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{{Short description|First game warden in Yellowstone National Park (1839–1924)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2018}}
{{Use American English|date=August 2018}}
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}}
'''
Yount served two terms in the [[Union Army]] during the American Civil War. He first enlisted for a six-month term in November 1861. He was wounded and taken prisoner by the [[Confederate States Army]] in an opening skirmish of the [[Battle of Pea Ridge]] in [[Arkansas]] in March 1862, and held as a [[prisoner of war]] for nearly a month until released in a [[prisoner exchange]]. He re-enlisted in August 1862 and served until the end of the war. He was promoted three times and was a [[company quartermaster sergeant]] when he was discharged in July 1865.
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In 1880, Yount was hired by the [[United States Secretary of the Interior]], [[Carl Schurz]], to be the first gamekeeper in Yellowstone National Park, and during his 14 months in that job wrote two annual reports for Schurz, which were then submitted to Congress. His reports described the challenges of protecting the wildlife in the first U.S. national park and influenced the culture of the [[National Park Service]], which was founded 35 years later in 1916. [[Horace Albright]], the second director of the National Park Service, called Yount the "father of the ranger service, as well as the first national park ranger".<ref name=Albright>{{Citation
|
|
| author-link = Horace Albright
| last2 = Taylor
| first2 = Frank J.
| title = "Oh, Ranger!" – A Book about the National Parks
| place = Stanford, CA
| publisher = Stanford University Press
| year = 1929
| pages = 5–7
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ITKNBfOZ-hcC&
|
}}</ref> Yount was a prospector during much of the last four decades of his life.
== Family background and early years ==
Harry Yount's paternal ancestors, Hans George Jundt and Anna Marie Jundt, arrived in Philadelphia in 1731, immigrants from [[Alsace-Lorraine]]. Their
|last = Supernaugh
|first = William R.
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|date = Spring 1998
|url = http://npshistory.com/publications/yount/index.htm
|
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101212082509/http://www.nps.gov/history/history/hisnps/npshistory/yount.htm
|archive-date = December 12, 2010
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| last = Ingersoll
| first = Ernest
|
| title = Mountain Harry, A Character-Sketch
| journal = [[Appleton's Magazine|Appleton's Journal]]
| volume = III
| pages = 524–527
| publisher = D. Appleton and Company
| location = New York
| date = July–December 1877
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DgcZAAAAYAAJ
|
}}</ref> and different birth years have been mentioned by various writers, such as the anonymous author of a published biographical sketch who wrote that Yount was born in 1847,<ref name=Progressive /> and Thomas J. Bryant, who interviewed Yount in the latter years of his life and who speculated that 1837 was his birth date in an article published in the ''Annals of Wyoming'', journal of the Wyoming State Historical Society.<ref name=Supernaugh /> However, research undertaken by William R. Supernaugh, an employee of the [[National Park Service]], found military enlistment papers, Yount's Army pension file, and the [[1840 United States Census]] records, all of which indicate that Yount was born on March 18, 1839.<ref name=Supernaugh /> These records also show that his legal name was Henry S. Yount. His lifelong nickname was "Harry", and his middle name is unknown.<ref name=Supernaugh/>
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[[File:Battle of Pea Ridge.png|thumb|left|alt=Painting of the Battle of Pea Ridge|The 1862 [[Battle of Pea Ridge]], where Yount was taken prisoner in a skirmish just before the battle began]]
Yount enlisted in the Union Army for a six-month term on November 9, 1861, and served in Company F of Phelps' Regiment of the Missouri Infantry. [[John
Yount re-enlisted in [[Lebanon, Missouri]], on August 9, 1862, and served as a private in Company H of the [[8th Regiment Missouri Volunteer Cavalry]], a unit involved in 11 combat engagements during his service. On April 14, 1863, he was promoted to corporal and then to sergeant on December 9, 1863; he became [[company quartermaster sergeant]] on June 13, 1864. He was discharged in [[Little Rock, Arkansas]], on July 20, 1865, after the war had ended.<ref name=Supernaugh />
As a result of his barefoot march to captivity, Yount developed [[rheumatism]] in both feet. When the [[Dependent and Disability Pension Act]] passed in 1890, he became eligible for a monthly partial disability pension of $6 in 1892, which was raised to $12 a month in 1900 and $25 in 1912.<ref name=Supernaugh /> Yount was later an active member of the [[Grand Army of the Republic]], the post-war organization of veterans of the Union Army.<ref name=Supernaugh /><ref name=Progressive>{{Cite book
| title = Progressive men of the state of Wyoming
| publisher = A. D. Bowen & Co
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| location = Chicago
| pages = 711–713
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gOMDAAAAYAAJ&
}}</ref>
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| last = Ingersoll
| first = Ernest
|
| title = Knocking 'Round the Rockies
| publisher = Harper & Brothers, Publishers
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| pages = [https://archive.org/details/knockingroundroc00inge_0/page/46 46]–50
| url = https://archive.org/details/knockingroundroc00inge_0
}}</ref>
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| last = Bartlett
| first = Richard A.
