SIERRAN ROADS OF TODAY AND YESTERDAY JENKINS 



11 



Starting in August of 1826 Smith and a small party of adventurers 

 had succeeded in crossing the southwestern wilderness that lay between 

 Salt Lake and the Pacific Coast. From Indians in the upper reaches of 

 the Columbia River among whom they had spent the previous winter, 

 they had heard fascinating whispers of a great expanse of valley land 

 behind mountain barriers. These rumors had created an ambition in the 

 minds of Smith and certain of his comrades to open this territory to 

 American expansion. Accordingly they had set out over a difficult route 

 from Salt Lake to the Colorado River, probably by way of St. George 

 and the Virgin River. From the Colorado they made their perilous way 

 through the Mojave Desert, crossed the San Bernardino Mountains and 

 arrived on November 27th at San Gabriel, where the monks of that rich 

 comfortable mission welcomed them and entertained them for some weeks. 



Without passports, the pioneers realized they were subject by 

 Mexican law to arrest if they remained without authorization in Cali- 

 fornia, and accordingly they went to San Diego to request official per- 

 mission to do a bit of trapping in the lakes and streams. Governor 

 Echeandia, however, summarily refused their plea. To him they appeared 

 a hazard to the security of Mexico, which in the light of later history 

 they and their successors proved to be. The Yankee captains of trading 

 vessels had been welcome for years at the sea coast towns and nobody had 

 considered them a hazard. They came, traded and sailed away. In fact, 

 as Americans have been regarded in the ports of all the world, they were 

 considered a desirable economic asset. But the purposeful strangers who 

 had struggled on weary feet across the deserts and scaled the mountain 

 wall were a different problem, and Governor Echeandia gave them only 

 time to get away. 



On January 18, 1827, they left the friendly monks of San Gabriel 

 and withdrew hastily, returning to the desert via Cajon Pass, and made 

 their way into the San Joaquin Valley through one of the passes in the 

 Tehachapi Mountains. Beyond the observation of the Californians they 

 slowed their pace, trapping as they progressed along the eastern foot- 

 hills, and finally established a camp, probably somewhere on the lower 

 course of the Stanislaus River. From there they made scouting forays up 

 the valley, perhaps as far as the American River. 



In the spring Captain Smith and two companions undertook the 

 formidable task of crossing the Sierra Nevada. It required eight days of 

 bitter struggle, but they did succeed in ascending the western slope and 

 conquering the summit, probably somewhat south of Sonora Pass, 

 whence they descended and followed the West Walker River to the 

 Nevada desert and on to their headquarters near Salt Lake. 



In 1833 Joseph Reddeford Walker led a party westward over the 

 Sierra and down to the valley, in all likelihood, along the divide between 

 the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers. The records indicate that some of the 

 men of this party may have come upon Yosemite as well as one or another 

 or the groves of giant sequoias. 



The explorations of these first of the Mountain Men were followed by 

 those of the fur traders, notably the Patties and Ewing Young. And 

 in the wake of the traders came settlers, inspired by the reports of the 

 pioneers to seek new homes in the West. The Swiss empire-builder John 

 August Sutter. who had come to San Francisco in 1839 full of dreams 

 which were to come true in the heart of the Sacramento Valley, was 

 completely established before 1843 in his New Helvetia, the 49,000 acres 

 of land granted to him by the Mexican government. His men were 

 ranging around in the valleys on the western slope of the Sierra con- 

 siderably before the golden chapter of California history opened on the 

 American River in 1848. 



The first settlers to enter California by crossing the Sierra were 

 those who made up the Bidwell-Bartleson party in 1841. These adven- 

 turers were made of stern stuff to survive the perils of the route they 

 followed up the eastern escarpment and over the summit at a point some- 

 where near Sonora Pass. Their last ox had been killed and eaten and 

 they were almost at the end of their strength when they finally found 

 themselves over the crest. And the descent at this point was if possible 

 more difficult than the climb up the eastern face. Exhausted and almost 

 starving, they made their way over masses of granite, around lakes, and 

 up and down canyons of apalling depth and steepness. Probably they 

 followed the watershed between the South Fork of the Stanislaus and 

 the North Fork of the Tuolumne. and the temporary camp they set up 

 at the end of the ordeal was not far from Knights Ferry on the Middle 

 Fork of the Stanislaus. 



Fortunately the difficulties surmounted by these earliest explorers 

 did not discourage new attemps to overcome the barriers. In 1843-44 

 John C. Fremont was leading a party authorized by the American gov- 

 ernment on an exploration of the far west. Late in 1843 he left Oregon and 

 set out to the southeast with the purpose of returning to St. Louis. Some- 

 where along the Carson River he made a sudden change in his plan and 

 decided to make a winter crossing of the Sierra into California. Early in 

 February he stopped near Markleeville and from there made his way up 

 the mountains reaching the summit at Kit Carson Pass, later so named 

 in honor of the invincible guide who led Fremont 's party through the 

 pass. This route, known by the name Kit Carson Emigrant Trail, was 

 one of the most commonly traveled of the roads of the pioneers. 



Later in 1844 a group of thirty-six persons, led by Andrew Kelsey 

 who had been a member of the Bidwell-Bartleson party, crossed the 

 Sierra, and a still larger group known as the Stephens-Murphy party 

 had the distinction of being the first emigrants to bring wagons all the 

 way from Missouri to California. These parties entered over much the 

 same route as that followed over the Donner Summit today by U. S. 

 Highway 40. That route, known then as the California Trail was com- 

 monly followed by later settlers. It was the one chosen by the ill-starred 

 Donner Partv which met disaster in the winter of 1846-47. 



