Adobe Days/Chapter 5
Chapter V
Driving Sheep Across the Plains
On March 8, 1852, the cousins began the long return journey by rail, horseback, emigrant wagon and foot that ended just ten months later at San Gabriel, in Southern California. Dr. Flint, at the end of his diary, sums up the distances as follows:
“Today closes the year 1853, and one year from the time we left San Francisco on the steamship Northerner; in which time we have traveled by steamship 5,344 miles. By railroad 2,144 miles. I have, by steamboat on Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 1,074 miles. On horseback and on foot 2,131 miles, making a total of 10,693 on a direct line between points reached.”
This diary is said to have especial historical value because the author put down daily specific facts of cost, distance and conditions of travel. Many accounts of the overland trip are but memories.
As I have read the journal I have been impressed with the idea that while it took vision, health and character on the part of the young pioneers to accomplish their object, the burdens came only day by day and would not be refused by the vigorous young grandsons whom I know now, were the same rewards offered for enterprise and endurance.
The railroad journey from Boston to Terre Haute, the western terminus of the road, was a very different one from that of today, taking then a week instead of a few hours.
They went down from Anson and Norridgewock to Boston where they exchanged their “money at Suffolk Bank for their bills, as they were good anywhere West, and none others were.”
Leaving Boston at 8 A.M., an all day ride took them to Albany, where they spent the night at the Delavan House. They went on early the next morning to Buffalo, which was reached at 11 P.M. Here they “put up at the Clarendon House. Tired. Sleepy.” At eleven in the forenoon they left for Cincinnati, reaching Cleveland at 8 P.M., Columbus at 4 A.M., where they changed cars, and arrived at their destination late at night, after a thirty-six hour ride in day coaches. They rested at Cincinnati until the next afternoon, when they went over to Dayton for the purpose of making an early start on the last lap of the railroading. The entry for March 16 reads:
“Called at 2 o’clock A.M., went aboard cars at 2 1/2. No breakfast, nor could we get a mouthful until we arrived in Indianapolis, at 2 1/2 o’clock P.M. The R. R. was new, rough and no stations by the way. Arrived in Terre Haute about 5 P.M.”
Here they stopped for a week at the Prairie House. They organized their firm of Flint, Bixby & Co., in which Benjamin, who had been longer in California, had four parts to three each for the others. They wrote letters, bought three horses, fitted saddles to them, and, on March 19th, started west for Paris, Illinois, over “roads as bad as mud can make them.”
They went across the state, a few miles a day, calling occasionally on an old friend or on one of their many cousins who had settled in the Middle West. Once they stopped over night in Urbana at the Middlesex House, where they found six beds in a 6 x 9 room, and had for breakfast “fried eggs swimming in lard, the almost universal food in this part of the world.”
By April first they had arrived in Quincy. “Had a hard time finding the town,” says Dr. Flint. “Most of the way through oak-wooded prairie, uncultivated.... Horseback distance from Terre Haute, 348 miles.”
Quincy was their headquarters while they were seeking and buying sheep, finding a few at one place, a few at another. Father once told me of the vexations they had at first, trying to drive in one homogeneous band all these little groups of sheep, each with its own bell wether.
During the last of April and the first of May, while still buying stock, they sheared their sheep at Warsaw, Illinois, selling the wool, 6,410 pounds, for $1,570.45 to Connable-Smith Co., of Keokuk, Iowa. At this time it is recorded that father received a remittance of $1,000.00 from a California acquaintance, undoubtedly a welcome addition to their funds with such an undertaking ahead of them. They must have had their trip well planned before they left Volcano, for Pacific Coast mail to meet them thus.
On May 7 they started off for the overland journey with 1,880 sheep, young and old, eleven yoke of oxen, two cows, four horses, two wagons, complete camping outfit; four men, three dogs, and themselves. They ferried across the Mississippi River at Keokuk for $62.00.
At some time during the trip the number of sheep was increased for I have always heard it said that the flock contained 2,400, and I have a later brief resume of the trip, made by Dr. Flint, in which he mentions the larger number.
