stanley County. Lily Park, in Fort Pierre, is situated at the mouth of the Bad River. The...

 in the soon-to-be Dakota Territory

Dakota Territory

The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota.The Dakota Territory consisted of...

 to the headwaters of the Yellowstone River

Yellowstone River

The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National...

. His charter was to report on the climate, natural resources and Native American tribes he found. He was also directed to map wagon roads from Fort Laramie to Fort Union

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site is the site of a partially reconstructed trading post on the Missouri River and the North Dakota/Montana border twenty-five miles from Williston. It is one of the earliest declared National Historic Landmarks of the United States...

 and Fort Benton

Fort Benton, Montana

Fort Benton is a city in and the county seat of Chouteau County, Montana, United States. A portion of the city was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. Established a full generation beforethe U.S...

, and from the Yellowstone River to South Pass on the Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...

 and between the headwaters of the Missouri

Missouri River

The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...

 and Wind River

Wind River

Wind River may refer to:One of several rivers in the United States:*Wind River *Wind River , a designated National Wild and Scenic River*Wind River , called in Inuit Gui-guok-lok*Wind River...

s. Hutton doubled as an assistant artist and photographer with the expedition, making pen-and-ink sketches and taking photographs of Wyoming's Big Horn

Big Horn Mountains

The Big Horn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles northward on the Great Plains...

 and Wind River Mountains and Montana's Yellowstone and Missouri River valleys. He is known to have made ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

 photographs of members of the Crow

Crow Nation

The Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a Siouan people of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone River valley, which extends from present-day Wyoming, through Montana and into North Dakota. They now live on a reservation south of Billings, Montana and in several...

, Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

, Cheyenne

Cheyenne

Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...

, and Arapaho

Arapaho

The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...

 Nations. In 1862, seven engravings after Hutton's photographs of Native Americans were published in "Contributions to the Ethnology and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri Valley" (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 12), by Ferdinand V. Hayden, the expedition's geologist

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

.

Civil War and exile

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hutton was again resident in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a cartographer. Hutton joined the Confederacy

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

 early in the war, delivering the Federal plans for the defense of Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...

 to the South. He served as an engineer under Generals Henry A. Wise

Henry A. Wise

Henry Alexander Wise was an American politician and governor of Virginia, as well as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.-Early life:...

 and Sterling Price

Sterling Price

Sterling Price was a lawyer, planter, and politician from the U.S. state of Missouri, who served as the 11th Governor of the state from 1853 to 1857. He also served as a United States Army brigadier general during the Mexican-American War, and a Confederate Army major general in the American Civil...

. His sketch of the Battle of Pilot Knob

Battle of Fort Davidson

The Battle of Fort Davidson, also known as the Battle of Pilot Knob, was the opening engagement of Price's Missouri Raid during the American Civil War. This engagement occurred on September 27, 1864, just outside of Pilot Knob in Iron County, Missouri...

 on September 27, 1864, survives. At the end of the war, he emigrated to Mexico, where he died in 1868.

The Manuscripts Department of the Huntington Library and Art Gallery houses a collection of sixteen of James D. Hutton's drawings.