Captain Howard Stansbury
In 1849, Captain Howard Stansbury was sent out to make an exploration and survey of the Great Salt Lake. The initial point of his expedition was Fort Leavenworth. He left the fort on the 31st of May, 1849, with eighteen men, five wagons, and forty-six horses and mules. A Mr. Sackett joined the party. He had one wagon, one carriage, and fifteen "animals." There were five persons with Mr. Sackett, possibly his family. Lieutenant Gunnison being ill, was put on a bed in the spring wagon used to transport the instruments.
Captain Stansbury followed what he terms the Emigration Road, which was only that branch of the Oregon Trail, starting from Fort Leavenworth. He says of it—"already broad and well beaten as any turnpike in our country." And he further says:
The cholera had for a considerable time been raging on the Missouri;
and as we passed up, fearful rumors of its prevalence and fatality among
the emigrants on the route daily reached us from the plains. On the day we
left Fort Leavenworth, one member of our little party was carried to the
hospital in a state of collapse, where he died in twenty-four hours. The
only officer attached to my command had been ill for several weeks, with
severe attacks of intermittent fever, which now merged into chronic
dysentery, and he was, in consequence, unable to sit on his horse, or to
do duty of any kind. These were rather discouraging circumstances for an
outset; but, at length, on the 31st day of May, our preparations being
completed, we commenced our journey, my own party consisting in all of
eighteen men, five wagons, and forty-six horses and mules; while that of
Mr. Sackett, our fellow-traveler, contained six persons, one wagon, one
travelling carriage, and fifteen animals. Lieutenant Gunnison, being too
ill to travel in any other manner, was carried on his bed, in a large
spring wagon, which had been procured for the transportation of the
instruments. The weather, in the morning, had been dark and lowering, with
occasional showers, but it cleared off about noon; the camp broke up; the
wagons were packed, and we prepared to exchange, for a season, the
comforts and refinements of civilized life, for the somewhat wild and
roving habits of the hunter and savage. My party consisted principally of
experienced voyageurs, who had spent the best part of their lives among
the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, and to whom this manner of life had
become endeared by old associations. We followed the "emigrant road"
(already broad and well beaten as any turnpike in our country) over a
rolling prairie, fringed on the south with trees. The hills consisted
principally of carboniferous limestone, in apparently horizontal strata,
which in places formed quite prominent escarpments. Our first day's
journey was only six miles; but we were now fairly embarked, and things
gradually assumed the appearance of order and regularity.
Although the route taken by the party had been traveled by thousands of
people, both before and since we passed over it, I have thought that, some
brief extracts from the daily journals of the expedition might not be
without interest, for, although nothing very new may perhaps be elicited,
still it is not improbable that they will convey, to such as peruse them,
a more correct idea of what the thousands have had to encounter who have
braved this long journey in search either of a new home in Oregon, or of
that more alluring object—the glittering treasure of California.
On the first of June Stansbury passed the train of a Mr. Allen. It had
about twenty-five ox-teams, and was bound for California. Cholera had
killed one of the party, and two more were down with it. Four men of the
party had been frightened by the disease into returning to the
settlements. On this day Stansbury first witnessed the formation of a camp
corral, which he describes:
In the course of the afternoon we passed the travelling-train of a Mr.
Allen, consisting of about twenty-five ox-teams, bound for the land of
gold. They had been on the spot several days, detained by sickness. One of
the party had died but the day before of cholera, and two more were then
down with the same disease. In the morning, early, we met four men from
the same camp, returning on foot, with their effects on their backs,
frightened at the danger and disgusted already with the trip. It was here
that we first saw a train "corralled." The wagons were drawn up in the
form of a circle and chained together, leaving a small opening at but one
place, through which the cattle were driven into the enclosed space at
night, and guarded. The arrangement is an excellent one, and rendered
impossible what is called, in Western phrase, a "stampede," a mode of
assault practiced by Indians for the purpose of carrying off cattle or
horses, in which, if possible, they set loose some of the animals, and so
frighten the rest as to produce a general and confused flight of the
whole. To a few determined men, wagons thus arranged form a breastwork
exceedingly difficult to be carried by any force of undisciplined savages.
Captain Stansbury came, on the fifth of June, into the main Emigration
Road through Kansas—the Oregon Trail. The point of union was at the place
so well known on the waters of the Big Blue for the next twenty years. On
the seventh of June a French trader from Fort Laramie was encountered. He
reported that he met not fewer than four thousand wagons—four persons to
the wagon—bound for California. They seemed to be getting on badly, having
had no experience on the plains. Almost daily small parties were seen
returning, having become discouraged or disgusted. Graves of emigrants who
had recently died lined the way. Here is one case encountered on the
twelfth of June. It serves to show the madness engendered by the
California Gold-fever:
Tuesday, June 12—Bar., 28.64; Ther., 63º. Breakfast at four. In ten and a
half miles crossed the west branch of Turkey Creek and halted to noon on
the bank of Wyeth's Creek six miles beyond. The crossing here is bad and
rocky, and the grass poor, having been eaten close by the trains which had
preceded us. The afternoon was oppressively hot and close, the wind being
from the eastward, with every appearance of rain. We have been in company
with multitudes of emigrants the whole day. The road had been lined to a
long extent with their wagons, whose white covers, glittering in the
sunlight, resembled, at a distance, ships upon the ocean. We passed a
company from Boston, consisting of seventy persons, one hundred and forty
pack and riding mules, a number of riding horses, and a drove of cattle
for beef. The expedition, as might be expected, and as is too generally
the case, was badly conducted; the mules were overloaded, and the manner
of securing and arranging the packs elicited many a sarcastic criticism
from our party, most of whom were old and experienced mountain-men, with
whom the making up of a pack and the loading of a mule amounted to a
science. We passed also an old Dutchman, with an immense wagon drawn by
six yoke of cattle, and loaded with household furniture. Behind, followed
a covered cart containing the wife, driving herself, and a host of
babies—the whole bound to the land of promise, of the distance to which,
however, they seemed to have not the most remote idea. To the tail of the
cart was attached a large chicken-coop, full of fowls; two milch-cows
followed, and next came an old mare, upon the back of which was perched a
little, brown-faced, barefooted girl, not more than seven years old, while
a small sucking colt brought up the rear. We had occasion to see this old
gentleman and his caravan frequently afterwards, as we passed and repassed
each other, from time to time, on the road. The last we saw of him was on
the Sweetwater, engaged in sawing his wagon into two parts, for the
purpose of converting it into two carts, and in disposing of everything he
could sell or give away, to lighten his load.
In after years the trail was strewn with furniture of every description,
the bones of oxen, horses, mules, buffaloes and sometimes men. In their
madness to get on the emigrants had cast away the effects they had hauled
hundreds of miles. It was like the wreckage cast upon the shores of the
wasting sea.
