[The Central Route to California, from (ed.) William M. Egan, Pioneering the West 1846 to 1878 (1917)]

 

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SEC. II.-- THE CENTRAL ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA.

32.-- A TEN DAYS' TRIP TO CALIFORNIA MADE BY HOWARD EGAN IN 1855.

From Salt Lake City, Utah, to Sacramento, Cal., in Ten Days on Mule Back, Through a Trackless and Desert Country.  A Time Never Equaled Before or Since by Such a Mode of Traveling.

            Wednesday, September 19, 1855.-- We started from Salt Lake City to go to Sacramento, Cal. early this morning, and stopped at Tooele to breakfast. Then went on and stopped in Lone Rock Valley about 1 o'clock p. m. We started on again at 3 o'clock and stopped at a brackish spring to get supper r about two hours, and then went on again.

            Thursday, 20th.-- We stopped at the eastern edge of the desert about 2 o'clock in the morning and started at 5 o'clock, stopping to breakfast at the Granite mountain, where there are fine springs and good feed for a small company. We started from there at 11 a. m. and crossed the desert, stopping on the west side of the desert at Willow Springs at 7 p. m. We started again and at o'clock the same evening we passed Peter Haws and company, who were camped about ten miles from the spring.

            Friday, 21st.-- We camped about 4 a. m. and started on at 5 o'clock, stopping to breakfast at o'clock. We started again at 10 a. m. and stopped to bate about 3 p. m. for an hour, and started on again at 5 o'clock. Mr. J. Redding, who accompanied us as far as Redding 's Springs, returned home.

            Saturday, 22nd.-- We stopped at 3 o'clock in the morning for two hours, and started on again at 5 o'clock, traveled two miles and stopped for breakfast. The morning was cold and cloudy. We started at 8 a. m. and stopped to feed at 2 p. m., starting on at 3 o'clock. We saw a large Indian camp in the valley. It commenced raining about dark. We went up a canyon and camped for the night.

            Sunday, 23rd.-- We started at 6 o'clock in the morning and met the Indians coming up the canyon on our trail. We stopped in the Humboldt valley at 2 p. m. to feed for an hour, and then started at 3 o'clock and traveled until 4 o'clock the next morning without water.

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            Monday, 24th.-- We started at 6 a. m. and found a spring of water about 10 o'clock on the top of a mountain, and stopped to feed. We started again at 12 o'clock and stopped at 1 p. m. for an hour and left at 2 p. m., traveling all the evening.

            Tuesday, 25th. -- We stopped about 1 hour and 30 minutes to feed, and started at 3:30 p. m.

            Wednesday, 26th. -- We camped at 2 o'clock this morning and started at 6:30 a. m. and arrived at the Humboldt river, ninety miles from the sink.

            Thursday, 27th. -- We arrived at the Trading Post, at the Sink, about 11 p. m., and started at 2 o'clock to cross the Big Desert, arriving at Rag Town at 11:30 p. m.

            Friday, 28th. -- We started at 2:30 a. m. from Rag Town and stopped at Gold Canyon at 11:30 a. m. We started from there at 2 p. m. and arrived at Jack Valley at 7 o'clock; changed mules and started at 9 o'clock and went on.

            Saturday, 29th. -- We traveled all night and stopped at Slippery Ford to breakfast. We changed mules at Silver Creek and traveled all night, arriving at Placerville at 5 o'clock in the morning and at Sacramento at 6 p. m., making the trip in ten days.

33. FINDING THE EGAN TRAIL.

OVERLAND MAIL LINE. NOW LINCOLN HIGHWAY.

            Original Trails.-- Many original trails were blazed through the western country by early travelers. The trappers, as early as 1810, one year after the birth of America's immortal Lincoln, in whose memory this and subsequent trails were forged into this ocean-to-ocean highway, and if we include the present California (it was all California at that time, as far north as the north line of that state now and east to the Rocky mountains) much earlier than that. Peter Skeene was on the Weber river, near Great Salt Lake, in 1825, and W. M. Ashley on the shores of Utah Lake in 1826. In 1842 General John C. Fremont visited Great Salt Lake, and the trail to Oregon through the South Pass and down the Columbia river began to be traveled yearly. Mr. Sutter went down the coast, located in California, and then some travelers went by way of Fort Hall, Idaho, and up the Humboldt, through what is now Truckee pass, through the Sierra Nevada mountains.

