July 1994 P.O. Box 1019, Independence, MO 64051-0519 Phone and FAX 816-252-2276 THOSE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE From Don Buck's talk, given at the QUESTIONS ABOUT EMIGRANTS CA-NV-HI chapter conference at PlacervilJe, AND EMIGRANT TRAILS California on Feb. 5, 1994. Who were the emigrants? the article really about emigrants or the So bear with me as I try to get you What is an emigrant trail? emigrant trail? More recently while as­ as confused as I am about answers to When did they exist? sisting Bob Berry in producing the sec­ these four fundamental questions. My Where were they? ond edition of OCTA's Western Emi­ intent is not to give answers but show grant Trails map, I ran up against these you how difficult it is to find answers. At first glance you may think these same four questions. Bob had to make (It will be helpful to follow trail and site are easy questions to answer. After all, some very tough decisions on what trails references on the second edition of the we read and listen to talks about emi­ to include and exclude, which gave me WET map.) Let's begin by defining the grants and emigrant trails all the time. a greater appreciation for the problem. term emigrant as opposed to immigrant. Surely there are ready answers. But are The clincher came just a short while An emigrant is a person who is leaving there? ago when I worked out what constitutes his or her country enroute to settle in Only recently I realized that I had the complex of emigrant trails in the another place or country; while an im­ no clear and definite answers. In my south and southwest, for the purposes migrant is one who has settled in that mapping of the California Trails in Ne­ of designating them National Historic place or country. Notice that both emi­ vada and California for the National Trails. grants and immigrants are considered Park Service, I "settlers." So have had to make far that fits our some tough de­ overlanders. In cisions on what I jumping-off am calling an along the Mis­ emigrant trail. souri River, our Then from time emigrants saw to time, as a themselves as member of the leaving their Editorial Advi­ homeland and sory Board for traveling over­ the Overland land to another Journal, I have place; but had to comment whether always on the appropri­ as settlers we'll ateness of an ar­ have to see. ticle submitted to continued on the journal: Was next page•••• nut NFP deadlin.e Y'~ f, 1994 NFP July 1994 - page 1 • • • • continued notice that these trails were opened in summer of 1849, an emigrant trail or With this in mind, we're ready for the the pre-gold rush period when we had mining road? first fundamental question, Who were genuine emigrants-families settling Perhaps a better question to ask is the emigrants? down-using these overland routes to where do emigrant trails end and local We like to believe they were the reach the Willamette Valley, Sutter's roads begin? Up to the discovery of people who came overland to settle the Fort, or Salt Lake Valley. After 1849, gold in 1848, the Truckee-Donner route trans-Mississippi west, the people we however, things get murky. Very terminated atJohnson' s Ranch, that first honor in our journal, conventions, and quickly in the 1850s, the proliferation outpost of civilization. By late 1849 preservation efforts. Now let me muddy of trails occurred, especially near. the "civilization"-ifthat's what you want the waters a bit. What about the mis­ heavily used routes into California. to call the rough and tumble mining sionaries, like the Methodist Jason Lee Though gold was discovered first near camps in the Mother Load country­ who came overland with a fur trading Coloma, in early 1848, other gold fields had migrated east a considerable dis­ party in 1834 to convert American In­ were discovered in quick succession tance into the Sierra Nevada. In the dians and opened a mission .in the all up and down northern California case just cited, it was at least to Nevada • Willamette Valley of the Oregon Ter­ from Mariposa to Yreka. Gold rush City. A similar problem of determining ritory. Are missionaries emigrants? camps and towns sprung up near or at what makes an emigrant trail occurs in Jumping ahead to the Gold Rush, the diggings with a network of access the way the Beckwourth Trail was should miners be construed as emi­ roads connecting them with the dig­ opened up. In their research, Andy and grants? If emigrants must be settlers, gings and the closest emigrant trails. Joanne Hammond have had to sort out then we would have to exclude great Let me give you an