By Mark Henderson and Rachel Preston Prinz
Historical Descriptions
I. Precursors to 1829
Jedediah Smith October 1826 (Brooks 1977:56-71) and July 1827
(Sullivan 1992:28-29)
Jedediah Smith made two trips
down the Virgin River drainage, first in October 1826 with 18 men and 28 horses
(Brooks 1977:37-39) and then returned in July of 1827 (Sullivan 1992:27-28). In both instances, he notes Indian “lodges”
on the Santa Clara River (the tributary of the Virgin to the northwest which
Smith calls “Corn Creek” and Armijo calls “Rio de Las Milpas” [“Cornfields
River’]) where the inhabitants were growing corn and pumpkins (Sullivan 1992:28,
Brooks 1977:57-59). Since Smith’s objective was commercial beaver trapping, he
stuck close to the river courses where this resource is found. Smith therefore makes note of the absence of
beaver in the Virgin River Gorge in the fall, but evidence that they had been
present in spring (Brooks 1977:59). Smith provides considerable detail on
native economy, trade and relations. Smith
also observes (Sullivan 1992:27) that a nearly starved group on their way to Taos had passed through
the “Corn Creek” villages on their way east in the spring of the previous year
(1826).
II. Period of Significance
(1829-1848)
Armijo 1829
On December 25, 1829, Armijo
states (Hafen and Hafen 1993:163):
We hit the Severo
River again [presumed to be at Beaverdam], from which point the reconnaissance party went out.
The next day Armijo states: “Down the same river.” It is presumed that Armijo
would be traveling approximately 30 miles a day in this terrain, which is about
what Frémont and Orville Pratt report.
This would place Armijo at about the mouth of Halfway Wash.
In short, for the Mormon Mesa
trail segment, Armijo passed it without note,
following the river valleys until exiting the lowlands ten days travel
downriver.
Fremont 1844 (Jackson and Spence
1970:687-690)
The section between Fremont’s Camp on the Muddy
River near modern Glendale,
Nevada on May 5 and his camp near the vicinity
of Beaverdam (28 miles up river from first contact with the Virgin
River) on May 10 is covered in one journal entry. This may be explained by the perpetual
harrassment by Indians of the small band of 22 travellers and the fatigue of
the animals in this section which was troubling the explorers.
The journal entry starts at the Muddy River:
May 5. On account of our animals, it was necessary to
remain today at this place. Indians
crowded numerously around us in the morning; and we were obliged to keep arms
in hand all day, to keep them out of camp.
They began to surround the horses, which, for the convenience of grass,
we were guarding a little above, on the river.
These were immediately driven in, and kept close to camp.
In the darkness of the night we had made a very bad
encampment, our fires being commanded by a rocky bluff within 50 yards; but,
notwithstanding, we had the river and small thickets of willows on the other
side. Severl times during the day the
camp was insulted by the Indians; but, peace being our object, I kept simply on
the defensive. Some of the Indians were
on the bottoms, and others haranguing us from the bluffs; and they were
scattered in every direction over the hills,[sic]
The formation here consists of fine yellow sandstone,
alternating with a coarse conglomerate, in which the stones are from the size
of ordinary gravel to six or eight inches in diameter. This formation which renders the surface of
the country so rocky, and gives us now a road alternately of loose heavy sands
and rolled stones, which cripple the animals in a most extraordinary manner.
On the following morning [May 7] we left the Rio de los Angeles [Muddy
River], and continued our
way through the same desolate and revolting country, where lizards were the
only animal, and the tracks of the lizard eaters the principal sign of human
beings. After twenty miles’ march
through a road of hills and heavy sands, we reached the most dreary river
[Virgin River] I have ever seen – deep and rapid stream, almost a torrent,
passing swiftly by, and roaring against obstructions. The banks were wooded with willow, acacia,
and a frequent plant of the country already mentioned, (Garrya elliptica,)
growing in thickets, resembling willow, and bearing a small pink flower. Crossing it we encamped on the left bank,
where we found a very little grass. Our
three remaining steers, being entirely given out were killed here. By the boiling point, the elevation of the
river here is 4,060 feet [actually 1300’]; and latitude by observation, 36° 41’
33”[latitude at mouth of Halfway
Wash is 36° 39’ 30”]. The stream was running towards the southwest,
and appeared to come from a snowy mountain in the north [Virgin Peak]. It proved to be the Rio Virgin – a tributary
to the Colorado. For several days we continued our journey up
the river, the bottoms of which were thickly overgrown with various kinds of
brush; and the sandy soil was absolutely covered with the tracks of Diggers,
who followed us stealthily, like a band of wolves; and we had no opportunity to
leave behind, even for a few hours, the tired animals, in order that they be
bought into camp after a little repose.