There was much travel across the plains at this time. The entry for May 8 is: “In Keokuk. Visited the Mormon camp where it was said there were 3,400 proselytes from Europe, 278 emigrant wagons ready to convey them to Salt-Lake. A motley crowd of English, Welsh, Danes, etc.”
Father and Ben went on across Iowa with their train, while Dr. Flint went alone by steamer to St. Louis to purchase further supplies, which he took up the Missouri on the S. S. El Paso to meet his partners at Council Bluffs.
It is interesting to note that while he was in St. Louis he heard Prof. Agassiz lecture on geology. St. Louis was a far Cry from Cambridge, but in this golden age of American lectures men took long and hard trips to carry knowledge to eager learners. How fortunate that Mr. Bryan had not yet arisen to combat the spread of scientific thinking!
The trip up the river from St. Louis to Council Bluffs took ten days, due in part to the many stops for loading and unloading, and to the necessity for tying up at night because of changing currents and shifting banks. There is mention of frontier settlements, of Indians along shore and of the varied passengers, among them a group of fourteen Baptist ministers, going to attend a convention. Their presence brought about the curious anomaly of “prayer meeting at one end of the saloon, cards at the other.” By Sunday, the 29th, the preachers had disembarked, and the steamer was “getting above moral and religious influences as we leave civilization behind and touch the wild and woolly west.”
The steamer arrived at Kanesville (Council Bluffs) on May 30, where the supplies were landed during a severe storm. The place was a “town of huts, and full of sharp dealers who live off the emigrants ... the outpost of the white man.”
Here Dr. Flint met Ben and Lewell with their sheep and wagons, but the crossing of the river was delayed for a week by the heavy rains.
After a final gathering of supplies, the purchase of an additional saddle horse and another wagon, the stock was ferried across the Missouri River and they found themselves “fairly on the plains.”
The personnel of the party varied from time to time. Dr. Flint says there were fifteen men, but does not name them all. Three men, after a couple of weeks, became faint-hearted and turned back. The teamsters, Jennings, who served also as butcher, White, the carpenter, and John Trost, the “Dutchman,” appear to have made the entire trip with them.
There is frequent mention of William C. Johnson, who, with his bride Mary, left the party with whom they had been traveling and added their wagon to ours. Mrs. Johnson, the only woman in the train, contributed to the general comfort by baking bread for them all, and on gala days making apple pie or doughnuts.
This comparatively small group of men and wagons, with much stock, made conditions somewhat different from those recently pictured in the “The Covered Wagon,” and yet this film has made real to many the hazards and fatigue, the courage and the heartbreak, the manner of life and travel that were common to all who crossed the plains.
The route chosen by my people differed from that picture in that it lay altogether north of the Platte River, but they encountered many lesser streams across which their stock must swim.
From the first of June until the middle of July they were on the prairies; from then on they were in the Rocky Mountains until the first of September, when they came down into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. By the first of October they were well under way again, following the Fremont Trail to San Bernardino, a journey of three months. I have given a brief report of their route; the diary is full of interesting details of daily happenings, of the type of country through which they passed, of the things that grew by the wayside and of the various animals they encountered. Comments on the landscape give a hint of the love of beauty in the writer, but, being a New Englander, he does not indulge in much emotional or florid language.
I was interested in several mentions of the guidebook, Horne’s, which evidently mapped out the routes with more or less detail. Sometimes they found the statements accurate, sometimes not.
The sending of a letter home from time to time makes one realize that the trail, though long and hard, was a traveled one, and that they were not entirely isolated. Occasionally they were overtaken and passed by those who could go more rapidly, unhampered by the slow-moving sheep. Father often said that he walked across the continent; he had a saddle horse, Nig, but, going at a sheep’s pace, he found it pleasanter on foot.