example of where this trail ended as far as it was an numbers of overlanders during the gold what I'm trying to convey. The first emigrant trail-at Marysville, Bidwell' s rush years. What ofthe many who never emigrant wagon route into California Bar, or American Ranch (modern settled in California and returned to was opened in 1844 by way of the Quincy). Traditionally historians have their homes from whence they came, Truckee River and Donner Pass to terminated the trail at Marysville or usually disenchanted with El Dorado? Johnson's Ranch, the first settlement Bidwell's Bar. However, the Perhaps an exaggeration, but one re­ reached by the emigrants. From the Hammonds discovered that local inter­ turning gold-rusher reported, in the ranch, emigrants continued on the ex­ ests had built, from west to east, a wagon Arkansas Gazette on Jan. 24, 1851, "an isting road to Sutler's Fort. Then came road to Bidwell's Bar and from there a immense reaction in the emigration to the Gold Rush and subsequent discov­ pack trail to American Valley by the California, there being five on their ery of gold along Deer Creek in Sep­ time Jim Beckwourth had worked out return to one going out." tember of 1849. Nevada City soon his end of the trail in 1851 from Truckee California was only the first to ex­ sprung up near the Deer Creek dig­ Meadows (modem Reno), northwest perience a gold rush, for eventually gings and, as Jack Steed has brought to over Beckwourth Pass, to American most other western states had a gold our attention, quickly a road was Ranch. rush of varying magnitudes. What of punched to what will become Nevada A related problem in determining the varied types of people and occupa­ City from Johnson's Ranch, via the what makes up an emigrant trail con­ tions, some not so savory, who came in mining town of Rough and Ready. Then cerns some trails in the southwest that the wake of these gold rushes? Must early the next year the Nevada City emerged in the late 1850s. In the south they be emigrants too? The Road was built to take emigrant traffic and southwest the origins of emigrant bullwhackers, gamblers, bartenders, from Bear Valley directly west to the trails is quite different when compared dance hall women, claim jumpers, des­ diggings near Nevada City. This route to the northern trails like the Oregon peradoes? Then keep in mind that many now eclipsed the older, original Cali­ and California Trails. In the complex of the post-1849 overlanders were rac­ fornia Trail from Bear Valley via Steep of trails comprising the Southern Route ing eastward from the far west to reach Hollow to Johnson's Ranch. At this to California, most were opened up to the riches in the diggings, be they in point you may ask, what's so troubling emigrant traffic by the efforts of the Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona. Do about that? Well, to begin with, we are U.S. Government, first during the war they fit the image we hold of emi­ seeing a new pattern emerge in wagon with Mexico in 1846 and later on with grants? Were they traveling on emi­ roads opening from west to east, not surveys conducted for the purpose of grant trails? So this carries me to my east to west, as was the earlier pattern. finding more direct intercontinental second fundamental question, what is Secondly, though these west to east routes to the Pacific Coast. Despite their an emigrant trail? roads did take emigrants-or are they military origins, we can call the routes We can fall back on those old fa­ miners-to new gold fields, were they opened by General Kearny's Anny of vorites and call them with confidence, primarily for emigrant use or supply­ the West, especially that of Lt. Col. emigrant trails: the Oregon Trial, the ing· the miners and mining activities? Cooke and his Mormon Battalion, au­ Califomia Trail, the Sublette Cutoff, What do you call that road from thentic emigrant trails, largely because the Hastings Cutoff, the Applegate Johnson's Ranch to Nevada City (via they were used by gold seekers in the Trail-you've heard of them all. But Rough and Ready) opened in the late continuedonnextpage • • • • • • 1'.'FP July 1994 - page 2 • • • • continued 1859, when a one time trail had be­ where her family completed the jour­ early gold rush years. The same rea­ come a road. Kenneth Holmes, in his ney on a train. We have an unsubstanti­ soning applies to the routes from Ft. multi-volume Covered Wagon Women, ated sighting in Wyoming of emigrants Smith to Santa Fe and Fort Smith to El has the time period spanning 1840 to traveling west in wagons as late as 1912.