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THE EXODUS.
45
they came into a newly opened wagon-road, which proved to be that which Peter Lassen of California had that season persuaded a small party immigrating into the Sacramento Valley to take, through a pass which would bring them near his rancho.[1]
The exodus thus begun continued as long as weather permitted, and until several thousand had left Oregon by land and sea. The second wagon company of twenty ox-teams and twenty-five men was from Puget Sound, and but a few days behind the first,[2] while the old fur-hunters' trail west of the
- ↑ After proceeding some distance on Lassen's trail they found that others who had preceded them were as ignorant as they of what lay before them; and after travelling westward for eight miles they came to a sheer wall of rock, constituting a mountain ridge, instead of to a view of the Sacramento Valley. On examination of the ground it was found that Lassen and his company had been deceived as well as they, and had marched back to within half a mile of the entrance to the valley before finding a way out of it. After exploring for some distance in advance the wagons were allowed to come on, and the summit of the sierra was reached the 20th of October. After passing this and entering the pine forest on the western slope, they overtook Lassen and a portion of his party, unable to proceed. He had at first but ten wagons in his company, and knew nothing more about the route than from a generally correct idea of the country he could conjecture. They proceeded without mishap until coming to the thick timber on the mountains; and not having force enough to open the road, they were compelled to convert their wagons into carts in order to make the short turns necessary in driving around fallen timber. Progress in this manner was slow. Half of the immigrants, now fearfully incensed against their leader, had abandoned their carts, and packing their goods on their starving oxen, deserted the other half, without knowing how they were to reach the settlements. When those behind were overtaken by the Oregonians they were in a miserable condition, not having had bread for a month. Their wants were supplied, and they were assured that the road should be opened for them, which was done. Sixty or eighty men went to the front with axes, and the way was cleared for the wagons. When the forest was passed, there were yet other difficulties which Lassen's small and exhausted company could never have removed. A tragedy like that of Donner Lake was averted by these gold-seekers, who arrived in the Sacramento Valley about the 1st of November. Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 328–366; Lovejoy's Portland, MS., 27; Barnes' Or. and Cal., MS., 11–12; Palmer's Wagon Trains, MS., 43.
- ↑ Hancock's Thirteen Years' Residence on the Northwest Coast, a thick manuscript volume containing an account of the immgration of 1845, the settlement of the Puget Sound country by Americans, the journey to California of the gold-hunters, and a long list of personal adventures with Indians, and other matter of an interesting nature, is one of my authorities on this period. The manuscript was written at the dictation of Samuel Hancock, of Whidbey Island, by Major Sewell. See Morse's Notes of the History and Resources of Washington Ter., ii. 19–30. It would seem from Hancock's MS. that the Puget Sound Company, like the Willamette people, overtook and assisted a party of immigrants who had been forsaken by that pilot in the Sierra Nevada, and brought them through to the Sacramento Valley.