            In 1844 Hastings followed the Indian trail through the Rocky mountains and blazed a cutoff trail south of Great Salt Lake, which is the present link of the Lincoln Highway which during the last year has caused the most apprehension of any

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point on the route between New York and the Pacific coast, intersecting the north trail on the Humboldt. Walker, with ten men, followed this trail into Salt Lake Valley, and the

Donner party in 1846 followed the Hastings cutoff, most of the company perishing 1 in the Sierra Nevada mountains from cold and hunger on account of the impassable snow. In 1847 the ''Mormon'' pioneers followed this same trail to the Great Salt Lake Valley and began to make their home there. This trail and the Oregon trail they followed to South Pass, in Wyoming is part of the Lincoln Highway. There still were many trails to be blazed throughout the intermountain country.

            Egan Trail.-- Quoting from Bancroft's History of Utah, pages 751-2: ''Between Utah and California there were three principal lines of travel the northern, the central and southern. The first skirted the northern edge of Great Salt Lake and thence after crossing an intervening stretch of desert, followed the valley of the Humboldt and Carson rivers, being, in fact, almost identical with Fremont's route of 1845. Notwithstanding its length, it was still preferred by travelers, as grass and water were fairly plentiful, with only two small tracts of desert land to contend with. (The southern route has been fully given in Father's Diary of 1849-50, in preceding article No. 27.)

            ''The central route, better known to the settlers of Utah by the name of Egan's Trail, and to California-bound emigrants as the Simpson route, though the two were by no means coincident, varied but a few miles from 40 degrees north latitude, until reaching Hastings pass in the Humboldt mountains where it branched off in a southwesterly direction toward Carson lake and river, and from Carson City south to Genoa. The South route was by way of the Sevier, Santa Clara, Virgin, Las Vegas, Indian rivers to San Bernardino.

            "In 1859 J. H. Simpson, of the topographical engineers, received instructions from Gen. Johnson to explore the great basin, with a view to find a desert route from Camp Floyd to Genoa, in Carson valley. An account of the expedition will be found in his 'Exploring Great Basin.' For about 300 miles his route was identical with Egan's, except for a few unimportant deviations, but soon after reaching Ruby Valley it tended more toward the south. Egan's line was preferred, however, as on the one taken by Simpson grass and water were scarce."

            "Howard Egan, a Major in the Nauvoo Legion and a well- known guide and mountaineer, was for some years engaged in driving stock to California in the service of Livingston & Kin-

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kead and afterward became a mail agent." Burton's City of the Saints, page 550.

            In 1855 he was engaged in this business and in his diary, which I now have in nay possession, he writes the following about his searching out the Egan Trail :

            "July 4th.-- Started in the stage to Placerville on the way to Salt Lake; stopped at South Fork of American river. July 5th.-- stopped at Lake Valley, ate supper at Gold Canyon, traveled all night and stopped at Savin's to breakfast. July 6.-- crossed the twenty-six-mile desert, stopped near Rag Town and started over the forty-mile desert at 7:30. July 7th. -- traveled over the desert. July 8th. -- arrived at the sink of the Humboldt. Started at 11 a. m. and came thirty-five miles and stopped for supper. Started at 10 p. m. and traveled all night. July 9th.-- about 4 a. m., stopped to feed. Started at 8 a. m. and arrived at the trading post about 11 a. m. Left the Indian Tecumsee at this point. Camped at 9 p. m. July 10th. -- started about 4 a. m. and spent the day in hunting the Beckwith trail. This evening three of the mules ran off. Spent the night hunting them. July 11th.-- This morning I found the mules and started at 7:30 a. m., stopped to bait at 4:30 p. m. Started about 8 p. m. and camped about 12:30 a. m. and started at 3 a. m. July 12th. -- stopped to bait about 7 a. m. and started about 9:30 a. m. We had the pleasure of having some Indians to breakfast with us. Stopped about 5 p. m. July 13th. -- started at 3 this morning. Stopped to breakfast at 5:30 a. in. and camped at 4 p. m. Started to hunt a pass through the Humboldt range and got lost. Got to camp next morning, July 14th. -- Spent this day by all to find a pass through the mountains. July 15th. -- started at 5 a. m. and stopped at Peter Haw's and took dinner. Started at 2:30 p. m. and camped at 8 p. m. July 16th. -- started at 3 a. m., came fifteen miles and stopped at C. Munvey's to bait. Started a south course through a pass in the Humboldt mountains, traveled through a beautiful valley and stopped at 3 p. m. Traveled ten miles and camped. July 17th.-- started at 4 this morning and, traveling a south course, about 7 a. m. intersected Hastings trail, bearing east. Stopped to feed at 11 a. m. at Sulphur Springs. John R. Addams, traveling in company with horses, camped about 8 p. m. ; no water. July 18th. -- started at 3:30 a. m., bearing north. Traveled about five miles and came to a large slough and stopped to feed. Started at 8 o'clock and stopped about 4 p. in., where there is a host of springs (no doubt Thousand Spring valley) : feed good. Started at 7 p. m. and stopped on the desert about 12:30 a. m. ; no grass nor water. July 19th.-- started at 3 o'clock this morning, traveled over a rough, barren country mid stopped at a spring