| title = Great surveys of the American West
| publisher = [[University of Oklahoma Press]]
| year = 1962
| location = [[Norman, Oklahoma]]
| pages = 92
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Usu6gIwit3sC&q=Great+Surveys+of+the+American+West
| isbn = 978-0-8061-1653-2
}}</ref>
During Hayden's expedition of 1877, Yount engaged in mountaineering with Ingersoll and the cartographer [[A. D. Wilson]] in the [[Wind River Range]]. They were the first to ascend the south slopes of [[Wind River Peak]], and, with Wilson, Yount was the first to ascend West Atlantic Peak.<ref>{{cite book
|title = Climbing and Hiking in the Wind River Mountains
|publisher = [[Globe Pequot]]
|edition = 2nd
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fEz0T7HOJZsC&pg=PA370
}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Hayden's expedition of 1878 conducted surveys in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas in 1878. That expedition included the British mountaineer [[James Eccles]] and Eccles's favorite Swiss mountain guide, Michel Payot of [[Chamonix]]. Eccles wanted to attempt an ascent of the [[Grand Teton]], then unclimbed. This was the third attempt to climb the Grand Teton by members of Hayden's expeditions. Yount served as the guide in a four-man party that included Eccles, Payot and Wilson. Eccles and Payot were held up by the disappearance of two [[mule]]s carrying their gear, and so were unable to accompany Wilson and Yount on to the higher parts of the mountain. During the climb, Yount slipped on the ice and fell close to a deep chasm in the glacier, where water was streaming down from the cliff above. The hold of his buckskin pants on the ice reportedly prevented him from being carried down into the crevice.<ref name=Progressive /> Wilson was quoted as saying that Yount was clinging to the rock like "a starfish hanging to a breakwater," and that he himself lowered a rope to assist Yount.<ref>{{cite book
|
|
| last2 = Bonney
| first2 = Lorraine G.
| title = The Grand Controversy: The Pioneer Climbs in the Teton Range and the Controversial First Ascent of the Grand Teton
| publisher = [[The Mountaineers (club)|The Mountaineers Books]]
| year = 1992
| location = [[Seattle]]
| pages = 58–62
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gEKB-lCdJRUC&pg=PA61
| isbn = 978-1-933056-64-7
}}</ref> Because of the delay and the absence of the experienced Alpine climbers, Yount and Wilson had to turn back a few hundred feet short of the summit, at a spur called The Enclosure.<ref>Ortenburger, Leigh N. and Jackson, Reynold G., [https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-Y1tLw_YWgC&lpg=PA152&dq=%22James%20Eccles%22%20Alps&pg=PA152 ''A Climber's Guide to the Teton Range''], The Mountaineers Books, 1996, p. 152</ref> No previous party had come so close to reaching the summit. The undisputed [[first ascent]] of the Grand Teton took place 20 years later, in 1898.
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| last = Yount
| first = Harry
| title = Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior on the Operations of the Department for the Year Ended June 30, 1880
| place = Washington, DC
| publisher = Government Printing Office
| year = 1880
| chapter = Appendix A – Report of Gamekeeper
|
| page = 620
}}</ref>
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| editor-last = Schullery
| editor-first = Paul
| title = The Yellowstone wolf: a guide and sourcebook
| publisher = [[University of Oklahoma Press]]
| year = 2003
| location = [[Norman, Oklahoma]]
| pages = 52
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7te9jmFJcrcC&pg=PA52
| isbn = 978-0-8061-3492-5
}}</ref> He described the range and habits of Yellowstone's large mammals and expressed regret for "the unfortunate breakage of my thermometer when it could not be replaced," along with a submitted synopsis of the weather the previous winter.<ref name=Yount>{{Citation
| last = Yount
| first = Harry
| title = Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the First Session of the Forty-Seventh Congress with the Reports of the Heads of Departments and Selections from Accompanying Documents
| place = Washington, DC
| publisher = Government Printing Office
| year = 1881
| chapter = Report of Gamekeeper
|
| pages = 863–864
}}</ref> In this report, he resigned his position "to resume private enterprises now requiring my personal attention," and concluded with a clear recommendation:
{{quote|I do not think that any one man appointed by the honorable Secretary, and specifically designated as a gamekeeper, is what is needed or can prove effective for certain necessary purposes, but a small and reliable police force of men, employed when needed, during good behavior, and dischargeable for cause by the superintendent of the park, is what is really the most practicable way of seeing that the game is protected from wanton slaughter, the forests from careless use of fire, and the enforcement of all the other laws, rules, and regulations for the protection and improvement of the park.<ref name=Yount />}}
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== Recognition as first National Park ranger ==
Although Yount's official job title was "gamekeeper" rather than "[[National Park Service Ranger|park ranger]]", and although he only worked in Yellowstone National Park for 14 months, his two annual reports had a lasting impact on the administration of the national parks in the United States. He is "securely positioned in the legend and culture" of the National Park Service, and is considered a figure of "historic proportion".<ref name=Supernaugh /> In ''Oh, Ranger!'', a book published in 1928, Horace Albright, who later became the second director of the National Park Service, wrote that "Harry Yount pointed out in a report that it was impossible for one man to patrol the park. He urged the formation of a ranger force. So Harry Yount is credited with being the father of the ranger service, as well as the first
== Prospecting and later years ==
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[[Category:American hunters]]
[[Category:American prospectors]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Explorers of the United States]]
[[Category:Mountain men]]
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