Painting of the Day, November 25, 2011

By Donna Poulton

“Emaciated to a degree, my eyes sunken, and clothes all torn into tatters from hunting our animals through the brush.  My hands were in a dreadful state; my fingers were frost-bitten, and split at every joint; and suffering at the same time from diarrhea and symptoms of scurvy…” -- Solomon Nunes Carvalho

Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts.

Natural Obelisks, Steel engraving from the prospectus for John Charles Fremont’s Memoirs of “My Life,” based on a daguerreotype by Solomon Nunes Carvalho.

Solomon Nunes Carvalho’s journal chronicles his ill-fated expedition with John C. Fremont to assess a possible route for the transcontinental railroad in 1853. Carvalho was hired as the photographer because he could handle special chemicals that could withstand the obstacles of extreme cold and dampness. Caught by heavy winter storms, the group was reduced to eating the hides and hooves of their pack mules.

Shortly before the group stumbled into Parowan, Utah and were rescued, Carvalho wrote: “The nearer I approached the settlement, the less energy I had at my command…” He had lost a third of his body weight, weighing only 107 pounds, “I was emaciated to a degree, my eyes sunken, and clothes all torn into tatters from hunting our animals through the brush. My hands were in a dreadful state; my fingers were frost-bitten, and split at every joint; and suffering at the same time from diarrhea and symptoms of scurvy…”