A horse or mule, left behind, was taken off in a moment. On the evening of the 8th, having
travelled 28 miles up the river from our first encampment on it, we encamped at
a little grass plat, where a spring of cool water issued from the bluff. On the opposite side was a grove of
cottonwoods at the mouth of a fork, which here enters the river [Beaverdam Wash at Beaverdam, Arizona]. On either side the valley is bounded by
ranges of mountains, every where high, rocky, and broken. The caravan road was lost and scattered in
the sandy country, and we had been following an Indian trail up the river. The hunters the next day [May 9th]
were sent out to reconnoitre, and in the mean time we moved about a mile
farther up were we found a good patch of grass.
There being only sufficient grass for the night, the horses were sent
with a strong guard in charge of Tabeau to a neighboring hollow, where they
might pasture during the day; and, to be ready in case the Indians should make
any attempt on the animals, several of the best horses were picketed at the
camp. In a few hours the hunters
returned, having found a convenient ford in the river, and discovered the
Spanish trail on the other side.
I had been engaged in arranging plants; and, fatigued with
the heat of the day, I fell asleep in the afternoon, and did not awake until
sundown. Presently Carson came to me, and reported that
Tabeau, who early in the day had left his post, and, without my knowledge, rode
back to the camp we had left [across from mouth of Beaverdam Wash], in search
of a lame mule, had not returned. While
we were speaking, a smoke rose suddenly from the cottonwood grove below, which
plainly told us what had befallen him; it was raised to inform the surrounding
Indians that a blow had been struck, and to tell them to be on their
guard. Carson, with several men well mounted, was
instantly sent down the river, but returned in the night without tidings of the
missing man. They went to the camp we
had left, but neither he nor the mule was there. Searching down the river, they found the
tracks of the mule, evidently driven along by Indians, whose tracks were on
each side of those made by the animal.
After going several miles, they came to the mule itself, standing in
some bushes, mortally wounded in the side by an arrow, and left to die, that it
might be afterwards butchered for food.
They also found, in another place, as they were hunting about the ground
for Tabeau’s tracks, something that looked like a puddle of blood, but which
darkness prevented them from verifying.
With these details they returned to our camp, and their report saddened
all our hearts.
This section of Frémont’s
account provides many tidbits of the routine of daily travel and rests which
have been excluded here. Frémont
indicates the practice of shoeing a mule at the Muddy River
camp. However later on in the journal
Frémont indicates that not all the animals were shod stating (Jackson and
Spence 1970:691):
We approached [the Santa Clara River] by a defile [Utah Hill], rendered
difficult for our barefooted animals by the rocks strewed along it;
Orville Pratt 1848 (Hafen and Hafen 1993:354-355)
Unlike Fremont who was north
and eastbound on the “Spanish Trail,” Orville Pratt traveled south and
westbound.
Monday Oct. 9th 1848 Marched about 30 m. down the Virgin [from Beaverdam] and
camped on the west side of it. No grass,
& difficult to get wood. Water
brackish in the Virgin & could get no other. This camp is one we have made from necessity
& not from choice. Tomorrow hope to
reach the “Muddy.” Has been hot today
& road for most part through heavy sand.
It is also interesting that
Pratt camped on the westbank of the River, presumed at the mouth of Halfway Wash, whereas Fremont in May of 1844
had camped on the east bank of the river.
This may indicate a practice of crossing rivers at the end of a days
march so the animals’ hoofs would not be softened at the beginning of the next
days’ travel. The description of the
road as “heavy sand” would be consistent with Frémont’s route presumed to be on
sandy terraces on the east bank of the river.
In October, it is likely that the river would have been quite low in contrast
to what Frémont observed in early May when the river was moving rapidly with
spring runoff.
