Thousand Springs Valley to Fort Hall for supplies,[1] and, if possible, to induce a portion of the immigration, which would probably be in that vicinity, to travel the new route and open the road. Before arriving at Fort Hall, Henry Bogus, learning that a son of Mr Grant of the fort had started for St Louis, and wishing^ to return there, left the party, and took a cut-off, in the hope of overtaking the St Louis Company, but was never again heard from.[2]
The immigration of 1846 was not so large as that of the previous year, and many were destined for California, whither efforts were made to direct the wavering.[3] From the best evidence I can gather, about twenty-five hundred persons left the Missouri frontier this year for the Pacific coast. Of these, from fifteen
- ↑ Bryant's What I saw in California, 196-7.
- ↑ Lindsey Applegate of the Bear River party, who kept a journal, relates that in travelling slowly up the monotonous Humboldt Valley, where game was scarce, and the natives seemed to live on crickets and grasshoppers, Scott and he turned aside one day to pursue'a band of antelope, and came to wagon-tracks leading away from the river toward a rocky gulch two or three miles distant. There seemed to have been several wagons, and the prints of bare feet were numerous beside the track. In the gulch were found the ashes and irons of the wagons which had been burned. No human remains were seen. The emigrants had probably been murdered. They were one of the small parties which from 1843 to 1846 sought to enter California by the Humboldt route.
- ↑ I find that this effort was understood and resisted by the people of Oregon. The 15th of June a public meeting was held at Oregon City, to provide for sending an express to Soda Springs to meet the emigration, 'to prevent their being deceived and led astray by the misrepresentations of L. W. Hastings, who is now on his way from California for that object.' The committee selected to compose the express was W. Finley, J. S. Rincarson, and W. G. T'Vault. The committee took the depositions of Truman Bonney, Jarius Bonney, Abner Frazer, John Chamberlain, Robert C. Keyes, and Allen Sanders, recently from California, concerning the intention of Hastings, and the general condition of affairs in California. The first three affiants deposed that by the representations of Mr Grant at Fort Hall the year previous, they were induced to go to California, but on arriving in the Sacramento Valley found the whole country burned by the sun, and no food either for man or beast. Flour was $10 or $12 per cwt., and vegetables there were none. Five to eight bushels of wheat was an average crop. No rain fell from March to January; there was no timber except on the mountains. Society did not exist, and it was difficult for a man to keep his own. The Catholic missions were destroyed; no land could be obtained without purchase, and titles were not good; duties were so high that no shipping came in, and clothing was almost impossible to obtain. And above all, Mr Hastings and Captain Sutter were intending to revolutionize the country as soon as people enough had come to fight the Spaniards. Similar depositions were made by the other three, to be used in undeceiving the immigrants whom Hastings would endeavor to mislead! Or. Spectator, June 25, 1846.
