John Grove Speer Journey to CaliforniaOn p82 of the "Speer Family" book, John Grove Speer wrote: "On May 2, 1850, we went to Louisville and took a steam-boat for St. Louis. At that place we purchased the provisions for our journey, and then took another steamer for Lexington, Missouri, where we began our overland journey for Lone Jack neighborhood in a border county, where we maintained until the grass grew sufficiently high to sustain our animals. At this place we were joined by another company of eight men gotten together by Captain Easley a pioneer settler and hunter. We all started together for the Pacific coast."
Scaling the straight line distance for this first phase of their journey gives me about 430 miles. Road distance is more like 475 miles.
John Grove Speer, p83: "Out on the vast prairie among Indians, over rivers, onward we moved. After having crossed the Blue W___ and Kansas Rivers we were nearing the Platte a distance of about 340 miles, just above Fort Kearney from this point we traveled up on the south side of the Platte to Fort Laramie, then garrisoned by United States troops, where we had some blacksmithing done. The distance was about 640 miles to this fort. Now as you would like to know what was seen and done on this trip, I shall devote part of these pages to telling you. We saw many Indians some tutored and some not, but all looking like savages. We passed through the Potawatomi Mission where they were being schooled. After we passed through the mission we met some of the warriors of this tribe returning from the pursuit of some hostile Indians who had been committing depredations upon some of their tribe. We saw a few buffaloes and antelopes. Captain Easley killed one of the latter and brought it into camp. The meat is very sweet and tender, even better than venison. Antelopes are much like deer, but smaller; the male antelope has no antlers." The mention of the Potawatomi Mission where Indians were being schooled indicates that they traveled almost directly westward from Lone Jack. Web says it was Northwest of Topeka. From above linked article: "The Potawatomi Mission near Topeka operated just 13 years, from 1848 to 1861. It suffered from sporadic shortages of funds and staffing throughout its short history, but the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 made these problems insurmountable. When Kansas became a state that same year, the Potawatomi reservation was reduced dramatically in size, and most of the tribe moved to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma)." Speer mentions crossing the Kansas and the Blue Rivers (also called the Big Blue River), and these two rivers are mentioned in an article on the Oregon-California Trail. That article contains the following: "It is estimated that 300,000 people traveled to the West Coast during the 20 years after the first caravan went to Oregon in 1841. Almost all of these people traveled through northeast Kansas along what became known as the Oregon Trail. This road, also called the Oregon-California Trail, was a 2,000-mile route beginning at Independence, Missouri, and continuing west and north to the Columbia River Valley in Oregon or west then south to the gold fields of California. Kansas was the gathering point for wagon trains. " It also mentions the Potawatomi Mission as one of the popular stopping places. All the comments that I find indicate that they were following the Oregon Trail at this point in their journey. The route to California branched off southward west of this point. The referenced article above says that they had to use a ferry to cross the Kansas River, a large river.
Speer's casual comment "After having crossed the Blue W___ and Kansas Rivers ..." covers what had to be quite an adventure. When they traveled westward from Lone Jack, they had to turn north on the Oregon Trail and then they faced the Kansas River, which was described as "wide, deep, and swift", so there was no way they could cross it with wagons alone. It is likely that they crossed on Papin's Ferry, as most travelers on the Oregon Trail did. You could say that they crossed the river in Topeka, but Papin's Ferry preceded Topeka! I found one record that said that Topeka had five houses in 1855, so Topeka was in the future, built along the Oregon Trail at that location. Then they traveled northwest to the point where the much smaller Big Blue River could be forded, still following the Oregon Trail. It was the travel from Papin's Ferry to this ford point that took them by the Potawatomi Mission. The straight line distance between the two crossing points was about 60 miles.
p 83: After a day's travel we would put our wagons in a circle, picket our mules by tying them to a stake driven into the ground with a lariat, or rope, about thirty feet in length, thus allowing them to graze on a circle sixty feet in diameter, our tents were then put up and two guards selected to watch our mules, one in the first part, the other in the latter part of the night. One night while I was on guard the mules were very much frightened, probably by some wild animal that was prowling about. I ran to the point where the mules had broken loose and fired into the darkness with no effect, save to arouse my companions who quickly secured our frightened mules. p84: "The next scene worthy of mention was high up on the Platte River, where we got among the buffaloes crossing the stream.
Again we moved on crossing another stream called Sweetwater , the water of which was said to be poisonous. [Current articles like the Emigrant Trail in Wyoming do not mention that the river was poisonous, but they mention some alkaline springs near the river, which would be poisonous to their animals.]