Tuesday Oct. 10th 1848 Started this morning two
hours before daylight and made a long march of 35 m. to the “Muddy” & over
a very heavy road, without water or grass, by 12 oclock! We made a delightful camp on a fine stream
of water with good grass and found a large body of Indians – Piutes. From them we bought some green corn and
beans. And what a meal we made! The valley of the “Muddy” is large & land
fertile. The water is of the best and
purest kind and some day, & that too not distant, this valley will team
with a large & healthy population.
The Piutes killed a mule for me at this place.
It is interesting that in the
4.5 years since Frémont passed over Mormon Mesa the “Rio de los
Angeles” had become the “Muddy” and the “Digger Indians” who spoke
a “Utah”
tongue were identified as “Piutes.” The
natives encountered at the camp on the Muddy instead of being hostile and
foraging had a sufficient surplus of green corn and beans to be willing to
‘sell’ these food supplies and in addition butcher a mule to feed to the
grateful sojourners. It is remarkable
how rabidly conditions had changed from hostile starving foraging people trying
to run-off mules and horses in the spring season, to friendly farmers with a
surplus mule to butcher and give away in the fall a little over four years
later. One explanation for this contrast
may be that Frémont apparently had no items to exchange with the native peoples
in 1844 and though Pratt had been on the trail for 45 days from Santa Fe, still had items
to exchange with the natives.
Frémont’s map illustrates
that he traveled on the east bank of the Virgin River all the way to the mouth
of Beaverdam Wash.
This does not appear to be a result of ‘simplification’ of the packtrail
route, but a difference between packtrail wagon road navigation logistics. The wagon road route mapped by the Wheeler
Survey from 1872 shows five crossings of the Virgin River between Beaverdam and
Halfway Wash, with the road between Beaverdam and the vicinity of the
Arizona-Nevada stateline going far west of the river closer to the alignment of
Interstate 15 avoiding the dissected country close to the river in this entire
stretch. Wagons would have avoided the
heavy sands on the River terraces.
Brewerton 1847 (Brewerton 1993). There is ambiguous
geographic detail in the Brewerton travel account from Los
Angeles to Taos
between May 4 and June 14, 1847 where he was in the company of Kit Carson
(Hafen and Hafen 1993:317-339). There has been debate about the route travelled
eastward after the perilous crossing of the Colorado River at Green River, Utah
(Simmons in Brewerton 1993:xviii; Hafen and Hafen 1993:332-335). In his introduction to the Brewerton account,
Stallo Vinton suggests that Brewerton followed the “regular Spanish Trail, which again is the shortest route” (Brewerton
1993:11) but the weight of circumstantial evidence favors the conclusion of
Hafen and Hafen (1993:336-337) that Brewerton enters the “Taos Valley” over 100
miles and five days travel north of Taos (Brewerton 1993:122-144). In the eastward travel, Brewerton does give
an important general description of the last eastbound caravan on the “great Spanish Trail” summarizing as
follows (Brewerton 1993:59):
This caravan consisted of some two or three hundred mexican
traders who go once a year to the California coast with a supply of blankets
and other articles of New Mexican manufacture; and having disposed of their
goods, invest the proceeds in Californian mules and horses, which they drive
back across the desert. These people
often realize large profits, as the animals purchased for a mere trifle on the
coast, bring high prices in Santa Fé.
This caravan had left the Pueblo of Los Angeles some time
before us , and were consequently several days in advance of our party upon the
trail – a circumstance which did us great injury, as their large caballada
(containing nearly a thousand head) ate up or destroyed the grass and consumed
the water at the few camping grounds upon the route.
The Carson-Brewerton party
caught up to the caravan eight days out from Los Angeles,
probably in the vicinity of current Barstow,
on or about the 12th of May.
It appears that the last caravan left around the first of May,
substantially later than the March 1st departure date that Armijo
reports in 1830 (Hafen and Hafen 1993:165). The later timing would take
advantage of the green-up in the Mojave, with half the annual precipitation
coming in March and April, and follow the spring “greening” as it travelled up
elevation into the Colorado Plateau. The
disadvantage of this timing being high water that Brewerton observed at the
Green River crossing in early June (1993:113-122), which Heap also observed
in late July 1853 (Heap 1855:83), and
that the Gunnison wagon train crossed without any difficulty on October 1st
1853 (1854:67).
