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Stephen Bishop (cave explorer)
Encyclopedia
Stephen Bishop was a mixed race slave
(freed by manumission
in the year before his death) famous for being one of the lead explorers and guides to the Mammoth Cave
in the U.S. state
of Kentucky
.
Stephen Bishop was introduced to Mammoth Cave in 1838 by his owner, Franklin Gorin (1798–1877), who purchased the cave from the previous owners in the spring of 1838. Gorin wrote, after Bishop's death:
, a green jacket, and striped pants. In his spare time he explored and named large areas, doubling the known map in a year. He began the naming tradition of the cave, using half-homespun American, half-classical terms (e.g., the River Styx, the Snowball Room, Little Bat Avenue, the Giant Dome). He discovered strange blind fish, snakes, silent crickets, and the remains of cave bear
s along with centuries-old Indian
gypsum
workings.
In 1852, Bishop guided Nathaniel Parker Willis
to Echo River. On the trip, Willis learned that despite knowing that he would be freed in five years, Bishop intended to buy his and his wife's and son's freedom and move to Liberia
, a plan which never materialized.
Willis later said "he is very picturesque ... part mulatto and part Indian. With more of the physiognomy of a Spaniard, with masses of black hair, curling slightly and gracefully, and his long mustache, giving quite an appearance. He is of middle size, but built for an athlete. With broad chest and shoulders, narrow hips and legs slightly bowed. Mammoth Cave is a wonder in which draws good society and Stephen shows that he is used to it."
of Louisville
bought the Mammoth Cave Estate, including Bishop and its other slaves from their previous owner, Franklin Gorin. Croghan briefly ran an ill-fated tuberculosis
hospital in the cave, the vapors of which he believed would cure his patients. A widespread epidemic of the period, tuberculosis would ultimately claim the lives of both Bishop and Croghan.
In 1842, Bishop was sent to Croghan's estate (Locust Grove
, in Louisville) for two weeks to draw a map, from memory, of the cave system (see Mammoth Cave
). The map was published in 1844 by Morton and Griswold as a pull-out insert in Alexander Clark Bullitt’s Rambles in Mammoth Cave in the Year 1844 by a Visiter [sic] (Morton and Griswold, 1845.) Unusually for a slave, Bishop was given full credit for his work. The Bishop map remained in use for over forty years.
Stephen's map is quite impressive, showing some 16 km of cave passages, half of which were discovered by the cartographer, Bishop. While the map does not represent a modern accurate instrumental survey, Bishop took some pains to indicate relative passage dimension and length, with cross shading to show water (as modern cave cartographers do.) The topology, if not the scale and orientation, of the map is accurate, that is, the indications of junction layouts correspond to reality in a way that some later celebrated maps do not. Beyond this, the Bishop map is the first to truly suggest, at a glance, the majestic scale of Mammoth Cave, especially its extraordinary degree of connectivity. In 160 years, Bishop's map has not lost the ability to inspire interest in both its subject and its source.
Incredibly, in 1972, when modern explorers discovered a connection between the Flint Ridge Cave system to the northeast and Mammoth Cave, they were astonished to discover that the Mammoth Cave end of the connection was actually indicated as a passage lead on Bishop's map. (It is seen as a long thin line branching off from the eastern end of the Echo River complex.) The construction in 1905 of a dam on the Green River in the interim caused the passage to be flooded (and therefore inaccessibly hidden by murky water) most of the time after the dam's completion, and the passage was rediscovered backwards, from its remote end, by cavers entering the Flint Ridge Cave System. Although he never knew its significance, Bishop had unwittingly shown the key to connecting two major components of the longest cave in the world, 130 years before the connection was made.
, Bishop used the cave to hide slaves heading north to cross the Ohio River
. Few corroborating sources are available and at present it is not possible to verify this claim.
. His expressed life’s dream of traveling to Liberia may have been “politically correct” talk to convey an impression of personal ambition in a non-threatening way to white visitors.
Ironically, Croghan's life was claimed by tuberculosis
, which Croghan had hoped to eradicate using the cave's environment.
Stephen's wife, the former Charlotte Brown, was reunited with her brother Jim Brown prior to her death in 1897. As a widow, she became the wife of cave guide Nick Bransford, who died in 1894.