In 1811, the overland party of John Astor's Pacific Fur Company, although numbering sixty well armed men, found the Indians so very troublesome in the country of the Yellowstone River, that the party of seven persons who left Astoria toward the end of June, 1812, considering it dangerous to pass again by the route of 1811, turned toward the southeast as soon as they had crossed the main chain of the Rocky Mountains, and, after several days' journey, came through the celebrated 'South Pass' in the month of November, 1812.
"We have seen no Indians since we left the Platte, but as we went on westward we came to a camp of the redmen, their squaws and little ones at the bend of Bear River. They had come down from the head waters of the Columbia River on a hunting expedition. The were of Flathead tribe. I suppose most of the men were out on a hunt, for though we stayed there several days we saw but few of them. There were a white man, his wife and a Cherokee Indian with them, with whom one of our company traded and got a good American horse that carried him into Sacramento City, where he sold him for about ninety dollars. Now, having a chest of medicine with me which I desired to take to the end of the journey, I was surprised and troubled to learn that here we would leave our wagons and make the remainder of the trip on pack mule. I scarcely knew what to do, but decided finally that I would not cut up our wagon, but get ready to, and go as a majority favored so doing. Fortunately Captain Miles, of Missouri, who had been out in California in 1849, came up with his ox team on his return trip, and to him the wagon was given. He agreed to bring my chest of medicine on to California, which he did like a good man. I lost all in a fire in Nevada where I had left it with a friend of mine, and by that means lost almost one hundred dollars worth of medicine." p87-89: "Further on we reached what was called Hodgpeth's cut-off which caused us to leave Salt Lake City about seventy miles to our left as we journeyed on to the head of Humboldt River which is about three hundred and forty miles in length when it sinks or comes to an end in the great basin east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our route was down the north side until we reached the sink, when, having supplied ourselves with fresh water, we struck out to cross a parched desert where there was no fresh water to be had for a distance of about ninety miles. After our evening meal we took the trail for the Carson River where we found a plentiful supply of fresh water. The sand was do deep for a part of the way that one of my mules, that had been poisoned by drinking alkaline water gave out. I gave him something to eat and left him behind. I was sorry to do so , but all was rushing at break-neck speed and I was compelled to do do or be left by myself. There is not a tree of any size growing on the Humboldt River as it rolls on draining a great basin and gathering in volume until near the end where its surface is covered with thousands of whirlpools which seem to suck in the water. What becomes of this water is a mystery. There is one thing that is significant and that is that near the sink there is a volume of water issuing from the ground that is hot enough to cook an egg. It ebbs and flows as the ocean tides, I am told. This water I think is fresh and can be used for culinary purposes, but all the water down here where the river is from one to two miles width and very salty."
This is a Google Earth view of the Humboldt Sink. It is interesting that there is some irrigated cultivation in the area. It is also interesting that that Interstate 80 and a railroad runs through the area that caused so much grief and distress to those early travelers. An article for farmers in the Nevada News Group shows that the water issues and the nature of the area have changed dramatically since the gold-rush days. This is an image of the Humboldt Sink from Wikipedia titled "Panorama of the Humboldt Sink from the West Humboldt Range in Churchill County, Nevada" "On we go towards the Sierra Nevada Mountains and at length begin their ascent. After climbing two or three miles we are on their summit far above the tops of the pine trees which are to be seen everywhere on these mountains. The north sides of these mounts are covered with snow all the year , and on the slopes one can enjoy scenery that is grand and magnificent. This is the highest place I was ever on out there, and was several hundred miles from Sacramento City with pine forest all he way. Here we took a pack trail and passed a beautiful lake of clear water about five miles in length situated upon this high tableland. Where we came to where its waters fell over a precipice and dashed down through and among the rocks an on to feed the larger streams. We crossed here on a pontoon bridge that had ben placed there by packers, the span was about thirty feet, and the water above about ten feet deep and so clear that we could see many mountain trout on tis bottom. " p89: "As a company, our last camp was on the American River which empties into the Sacramento River at Sacramento City. At the ferry of the American River we cooked and ate our last meal, and then the separation took place. Several went into the city, and some of them falling in with Richard J. Oglesby, a forty-niner, concluded to go south with him where he was mining, and the next morning moved off, with their mules to be placed on a ranch. The others left, two by two, leaving me and Joe Griffith, who had joined us on the plains, to shift the best we could. I had gone into the city that night also, and was called upon to make a speech to a crowd who wanted to know the the suffering and the destitution of the emigrants, that they might send out relief parties with provisions, etc., to meet them. Of course I told them what I knew." p89-90: "The next morning, Joe Griffith and I cleaned the platter, and mounting our animals rode into town and offered them for sale. We then secured a meal of good things and were ready for some other move. "
Reference: This material attempts to trace the journey based on the text of the book "Reminiscenses of the Speer Family" written by John Grove Speer when he was 91 and published in 1900.
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