Brewerton’s account is also
is important because it describes one of the most often repeated incidents on
the Spanish Trail: the attack of the Fuentes-Hernandez-Giacome party by Paiutes
at Resting Spring as had been previously documented by Fremont in April, 1844 [Brewerton 1993:87-94;
Jackson and Spence 1970:677-684). Fremont says (Jackson and
Spence 1970:681) of Carson and Godey that their exploits in tracking, scalping
two Indians and returning a part of the remuda of fifteen horses :
“… may be considered among the boldest and most disinterested
which the annals of western adventure, so full of daring deeds, can
present. Two men, in a savage desert,
pursue day and night an unknown body of Indians into the defiles of an unknown
mountain – attack them on sight, without counting numbers – and defeat them in
an instant – and for what? To punish the robbers of the desert, and to avenge
the wrongs of Mexicans whom they did not know.
I repeat it was Carson and Godey who did this – the former an American,
born in Boonslick country of Missouri; the
latter a Frenchman, born in St. Louis
– and both trained to western enterprise from early life.”
Between the report of a harrowing
incident at Archilette (Resting) Spring and the camp at Beaverdam, Brewerton
has only this to say (Brewerton 1993:94):
Upon reaching the banks of the Rio
Virgen (Virgin’s River), we found the “Indian Sign,” as it is called by the
trappers, growing everywhere more plentiful.
The signal fires, too, were still continued; and furnished additional
evidence that our presence in this region was regarded with suspicion and
distrust. Among our halts near the
Virgen, we stpped at the point where Frémont, in the spring of 1844, lost one
of his best men, an old mountaineer, who fell a victim to the hostility of
these same Indians.
Brewerton goes on to recite
the disappearance, and presumed murder of Tabeau at the hands of the natives, which
occurred south (downsteam) of the first camp
Frémont established at the confluence
of Beaverdam Wash
and the Virgin River on May 8th
1844. This account though brief,
reiterates the use of signal fires by the natives and the mistrustful
relationships with the natives that had apparently lessened by the following
year when Orville Pratt passed through.
III. Successors to the Packtrail
Early US
Territorial Trails and Commerce (1848-1875)
The Salt Lake
to Los Angeles Road
By 1849, the year following Orville
Pratt’s passage over Mormon Mesa, the corridor of the Old Spanish Trail over
Mormon Mesa had become well utilized and modified by wagon traffic. The ‘49ers that took the “Southern Route”
were divided between wagon trains and mule packers, but as the accounts
illustrate (Hafen and Hafen 1998) there was no adherence to following
established alignments, both because of the wagon technology and arrogance of
leadership. In any event, the amount of
traffic in the “Old Spanish Trail” route corridors was unprecedented. The largest group of wagons was led by
Jefferson Hunt consisting of 107 wagons, over 400 people and over 1,000 head of
horses, mules and oxen (Hafen and Hafen 1998:60). This wagon traffic resulted
in the conversion of an ad hoc packtrail to an “improved” route with rocks
pulled aside, drainages filled and trees cut.
Extensive historical research of the reorganization of the
mercantile and emigrant route that came with the establishment of the Mormon
settlement of Salt Lake City
in 1846 has been undertaken (Hafen and Hafen 1998, Lyman and Reese 2001, Lyman
2004 and Johnson n.d.). A wagon made it
part way on the trail from Los Angeles to Salt Lake starting out on February
15, 1848, but had to be abandoned bfore the part reached Salt Lake City in May
of 1848 (Lyman 2004:41).
Of the section between the mouth of Halfway Wash
to the California Crossing Addison Pratt
provides a vivid account (Hafen and Hafen 1998:85-88):
Wednesday, Nov. 14 We
continued our journey down the river and before noon we came to a canyon
through which the road leads away from the Virgin. As there was neither grass nor water between
this point and the next stream called the Muddy, we stopped and turned our
animals out to graze. We were visited by
a severe squall of rain and wind, and Brother James S. Brown and I, who guarded
the cattle on that day, sought shelter in a cave. In continuing our journey up the canyon, we
overtook Mr. Dallas, the owner of the cow we had found. He also owned seven wagons who had gone ahead
to the Muddy; he hailed from Galena and was on
his way to the California
gold mines with men and means and his family.