When they first started out from Council Bluffs they met reports that Indians ahead were troublesome, but they did not encounter any for nearly a month. Then one day a couple of Omahas, carrying an English rifle, were in camp for a time. Two nights later the man on guard, James Force, was shot dead by an Indian who was attempting to capture Dr. Flint’s horse. Father told me it was his watch, but this man had taken it that fatal night, in return for some favor father had shown him.
The last of July they had a second meeting with Indians, but fortunately without casualties on either side. Dr. Flint says: “Soon after halting, an half dozen Indians bounded out of the brush and commenced to pillage the wagons. The teamsters, Johnson, Palmer, and Jennings, were scared out of their wits and offered no resistance, but Mrs. Johnson went after their hands with a hatchet when they went to help themselves to things in her wagon.... Two more Indians joined those already present,—one of them with a certificate that they were Good Indians. It was written in faultless penmanship, expressing the hope we would treat them well, so we gave them some hard tack and a sheep that was lame.... The Indians were greatly astonished when they found that we could use the Spanish language. We found that they were a hunting and marauding party of Arapahoes from Texas.”
Shortly after this our party overtook a desolate train of Mormons,—mostly women and children from England,—who had been robbed of all their provisions by these “Good Indians,” and who would have perished but for the timely arrival of our people, who supplied them with sufficient food to carry them through to their destination.
By the middle of August the company crossed South Pass and “drank from Pacific Springs.” They went past Fort Bridger, where they left the Oregon Trail and turned southward through the mountains into Utah. As they were going down the last defiles into the broad valley they were met by watchers who enquired if they were saints or sinners. When it was known that they were the people who were the saviors of the robbed and stranded Mormons, they were given a royal welcome by Brigham Young and his saints. Their flocks were turned into the Church pastures, and they were given free access to the gardens. After long months of camp fare they enjoyed greatly the plenty of this promised land, the green corn, squashes, potatoes and melons.
It had been their intent to drive their stock directly across Nevada and the Sierras into Central California, their destination, but the season was so late they feared the heavy snows that were imminent in the high mountains. They therefore determined to travel southwest into Southern California and from there to drive up the coast.
After about three weeks of rest and recuperation, they set out, with flocks augmented by purchase from the Mormons, upon the hardest portion of the trail.
From this time on there is frequent mention of other parties engaged in similar enterprise. A number of these joined forces for mutual protection against the Indians, who were very troublesome in the Southwest. They attempted to stampede the horses and cattle, which were easily frightened. The sheep were not so hard to protect, for they when alarmed huddled closer to the camp fire.
Although the men were constantly annoyed by the attempts of the Indians to run off stock, they managed to avoid actual conflict and no lives were lost.
When the Indians did succeed in cutting out some of the stock they would return it, on being paid at the rate of two “hickory” shirts (the khaki of that day) for a cow, and one for a calf. On one occasion the Indians brought in venison for sale, which was bought and eaten, before it was discovered that the number of “deer” corresponded exactly with the number of colts that were missing.
Anyone who has made the rail trip between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles can appreciate the references made in the diary to the rough and stony trails, the dust, the days without water or food for the animals, to sage-brush and cactus, and can but wonder how it was possible to get flocks across the desert country at all.
On the earlier part of this trail, where there was still some noticeable vegetation, they lost many sheep through the eating of poison weeds. They lost others through the drinking of poor water or the entire lack of it for many weary miles.
At one place they had trouble with quicksands, at another the sheep balked at crossing the Rio Virgin and father and two helpers spent a whole afternoon packing on their backs one sheep at a time across a hundred-foot ford.