Stephen was buried on the south hill above the cave in what became known as “The Old Guides' Cemetery.” According to Mammoth Cave Historian Harold Meloy (“Stephen Bishop: The Man and the Legend”, in Caves, Cavers, and Caving, Bruce Sloane, Editor, 1977, pp 290–291), James Ross Mellon, president of the City Deposit Bank, Pittsburgh, PA, visited the cave for one week in November, 1878. He heard charming stories of Stephen Bishop, and he met Charlotte, who then managed the hotel dining room. She led him to Stephen’s gravesite, “which had only a cedar tree to mark it.” Mellon promised to have a headstone carved for Stephen’s grave. Three years after Mellon returned home to Pittsburgh he remembered his promise to Charlotte. He arranged for a monument carver to prepare the stone. In 1881 a stonemason used a second-hand tombstone that a Civil War soldier’s family had not paid for, he chiseled off the original name and placed an inscription that read,
The stone was shipped to the cave and installed on Stephen’s grave. According to Harold Meloy, “The error in the date of death [1859 vs. 1857] detracted nothing from the legend now reinforced by a permanent record in stone.”
) published Grand, Gloomy, and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave, a historical novel written from the point of view of Bishop's wife, Charlotte.
History of slavery in the United States
Slavery in the United States was a form of slave labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in...
(freed by manumission
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
in the year before his death) famous for being one of the lead explorers and guides to the Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is a U.S. National Park in central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. The official name of the system is the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System for the ridge under which the cave has formed. The park was established...
in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
.
Stephen Bishop was introduced to Mammoth Cave in 1838 by his owner, Franklin Gorin (1798–1877), who purchased the cave from the previous owners in the spring of 1838. Gorin wrote, after Bishop's death:
"I placed a guide in the cave --- the celebrated and great Stephen, and he aided in making the discoveries. He was the first person who ever crossed the Bottomless Pit, and he, myself and another person whose name I have forgotten were the only persons ever at the bottom of Gorin's Dome to my knowledge.
"After Stephen crossed the Bottomless Pit, we discovered all that part of the cave now known beyond that point. Previous to those discoveries, all interest centered in what is known as the "Old Cave" . . . but now many of the points are but little known, although as Stephen was wont to say, they were 'grand, gloomy and peculiar.'
"Stephen was a self-educated man. He had a fine genius, a great fund of wit and humor, some little knowledge of Latin and Greek, and much knowledge of geology, but his great talent was a knowledge of man."
Appearance and manner
Bishop's tour outfit was chocolate-colored, slouch hatSlouch hat
A slouch hat is a wide-brimmed felt or cloth hat with a chinstrap, most commonly worn as part of a military uniform. It is a survivor of the felt hats worn by certain 18th century armies. Since then, the slouch hat has been worn by military personnel from many nations including Australia, Britain,...
, a green jacket, and striped pants. In his spare time he explored and named large areas, doubling the known map in a year. He began the naming tradition of the cave, using half-homespun American, half-classical terms (e.g., the River Styx, the Snowball Room, Little Bat Avenue, the Giant Dome). He discovered strange blind fish, snakes, silent crickets, and the remains of cave bear
Cave Bear
The cave bear was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago....
s along with centuries-old Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
workings.
In 1852, Bishop guided Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...
to Echo River. On the trip, Willis learned that despite knowing that he would be freed in five years, Bishop intended to buy his and his wife's and son's freedom and move to Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
, a plan which never materialized.
Willis later said "he is very picturesque ... part mulatto and part Indian. With more of the physiognomy of a Spaniard, with masses of black hair, curling slightly and gracefully, and his long mustache, giving quite an appearance. He is of middle size, but built for an athlete. With broad chest and shoulders, narrow hips and legs slightly bowed. Mammoth Cave is a wonder in which draws good society and Stephen shows that he is used to it."
Bishop's 1842 map of Mammoth Cave
In 1839, Dr. John CroghanJohn Croghan
Dr. John Croghan was an American medical doctor who helped establish Louisville Marine Hospital and organized some tuberculosis medical experiments and tours for Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky during 1839-1849....
of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
bought the Mammoth Cave Estate, including Bishop and its other slaves from their previous owner, Franklin Gorin. Croghan briefly ran an ill-fated tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
hospital in the cave, the vapors of which he believed would cure his patients. A widespread epidemic of the period, tuberculosis would ultimately claim the lives of both Bishop and Croghan.
In 1842, Bishop was sent to Croghan's estate (Locust Grove
Historic Locust Grove
Historic Locust Grove is a 55-acre 18th century farm site and National Historic Landmark situated in eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky . The site is presently owned by the Louisville Metro government, and operated as a historic interpretive site by Historic Locust Grove, Inc.The main feature on...
, in Louisville) for two weeks to draw a map, from memory, of the cave system (see Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is a U.S. National Park in central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. The official name of the system is the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System for the ridge under which the cave has formed. The park was established...
). The map was published in 1844 by Morton and Griswold as a pull-out insert in Alexander Clark Bullitt’s Rambles in Mammoth Cave in the Year 1844 by a Visiter [sic] (Morton and Griswold, 1845.) Unusually for a slave, Bishop was given full credit for his work. The Bishop map remained in use for over forty years.