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on the right of the road about 3 p. m. Started at 6 o'clock and stopped at 11:30 p. m. July 20th. -- started this morning about 4 o'clock and stopped to feed about 11 o'clock."

            From this on his diary contains little or nothing until after he arrived in Salt Lake City and had made a wager that he could ride to Sacramento in ten days a mule-back. He then gives an account of the trip commencing September 19th, 1855, and arrived at Sacramento at 6 p. m., September 29th ; making the trip in ten days, as given in Article 32.

            In the back of his diary for this year (1855) he makes the following memorandum: "Commencement of trail," which, he says, "was ninety miles to the right (or south) of the sink of Humboldt. Across a valley twelve miles little water in canyon over a mountain five miles ; little water to the right in the creek across a valley one mile from the road at foot of mountain, good grass and water. Thirty miles to summit of mountain. Ten miles to left, one mile over small mountain creek. Fifteen miles to Ruby Valley. Twenty miles down to valley; forty miles in same valley, creek fifteen miles (perhaps Shell Creek) on the side of a small mountain is a large spring. Twenty miles over mountain five or six springs (Spring Valley). Twelve miles to summit of a little mountain; twenty-five miles to Deep Creek: thirty miles to desert; twenty miles over summit of mountain: forty-five miles to Salt Spring. To creek sixteen miles."

            These wove his notes in laying out the trail, and he also had a map, but as it is only a rude drawing, with no names of places, no one but him could make much out of it. He had also a list of figures, perhaps distances.

STATIONS AND DISTANCES

On the Egan Trail or Overland Mail Line as Finally Selected.

            Names of Stations.                              Names of Stations.

            Miles                                                    Miles

            0 Salt Lake City.                                  12 Black Rock.

            9 Traveler's Rest.                                 11 Fish Springs.

            11 Rockwell's.                                      10 Boyd's.

            9 Dug Out.                                          10 Willow Springs.

            10 Fort Crittenden.                             15 Canyon Station.

            10 Pass.                                                12 Deep Creek.

            10 Rush Valley.                                   8 Prairie Gate or Eight Mile.

            11 Point Lookout.                               18 Antelope Springs.

            15 Simpson's Springs.                          13 Spring Valley.

            8 River Bed.                                        12 Schell Creek.

            10 Dug Way.                                       12 Egan Canyon.

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            15 Butte.                                             15 Fair View.

            11 Mountain Springs.                         13 Mountain Well.

            9 Ruby Valley.                                     15 Still Water.

            12 Jacob's Wells.                                  14 Old River.

            12 Diamond Springs.                          14 Bisby's.

            12 Sulphur Springs.                             11 Nevada.

            13 Robert's Creek.                              12 Desert Wells.

            13 Camp Station.                                13 Dayton.

            15 Dry Creek.                                      13 Carson.

            10 Cape Horn.                                    14 Genoa.

            11 Simpson's Park.                              11 Friday's.

            15 Reese River.                                   10 Yank's.

            12 Mount Airey.                                  12 Strawberry.

            14 Castle Rock.                                   12 Webster's

            12 Edward's Creek.                             12 Moss.

            11 Cold Spring.                                   12 Sportsman's Hall.

            10 Middle Gate.                                  12 Placerville.

            Total 658 miles.

            Overland Mail Line. No doubt he was hunting this line out with the object of a mail line, for soon after he was in partnership, or more or less associated with W. G. Chorpening in carrying the mail. In "The Overland Stage to California," we read that W. G. Chorpening, in the 50 's was proprietor of the mail line from Sacramento east to the Utah capital, there connecting with the route from St. Joseph. Mo. In the spring of 1858 Chorpening purchased ten stage coaches, with all the necessary supplies for the route, and the vehicles were received at Atchison, Kansas, in August, 1858, shipped by Missouri river steamboat." Page 40.

            This was not a daily mail service, but was made daily in July, 1861, and was succeeded by Holladay Overland Mail and Express Co., and later Wells Fargo and Co.

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