The first Brigham Young University chief to visit the spectacular Mayan ruins here ended up selling fruit at a roadside stand in California.
Benjamin Cluff Jr. was serving as the second principal of then-Brigham Young Academy when he arrived at Palenque in February 1901. The circumstances surrounding Cluff 's arrival nearly a century ago were distinct from those related to the trip of current BYU President Merrill J. Bateman, who toured the ruins Saturday.Cluff was a Provo native who became one of the first Brigham Young Academy students to pursue graduate education upon enrolling at the University of Michigan in 1887. He became a distinguished scholar and succeeded Karl G. Maeser as principal of BYA after returning to Provo in 1890.
Before the turn of the century, Cluff dreamed of guiding an expedition to South America that would vault Brigham Young Academy into the forefront of research in science, archaeology, geology, biology and linguistics. He also believed the trip would provide evidence to support the Book of Mormon.
With help from the school and its sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Cluff's dream became reality when he and 23 other faculty and students of BYA left Provo on horseback April 17, 1900. The explorers were extraordinarily ambitious: Cluff hoped to spend significant time along the Magdalena River in Colombia, and he hoped eventually to get all the way to Valparaiso, Chile.
The expedition went smoothly as it moved through Utah and Arizona but stalled when it reached the Mexican border at Nogales. Border officials demanded a bond of $2,367 - and the BYA group was unable to post it.
"This was a most embarrassing moment for President Cluff and a very discouraging experience for the impatient members of his party, who had become genuinely weary of delays," wrote Eugene L. Roberts, one of the students on the expedition, in a biography of Cluff.
During a monthlong wait, the two dozen explorers struggled to keep themselves out of trouble. On Aug. 12, President Joseph F. Smith of the LDS Church First Presidency arrived at Nogales and instructed expeditioners to disband and return home.
But Cluff refused to let his dream die. He told Smith that he would take a handful of men and continue the trip even without support from the school and church. Smith asked him why he persisted.
"Because that which is sweeter than life itself depends upon it," Cluff replied.
The decision was to have a drastic effect on the remainder of Cluff's life. It essentially guaranteed that he would become a pariah in Utah and lose his job at the Academy. The wisdom of Cluff's decision was questioned, but no one doubted his courage.
"All the members of the party and the distinguished visitors heard these words and experienced a thrill of admiration for the man who would not give up," Roberts recalled.
Cluff and eight others continued through Mexico, stopping at various points along the way to chronicle the plants, animals and ruins they discovered. They sent artifacts, drawings and journals back home. They passed through Mexico City, and arrived at the Chiapas highlands several months after leaving Nogales.
Although his companions and their animals stopped to rest for a few days, the ever-eager Cluff could not sit still. He walked for three weeks to see Palenque.
"This trip on foot to Palenques (sic) was very interesting," Cluff recalled four decades later. "It was on this trip that we had our first taste of monkey meat."
Cluff and his three companions walked about 25 miles per day, carrying all their equipment on their backs. Cluff nearly drowned while attempting to swim a river.
"Hardly had I entered the swift-moving current when my drawers slipped down and hobbled me effectively," he said. "I made a surface dive and ripped the garment from my ankles just in time."
Cluff found at Palenque the kind of ruins he had set out to discover. However, fate was to deal him another blow because the voluminous records which Cluff kept, including drawings and conclusions based on what he saw in Palenque, were lost.
He gave five journals to a banker in Panama who was to ship them to Provo, but it never happened. That probably contributed to the overall perception that the trip was a failure.
Cluff did reach the Magdalena River in Colombia before returning to Provo in February 1902. Although he was still principal of the Academy when he returned, his credibility had been undermined in the eyes of peers and school leaders. His amorous relationship with a former student who lived in Mexico also likely contributed to his downfall as a church educator.
Although it was under his tutelage that BYA became BYU in 1903, Cluff left soon after. Years later, Roberts found him peddling fresh fruit in California.
It was Roberts who became determined to help Cluff get credit for the good he did at Brigham Young. Roberts' biography about Cluff includes a frank assessment of the exploring expedition.
"The project was a success and a failure," Roberts wrote. "It made (Cluff) friends and it made him enemies; it gave him great satisfactions and it broke his heart . . ."