The 1903 Shasta County Expedition
by David K. Smith
Little is known about this expedition except for the names of the participants: Merriam, Eustace Furlong, Annie Alexander, Edna Wemple (Annie’s companion on the Saurian Expedition of 1905), F.S. Ray and W.B. Esterly (profiles of Ray and Esterly are provided below). In UCMP’s Supplemental Locality Files for Shasta County there is a drawing of bones (UCMP 9084) signed by Ray so it’s possible that at least some of the 32 negatives and three photographs that are also in that file are from 1903 too. Unfortunately, neither Annie nor Edna are in any of the photographs so we can’t say that they’re from 1903 with any certainty.1
As far as we know, Edna Wemple participated in only one collecting expedition to Shasta County; since there is a Shasta County fossil locality in the UCMP database called Camp Wemple (-1007), it is safe to assume that the locality “bore fruit” in 1903 when Edna was present. Specimens of Shastasaurus and a skull fragment of Thalattosaurus were recovered there.
Edna Wemple’s Masters thesis was a description of new species of cartilaginous fish, based on teeth found primarily in the West Humboldt Mountains of Nevada but one was from a Shasta County locality (Bear Cove, -1013). Two of the species were Hybodus and two were Acrodus. In 1906, Stanford University President David Starr Jordan named a species Acrodus wempliae, writing “The species is named for Miss Edna M. Wemple of the University of California, who first recognized the species.” Edna was the first woman to receive a Masters degree in paleontology at UC Berkeley.2
Participant profiles
Information on many of the known participants in the 1901 and 1903 expeditions already exists in the UCMP History pages. These include Merriam, Annie Alexander, James Perrin Smith, Herbert Furlong, Edna Wemple and Eustace Furlong. But there are a couple new names from the 1903 expedition:
FREDERICK SYLVANUS RAY (1882-1948)
Frederick was born December 18, 1882, in Riverside, California, to Walter Selden Ray of Iowa and Eva Ferris of Illinois.
Ray graduated from UC Berkeley in 1904 with a degree in Nutritional Sciences. While at Berkeley, Ray served in the Military Department, was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, and as a senior, served as vice president of the Harvey Biological Club (Malcolm Goddard, a participant in the Saurian Expedition of 1905 was a sophomore member at that time).
After graduating, Ray moved to Maryland to attend Johns Hopkins Medical School. He graduated in 1908, received his doctor’s certification in 1911, and set up a practice in Los Angeles as a general practitioner.
Ray married Margaret ? at the age of 46 and had at least one child, Roy James Ray. Frederick died September 12, 1948, and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Los Angeles County.3
WARD BENJAMIN ESTERLY (1883-1922)
Ward was born October 7, 1883, in Ottawa, Kansas, to Calvin Esterly (1852-1921) of Ohio and Alice M. Olin (1855-1912) of New York. He had at least one sibling, Calvin Esterly Jr.
During most of his student days at UC Berkeley, Esterly lived at 2350 Ellsworth Avenue on the south side of campus. Like Frederick Ray, Ward was also a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and served in the Military Department. He was one of four First Violins in the UC Orchestra and served as secretary and treasurer of the organization for a time. During his junior or senior year he was a Social Chairman at the YMCA.
After college Esterly became a building contractor and a member of the Masons. He managed the Esterly Construction Company whose offices were at 2136 Center Street in Berkeley.
In 1910 Esterly married Emily Virginia Judy (1882-1946), the sister of one of his fraternity brothers, in Healdsburg. They had two children, Frederika Josephine and Virginia A. Esterly. Ward died January 11, 1922, in San Francisco.4
- Participant list from Hilton, page 140.
- Edna Wemple’s Masters thesis was Wemple, E.M. 1906. New Cestraciont Teeth from the West-American Triassic. University of California Publications, Bulletin of the Department of Geology 5(4):71-73. Jordan’s quote from Jordan, D.S. 1910. The Fossil Fishes of California with Supplementary Notes on Other Species of Extinct Fishes. University of California Publications, Bulletin of the Department of Geology 5(7):95-144.
- Family and other information from sources accessed on ancestry.com.
- Family and other information from sources accessed on ancestry.com.