Mary Ogden Abbott

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Mary Ogden Abbott
Thomas B. Adams
(cousin)

Mary Ogden Abbott (October 12, 1894 – May 11, 1981) was an American wood carving and line drawing artist, world traveler, equestrian and an early Grand Canyon River runner.

Early life

Mary Ogden Abbott was born in

née
Adams) Abbott.

On her mother's side, she was a granddaughter of

U.S. Representative Josiah Gardner Abbott and was a descendant of George Abbott, one of the early settlers in Andover, Massachusetts.[1]

Mary attended the Westover School in Connecticut and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, Mass.[2]

Explorations

Mary Ogden Abbott carved these two teak doors. They were installed in the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC, in 1976. They flanked the entrance to the National Park Service (NPS) Director's 3100 corridor. In 2018, the NPS was instructed to move out of that corridor to make way for the Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs - the doors, however, remained.
In September, 1957, Mary Ogden Abbott explored Glen Canyon by horse.

In 1920, Mary and her mother, Mary Adams Abbott, drove across the United States. That winter, the two women lived on the Arizona Strip at Ryan, Arizona. In the spring of 1921, Mary rode packstock across the Grand Canyon, crossing the Colorado River on a temporary suspension bridge near where the Black Suspension Bridge exists today. That same year the two women rode packstock from the Arizona Strip to the Bitterroot Valley of Montana.[3][4]

From 1922 to 1927, the two women traveled to Java, Singapore, Hong Kong, Baghdad, Jerusalem, rode across Peloponnese on horseback, and made their way by automobile through Europe. These travels were recorded in journals and letters.[5] Mary Ogden Abbott wrote her recollections of these adventures in the book Shikar in Baltistan,[6] describing their hunting expedition in Baltistan in 1923, and "Improbable Interlude."[7]

In 1948, Abbott made her first boat journey down the

Lee's Ferry, Arizona, through Glen Canyon on the Colorado River. In 1949 she floated the Colorado River in Grand Canyon with Norman Nevills from Phantom Ranch to Lake Mead. In 1950, she ran the Colorado River in Grand Canyon from Lee's Ferry, Arizona, to Phantom Ranch, becoming the 114 person to make a complete transit of the Grand Canyon by boat. After the Nevills untimely death in 1949, Abbott designed a plaque to commemorate the lives of Norm and Doris Nevills. The plaque was placed at Navajo Bridge in 1952. Her plaque at Navajo Bridge was moved to its present location east of the visitor center after the new bridge was completed and the visitor area redesigned in 1995. Abbott joined river runner Otis R. Marston, Frank E. Masland, and National Park Service Chief of Interpretation John E. Doerr on a slickrock journey north of Navajo Mountain in September of 1957. In 1958, Abbott ran the Grand Canyon again by boat with Marston.[1][8]

This bronze memorial plaque for Norman and Doris Nevills was cast by Mary Ogden Abbott in 1951. The plaque was installed near the west abutment of Navajo Bridge in 1952, where it has remained to this day.

Artistry

Abbott was an accomplished artist in various media, especially woodcarving. She made the

Department of the Interior
building, Washington, D.C. These doors are always displayed in the open position.

Abbott's drawings appeared in the

Houghton Mifflin in 1947.[10] In its review, The New York Times wrote "Mary Abbott's spirited illustrations capture the lithe grace of these wild creatures in many of their tensest moments."[10]
Frank E. Masland commissioned Mary to paint a scene from river running in the Colorado river in Grand Canyon. After the painting was completed, Masland donated the painting to Grand Canyon National Park.

As a skilled equestrian, Abbott participated in hunts on the Alexander Higginson estate and with the Middlesex Hunt Club in South Lincoln, Mass. Abbott lived most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts.[1]

Legacy

The Mary Ogden Abbott Papers are preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Massachusetts.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Mary Ogden Abbott Papers, 1764–1981". Masshist.org.
  2. ^ a b "Mary Ogden Abbott Biography". Artnet.com. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  3. ^ Abbott, Mary, "Improbable Interlude," Appalachia Magazine, Brattleboro, VT., New Series XXIII, June 15, 1957, p. 357
  4. ^ Smith, Thomas, "Roughing It: Yankee Ladies in the American West, 1920–1921," Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Spring 2010), p. 85
  5. ^ [1] [dead link]
  6. ^ Abbott, Mary Ogden, Shikar in Baltistan, Appalachian Mountain Club, December, 1958
  7. ^ Abbott, Mary Ogden, Improbable Interlude, Appalachian Mountain Club, June, 1957
  8. ISBN 978-0990527022
  9. ISBN 978-1498542388
  10. ^ a b "Wild Animals of the Five Rivers. By George Cory Franklin. Illustrated by Mary Ogden Abbott. 270 pp. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50" (PDF). The New York Times. July 6, 1947. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
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