4 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



nary ability, a fact which is confirmed and emphasized by those 

 who knew him personally. Beside the record of his death, 

 which appears in the Academy Proceedings, along with a faded 

 clipping from a local paper giving the meagre details, we have 

 likewise a letter from his young widow thanking the Academy 

 for their resolutions upon his death, and a record showing that 

 she loaned the Curators Dr. Gambel's journal of his last trip — 

 a manuscript which I have failed to trace, but which if still 

 extant must be fascinating reading. 



In conclusion I am fortunate in being able to present an 

 account prepared for me by the late Gen. Isaac J. Wistar, one 

 of Dr. Gambel's companions on a portion of this famous expe- 

 dition and recently president of this Academy, which gives a 

 graphic idea of what he must have experienced. 



' ' On April 5, 1849, when in appearance he was probably about 

 thirty years of age, Gambel left Philadelphia in company with 

 Isaac J. Wistar, to whom he was introduced on that day, and 

 who was about to essay an overland journey to California. 

 Wistar had just returned from Florida, where he had assisted 

 in the organization of a company of thirteen young men called 

 the Georgia and Florida Company. The party had arranged to 

 rendezvous at Independence, Mo., then a celebrated starting 

 point for fur traders and trappers, and also for the Santa F6 

 wagon trade, as soon as the grass should be sufficiently grown 

 i,o maintain animals. It had also arranged through suitable 

 detachments for the concentration at that point of the necessary 

 wagons, mules, harness, provisions, ammunition, tools, etc., and 

 it was also hoped that Gambel might be admitted to their 

 number. 



"The two men traveled by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to 

 its then western terminus at Cumberland, Md., thence by the 

 National Stage Road to Wheeling, and thence by various steam- 

 boats via Cincinnati, Cairo and St. Louis to Independence, 

 situated four miles from the Missouri River landing of that 

 name and twenty miles from the State boundary, then the 

 United States frontier line against the Indians and the western 

 limit of permitted settlements. It was then considered by the 

 Company that all preparations having been confined to the sup- 



