One of the earliest of the post-Revolutionary War explorers,
Stephen Harriman Long began his life in the small town of Hopkinton, New Hampshire.
The son of Moses & Lucy (Harriman) Long, his father was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, serving in the arenas of New York and New Jersey. Perhaps Moses’ stories gave his son some the “wanderlust” that he exhibited throughout of his life.
Stephen graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover NH in 1809. After spending a few years as a public school principal, in 1814 he became a professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy (West Point). The following year he first became a member of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Stephen Long taught mathematics at West Point until 1816, when he was promoted to second lieutenant and one of the first officers in the newly established group of Topographical Engineers. (This corps created during the War of 1812, later became known as the Army Corps of Engineers, and eventually, in 1823, it became the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers).
He was sent to explore the upper Mississippi and the portage of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. In 1820 he headed a Rocky mountain expedition, and like explorers of the region before him, reported that the area (now Colorado) was uninhabitable.
Longs Peak, in northern Colorado, one of the tallest of the Rocky Mountains, was first sighted (1820) and named by Stephen Long.
Stephen was my distant cousin. We both descend directly from Deacon Robert & Alice (Short) Long of Newbury Massachusetts. For more about his ancestry and descendants, visit the Long Family web site.
Janice
**Additional Reading**
Stephen H. Long married Martha Hodgkiss – not Hodgkins – as some sites say. She was the sister of Isabella Hodgkiss Norvell, wife of US Senator John Norvell of Michigan. Martha and Isabella were the daughters of Sarah DeWeese and Michael Hodgkiss. They lived in Philadelphia at the time of Stephen and Martha’s wedding in 1819. Stephen and Martha Hodgkiss Long are both buried in Alton, Illinois along with one of their sons William DeWeese Long.