On the fifth of December, the Flint-Bixby train and the Hollister train started together on the hardest portion of the whole trip—about a hundred miles without water, except for the meager Bitter Water Springs. Most of the wagons and the cattle went on ahead, and, after three days, reached the springs, where they waited for the other men with the sheep. On the fourth day the first of the Hollister sheep came in; on the fifth, in the morning, came Ben and father, and in the afternoon Hub Hollister. Dr. Flint men tions the oxen as being “famished for want of food and particularly for water, a sad sight of brute suffering.” With the arrival of the sheep, the cattle again went on to the Mojave River. The sheep did not arrive until the fourteenth, after eleven days spent in crossing the desert. The diary tells something of the trouble experienced. Dr. Flint says: “I packed my horse with provisions and started back to meet Ben and Lewell with the sheep. Met them some six miles out. They had used up all their water and food, hence it was a relief to them when I hove in sight. Some of the men had such a dread of the desert that they were beside themselves, imagining they would parish from thirst before getting over the forty miles.” It appears from this that the prime movers in the enterprise must not only be brave and fearless themselves, but must also provide courage for their helpers.
It was this stretch of desert that caused the greatest loss to men who imported sheep in this manner. Just how many of ours died, or had to be abandoned, I have never heard, but my father told me that they were fortunate in losing fewer than the average.
After reaching the Mojave River they all rested for several days, “the men loafing about the camps or pitching horse shoes.” Evidently this favorite masculine sport did not defer its entry into California until the arrival of the Iowa contingent.
Conditions at last were better. They camped on dry burr clover instead of sand and stones and “had a big fire of cottonwood, which gave a cosy look to the camp.” They had a stew of wild ducks and got “a mess of quail for Christmas dinner on the morrow.”
On the 29th they “moved on towards the summit of the Sierras. Warm and pleasant. Green grass in places two inches high. Snow clad mountains on our right.”
On Friday the 30th they crossed the mountains through Cajon Pass, and on New Years Day, the scribe to whom we are indebted for the detailed account of this long, long journey was the guest of the Hollisters at San Bernardino for dinner. Father told me they celebrated by having doughnuts. It is evident that the two trains came in together, sometimes one ahead, sometimes the other. I make note of the fact of their traveling in company because I have seen it stated in print that Col. Hollister was the first to bring American sheep to California. I am pleased to be able to offer this contemporary witness to the fact that there are others to share the honor. Mention is made of the sheep of Frazer, White and Viles, and McClanahan as well as of Col. Hollister and Flint, Bixby & Co., all of whom shared the hardships of the trail those last days of 1853.
The San Bernardino into which they came after their long trip across the desert was a Mormon colony which had been founded three years earlier.
After spending the New Year at San Bernardino the herds that we have followed across the plains moved on to the “Coco Mongo” ranch and vineyard.
This was apparently a current spelling as it occurs in official government documents. It is a word of Indian origin meaning a sandy place. The first grape vines which still surprise the passer-by with their growth in seemingly pure sand had been planted some ten years before this. The old winery stands just north of the Foothill Boulevard between Upland and Cucamonga.
The next drive took the men and sheep across the valley to the Williams Ranch, the Santa Ana del Chino, and after a night there they moved on to San Gabriel, which they reached the evening of January seventh. The entry of the journal for January ninth would indicate that new comers seventy years ago were as impressed by orange trees, as are the tourists of today:—“A beautiful scene at sunrise. There had been a light flurry of snow during the night which stuck to the orange leaves and to the fruit, which, when lighted by the clear morning sun made a most beautiful contrast of colors tropical and arctic.”
On that date they moved over to the ranges of the Rancho San Pasqual where they had been able to rent pasturage. This is the site of the present city of Pasadena. Here they camped for the remainder of the winter.
“The only incident out of the ordinary routine of camp life for two months,” says Dr. Flint, “was the birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.”
In the spring they moved northward, through Ventura and Santa Barbara; thence through the mountains to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo, again over the high hills and onward until they came to San Jose, where they rented the Rancho Santa Teresa and pastured their sheep for fourteen months. They sheared and sold their wool to Moore and Folger, familiar names in those old days. They sold wethers for mutton at $16 a head and bought a thousand sheep at $5.00. Then in the summer of 1855 they moved to Monterey county in search of feed, and, in October, bought from Francisco Perez Pacheco the Rancho San Justo, half of which they soon sold to their friend Col. Hollister. It is on this latter portion that the city of Hollister now stands.
Rancho San Justo