The road in the canyon was very sandy, which made the pulling very hard
on our weak cattle. In the evening we
came to a steep hill which we had to ascend in order to reach the bench land
above. This hill is about two hundred
yards long and rises with a circular sweep near the top it is rocky and nearly
perpendicular. We drove as far as our
teams were able to pull the wagons, when we blocked the wheels of each wagon
and put ten or twelve yoke of oxen on the forward vehicle, and thus we got up
with much difficulty; it was so steep near the top that an ox could barely
stand without pulling at all. Mr. Dallas
told us he had chains enough with his teams on the Muddy to reach down the hill
from the top and hook onto the wagons below, in which case the cattle pulling
on top of the hill could draw them up.
But we knew our cattle could not stand it long without grass or
water. By use of a coil of 2-inch rope
found in one of the wagons and all of our lighter chains, we managed to pull
all our wagons up. Mr. Dallas told us
that a wagon belonging to a doctor in the company ahead had gotten nearly to
the top when a chain broke and the wagon, with almost lightening speed, ran to
the bottom of the hill where it was smashed to pieces, and the things with
which it was loaded destroyed. It had
taken Dallas and his men two days to get up the hill; but we were all up by 3
o’clock in the morning. We camped on top
of the hill till daylight, nine miles from the Virgin.
November 15, 1849 At daylight, we hitched up our teams and
drove ahead three miles, where we unexpectedly found some bunch grass, here we
stopped an hour and hunted our cattle, the cows that belonged to Mr. Dallas,
and the one belonging to Mr. Sowderwager were left in the canyon, as they were
so feeble that they could not get them up th hill. The rain that fell the day before had
moistened the grass so that the cattle ate very readily without water, after
they had eaten we started over the fourteen mile desert that lies between the
head of the canyon and the Far muddy creek, and arrived there a little after
noon, this desert is hard gravel and good traveling, here we found Dallas’es
wagons, and about a dozen others of that company that followed the Spanyards we
also found a yoke of oxen that had taken in Salt Lake Valley, from Chancy West,
they had been quarreling about the cattle and by that means we soon found the
whole matter. We stayed here the next
day. This creek is fed by warm springs
and the water is warm and pleasant to bath in this time of year, I found some
fish in the creek much resembling a well known fish in the rivers of New England, called carp.
They bite readily at a hook, the largest of them weighing near a
pound. As I saw lumps on some of their
sides, I cut them open and found them sacks, containing a sort of wireworm.
Pratt ‘s account is important because it indicates that,
unlike the logistics of Fremont with his pack animals in spring of 1844 with a
“torrent” running in the Virgin, that the wagons in fall of 1849 followed down
the sandy Virgin River bed, crossing the river many times. This would be particularly rough on unshod
pack animals, softening their hooves, and was also hard on the shod oxen drawn
wagons. By 1851, the itinerary of the
wagon road following the old packtrail with established distances and camps
Pratt’s distances are in question in many cases, and similarly, do not square
with the Halfway Wash alignment.
Sheep Drives
Baxter (1987:114-115)mentions only one sheep enterprise
following the Old Spanish Trail through the Mojave desert; 4,000 head owned by
William Z. Angney departing Abiquiu in summer of 1850 and driving northward to
the Tulare Valley by early December.
Johnson (n.d.:15) presents evidence that Dr. Thomas Flint drove 1,000
head of sheep down the “Old Spanish Trail” arriving Resting Springs on December
30, 1853.
Heap 1853 (Heap 1854).
Leaving Westport, Kansas on the 6th of May 1853,
less than two months in advance of the Gunnison Expedition, Gwin Harris Heap
accompanied his Uncle, Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who had been appointed
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, to the overland destination of Los Angeles
(Wheat 2004:197- 201). The party
consisted of a dozen travellers (Heap 1854:13) and a number of riding horses,
mules and pack mules
Heap’s observations on the route give the fullest account of
general conditions on the North Branch route between Fort Massachusetts (just north
of modern Fort Garland [leaving June 15]), and after a detour to resupply in
Taos, joining the main route of their passage – which they called and would
thusly become known as the “Spanish Trail” near the Green River crossing (on
July 24). From Green
River, the Beale Party travelled the established “main route” of
the “Spanish Trail.” While after the
period of significance of 1829-1848, this account combined with that of
Brewerton (1993) paints the narratives of cultural and natural geography of the
region reflecting the Mexican period and establish the “Spanish Trail” as an
existing, known network.