Stephen's map is quite impressive, showing some 16 km of cave passages, half of which were discovered by the cartographer, Bishop. While the map does not represent a modern accurate instrumental survey, Bishop took some pains to indicate relative passage dimension and length, with cross shading to show water (as modern cave cartographers do.) The topology, if not the scale and orientation, of the map is accurate, that is, the indications of junction layouts correspond to reality in a way that some later celebrated maps do not. Beyond this, the Bishop map is the first to truly suggest, at a glance, the majestic scale of Mammoth Cave, especially its extraordinary degree of connectivity. In 160 years, Bishop's map has not lost the ability to inspire interest in both its subject and its source.
Incredibly, in 1972, when modern explorers discovered a connection between the Flint Ridge Cave system to the northeast and Mammoth Cave, they were astonished to discover that the Mammoth Cave end of the connection was actually indicated as a passage lead on Bishop's map. (It is seen as a long thin line branching off from the eastern end of the Echo River complex.) The construction in 1905 of a dam on the Green River in the interim caused the passage to be flooded (and therefore inaccessibly hidden by murky water) most of the time after the dam's completion, and the passage was rediscovered backwards, from its remote end, by cavers entering the Flint Ridge Cave System. Although he never knew its significance, Bishop had unwittingly shown the key to connecting two major components of the longest cave in the world, 130 years before the connection was made.
Agent on the Underground Railroad?
Some sources suggest that during the period of the Underground RailroadUnderground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
, Bishop used the cave to hide slaves heading north to cross the Ohio River
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
. Few corroborating sources are available and at present it is not possible to verify this claim.
Freedom and death
Stephen Bishop was freed in 1856, seven years after the death of his owner, in accordance with Dr. Croghan's will. Stephen died on June 15, 1859, according to the date on his tombstone, before he could carry out his life's dream of buying the freedom of his wife and son and traveling to LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
. His expressed life’s dream of traveling to Liberia may have been “politically correct” talk to convey an impression of personal ambition in a non-threatening way to white visitors.
Ironically, Croghan's life was claimed by tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, which Croghan had hoped to eradicate using the cave's environment.
Stephen's wife, the former Charlotte Brown, was reunited with her brother Jim Brown prior to her death in 1897. As a widow, she became the wife of cave guide Nick Bransford, who died in 1894.
Stephen was buried on the south hill above the cave in what became known as “The Old Guides' Cemetery.” According to Mammoth Cave Historian Harold Meloy (“Stephen Bishop: The Man and the Legend”, in Caves, Cavers, and Caving, Bruce Sloane, Editor, 1977, pp 290–291), James Ross Mellon, president of the City Deposit Bank, Pittsburgh, PA, visited the cave for one week in November, 1878. He heard charming stories of Stephen Bishop, and he met Charlotte, who then managed the hotel dining room. She led him to Stephen’s gravesite, “which had only a cedar tree to mark it.” Mellon promised to have a headstone carved for Stephen’s grave. Three years after Mellon returned home to Pittsburgh he remembered his promise to Charlotte. He arranged for a monument carver to prepare the stone. In 1881 a stonemason used a second-hand tombstone that a Civil War soldier’s family had not paid for, he chiseled off the original name and placed an inscription that read,
“STEPHEN BISHOP, FIRST GUIDE & EXPLORER OF THE MAMMOTH CAVE. DIED JUNE 15, 1859 IN HIS 37 YEAR.”
The stone was shipped to the cave and installed on Stephen’s grave. According to Harold Meloy, “The error in the date of death [1859 vs. 1857] detracted nothing from the legend now reinforced by a permanent record in stone.”
In literature
In 2009, author and cave explorer Roger W. Brucker (a.k.a. Roger BruckerRoger Brucker
Roger W. Brucker is an American cave explorer and author of books about caves. He is most closely associated with Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the world's longest cave, which he has been exploring and writing about since 1954.-Early life:...
) published Grand, Gloomy, and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave, a historical novel written from the point of view of Bishop's wife, Charlotte.
External links
- Stephen Bishop, Cave Guide Single page PDF from the United States National Park Service.
- Teaching resource from US National Parks Service (pdf)
- BlackHistory.com article
- Coax.net article by Henry Robert Burke. Contains two (possibly three) false claims: that Stephen Bishop discovered Mammoth Cave (false), that Bishop discovered a pre-Columbian mummy (false), and that Bishop used the cave to hide slaves escaping on the Underground RailroadUnderground RailroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
(veracity unknown, but dubious.) - Peter West, "Trying the Dark: Mammoth Cave and the Racial Imagination, 1839-1869", Southern Spaces, 9 February 2010