John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell ( March 24 , 1834 – September 23 , 1902 ) was a U . S . soldier , geologist , explorer of the American West , professor at Illinois State University , and director of major scientific and cultural institutions . He is famous for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition , a three - month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers that included the first known passage through the Grand Canyon . Powell served as second director of the US Geological Survey ( 1881 – 1894 ) and proposed policies for development of the arid West which were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions . He was director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution , where he supported linguistic and sociological research and publications . Biography . Early life and education . Powell was born in Mount Morris , New York , in 1834 , the son of Joseph and Mary Powell . His father , a poor itinerant preacher , had emigrated to the U . S . from Shrewsbury , England , in 1830 . His family moved westward to Jackson , Ohio , then Walworth County , Wisconsin , before settling in Illinois in rural Boone County . Powell studied at Illinois College , Wheaton College and Oberlin College , acquiring a knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin . Powell had a restless nature and a deep interest in the natural science s . As a young man he undertook a series of adventures through the Mississippi River valley . In 1855 , he spent four months walking across Wisconsin . During 1856 , he rowed the Mississippi from St . Anthony , Minnesota , to the sea . In 1857 , he rowed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to St . Louis ; and in 1858 down the Illinois River , then up the Mississippi and the Des Moines River to central Iowa . At age 25 he was elected to the Illinois Natural History Society in 1859 . Civil war and aftermath . Powell ' s loyalties remained with the Union and the cause of abolishing slavery . On May 8 , 1861 , he enlisted at Hennepin , Illinois , as a private in the 20th Illinois Infantry . He was described as " age 27 , height 5 ' 6 - 1 / 2 " tall , light complected , gray eyes , auburn hair , occupation — teacher . " He was elected sergeant - major of the regiment , and when the 20th Illinois was mustered into the Federal service a month later , Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant . He enlisted in the Union Army as a cartographer , topographer and military engineer . During the Civil War he served first with the 20th Illinois Volunteers . While stationed at Cape Girardeau , Missouri , he recruited an artillery company that became Battery " F " of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery with Powell as captain . On November 28 , 1861 , Powell took a brief leave to marry the former Emma Dean . At the Battle of Shiloh , he lost most of his right arm when struck by a minie ball . The raw nerve endings in his arm would continue to cause him pain the rest of his life . Despite the loss of an arm , he returned to the Army and was present at Champion Hill , Big Black River Bridge on the Big Black River and in the siege of Vicksburg . Always the geologist he took to studying rocks while in the trenches at Vicksburg . He was made a major and commanded an artillery brigade with the 17th Army Corps during the Atlanta Campaign . After the fall of Atlanta he was transferred to George H . Thomas ' army and participated in the battle of Nashville . At the end of the war he was made a brevet lieutenant colonel , but despite this he continued to be referred to as " Major " . After leaving the Army , Powell took the post of professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University . He also lectured at Illinois State Normal University for most of his career . Powell helped expand the collections of the Museum of the Illinois State Natural History Society , where he served as curator . He declined a permanent appointment in favor of exploration of the American West . Adventures and expeditions . Expeditions . From 1867 Powell led a series of expeditions into the Rocky Mountains and around the Green and Colorado rivers . In 1869 he set out to explore the Colorado river and the Grand Canyon . Gathering nine men , four boats and food for 10 months , he set out from Green River , Wyoming on May 24 . Passing through dangerous rapids , the group passed down the Green River to its confluence with the Colorado River ( then also known as the Grand River upriver from the junction ) , near present - day Moab , Utah and completed the journey on August 13 , 1869 . The expedition ' s route traveled through the Utah canyons of the Colorado River , which Powell described in his published diary as having " . . . wonderful features — carved walls , royal arches , glens , alcove gulches , mounds and monuments . From which of these features shall we select a name ? We decide to call it Glen Canyon . " One man ( Goodman ) quit after the first month , and another three ( Dunn and the Howland brothers ) left at Separation Canyon in the third . This was just two days before the group reached the mouth of the Virgin River on August 30 , after traversing almost . The latter three disappeared ; historians have speculated they were killed by the " Shivwitz " band of the Northern " Paiute " . How and why they died remains a mystery debated by Powell biographers . Powell retraced the route in 1871 – 1872 with another expedition , resulting in photographs ( by John K . Hillers ) , an accurate map and various papers . In planning this expedition , he employed the services of Jacob Hamblin , a Mormon missionary in southern Utah and northern Arizona , who had cultivated excellent relationships with Native Americans . Before setting out , Powell used Hamblin as a negotiator to ensure the safety of his expedition from local Indian groups . Powell believed they had killed the three men lost from his previous expedition . Wallace Stegner states that Powell knew the men had been killed by the Indians in a case of mistaken identity . Members of the first Powell expedition : After the Colorado . In 1874 the intellectual gatherings Powell hosted in his home were formalized as the Cosmos Club . The club has continued , with members elected to the club for their contributions to scholarship and civic activism . In 1881 , Powell was appointed the second director of the US Geological Survey , a post he held until 1894 . He was also the director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution until his death . Under his leadership , the Smithsonian published an influential classification of North American Indian languages . In 1875 , Powell published a book based on his explorations of the Colorado , originally titled " Report of the Exploration of the Columbia River of the West and Its Tributaries " . It was revised and reissued in 1895 as " The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons " . Beliefs and ideas . As an ethnologist and early anthropologist , Powell was a follower of Lewis Henry Morgan . He classed human societies into " savagery , " " barbarism " and " civilization " . Powell ' s division was based on levels of technology , family and social organization , property relations , and intellectual development . In his view , all societies progressed toward civilization . He was a champion of preservation and conservation . It was his conviction that part of the natural progression of society included a combination of efforts to maximize and make the best use of resources . Powell created Illinois State University ' s first Museum of Anthropology and it was called the finest in all of North America at the time . Powell is credited with coining the word " acculturation " , first using it in an 1880 report by the U . S . Bureau of American Ethnography . In 1883 Powell defined " acculturation " to be the psychological changes induced by cross - cultural imitation . Powell ' s expeditions led to his belief that the arid West was not suitable for agricultural development , except for about 2 % of the lands that were near water sources . His " Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States " proposed irrigation systems and state boundaries based on watershed areas ( to avoid squabbles ) . For the remaining lands , he proposed conservation and low - density , open grazing . The railroad companies , who owned vast tracts of lands ( ) granted in return for building the lines , did not agree with his opinion . They aggressively lobbied Congress to reject Powell ' s policy proposals and to encourage farming instead , as they wanted to develop their lands . The politicians agreed and developed policies that encouraged pioneer settlement based on agriculture . They based such policy on a theory developed by Professor Cyrus Thomas and promoted by Horace Greeley . He suggested that agricultural development of land causes arid lands to generate higher amounts of rain ( " rain follows the plow " ) . At an 1883 irrigation conference , Powell would remark : " Gentlemen , you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights , for there is not sufficient water to supply the land . " Powell ' s recommendations for development of the West were largely ignored until after the Dust Bowl of the 1920s and 1930s , resulting in untold suffering associated with pioneer subsistence farms that failed due to insufficient rain .