Heap’s account
promoting the “Central
Route” to California
is also accompanied by testimonials of Charles W. McClanahan and R.S “Uncle
Dick” Wooten regarding the suitability of the route for emigrant travel and a
commercial livestock driveway because of the directness of the route and the
quality of forage (Heap 1854:123-127).
McClanahan claims to have followed just behind Gunnison
with 2,000 sheep and between 3 and 400 head of cattle, supported by an unknown
number of wagons (Heap 1854:124,126). The physical treadway that Heap traversed
with a limited number of horses and mules after joining the Salt Lake to Los
Angeles Wagon Road on August 1st 1853, was largely obliterated by
later wagon traffic (Heap 1854:89), and traces of the original route completely
destroyed by heavy wagon traffic and
thousands of head of sheep, hundreds of cattle and wagons pulled by oxen, mules
and horses.
The Beale pack train left camp on August 8, 1853 [presumed to
be at Beaverdam] following down the Virgin River 29 miles “down the bottom, was
at tmes through deep sand, as was mostly the case since leaving Vegas de Santa
Clara (Heap 1854:101).” This would be at
approximately the location of the mouth of Halfway Wash. From here, Heap’s account is difficult to
square with distances and geography of the Virgin River to Muddy River
crossing. Heap says (1855:101):
August 9. By keeping a watchful guard, our animals were
saved from the Pah-Utahs, who hovered about us all night. We rode down the
Virgen ten miles farther, when we left it to cross the hot and sterile plain,
eight miles broad, extending between the Virgen and the Rio Atascoso (Muddy
Creek). It was thickly covered with
sharp flints, and bore a scanty growth of stunted mesquit bushes, which on the
dry plains bear few pods; for a couple of miles from each stream the country
was much broken by ravines. Rio Atascoso is a narrow stream, but in many places
quite deep; its water is clear, and it derives its name from the slimy and miry
nature of its banks and bed. Days march,
18 miles; whole distance 1,521 miles.
The distances match the 18 miles crossing of Mormon Mesa, but
the additional “10 miles” down river does not.
Ten miles further down the Virgin would take the the group to the Lost
City Cove vicinity at the southern terminus of Mormon Mesa, where later wagon
roads and the Arrowhead Trail destined for Overton leave the Virgin River. These issues can not be resolved here as they
most likely relate to the establishment of passage over or around Mormon Mesa
by wagons avoiding the sandy bottoms of the Virgin River and the steep ascent
of Mormon Mesa at Virgin Hill, which would not have been nearly as troublesome
as the sharp “flinty” caprock of Mormon Mesa so troublesome to unshod pack and
riding stock.
Wheeler Surveys
Wheeler’s Atlas Sheet 66 (1872) shows the course of the wagon
road from Beaverdam down the Virgin River to “Cottonwood” in the vicinity of
modern Riverside. South of “Cottonwood” the map shows one wagon
route following the Virgin River south to St. Thomas but another route
ascending a drainage labelled “Virgin Hill.”
This “Virgin Hill” proceeds across an unnamed tableland (now known as
Mormon Mesa) and descending into the “Valley of the Muddy” north of “St Joe.”
GLO Surveys
GLO Plats for the Mormon Mesa area from Township 13 S to
Township 16 S and Range 66 E to Range 70 E of the Mt Diablo Principle Meridian
and Baseline are all created from 1881 surveys.
Only one wagon road is shown
leaving the Virgin River onto Mormon Mesa.
This route follows the existing access road along the powerline that crosses
the mouth of Halfway Wash and forms the eastern boundary of the Mormon
Mesa trail Segment. The wagon road
illustrated bifurcate in Section 11 of T 15 S R68 E one alignment that heads
easterly to “St Joseph” [Logandale]
labelled “Old Mormon Wagon Road” and another more southerly labelled “Wagon Road to Muddy” crossing to the west of the Virgin River at St.
Thomas [Overton]. These plats illustrate
another reorganization of the transport
network by the last quarter of the 19th Century.