"When we arrived at Fort Hall we found about 500 Indians of the Flathead tribe who had come to trade. They had buffalo hides and deer skins and would pay any price for beads and tobacco. We bought some buffalo robes; and I bought a horse for five pounds of tobacco and a pound of beads. I afterwards sold this horse to the Government for $50. We found this tribe of Indians very friendly. After we left Fort Hall the mountain fever began to rage among the members of the party; and as there was not a doctor in any of the companies a great many people died. So, by the time we arrived at Goose Creek, where the Oregon road turned off, about fifty wagons concluded they would go to Oregon, as they had so many deaths in their families. ("The Donner party concluded they would take another road, which was called the Hastings Cut-off, by way of Ft. Bridger. This road proved to be a longer and a worse road. The two roads came together again at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mts. The Donner party were to put up a notice when they got there, but the company I was in got there two weeks before they did. For some reason they got to quarreling; and their captain killed a member of the company; and they gave him 12 hours in which to leave the party. William McCutcheon and a Mr. Eddy left the company with him, overtaking our party forty miles from Sutter's Fort. The remainder of the Donner party got to the foot of the mountain; but the storm came on and they could get no farther. The families of the three men named above were with the Donner party and were all saved. William McCutcheon and the Captain that was run off were members of the second party which went to their rescue in the spring. They made an attempt to go to them in the winter; but they could not get their Indian pilot to go through with them...) "Our company had a good road most of the way, considering the fact that it was a mountain road and had never been worked. Those who came to California bore to the south and came into what is called the '1000Spring Valley', a level valley surrounded by mountains. There were large holes of water every few rods all over the valley, the water being as clear as crystal. They were from five to ten feet across; and the water was about one foot below the surface of the ground; and they never run over. The ground would shake them when a person walked over it. We could not see the bottom of them. I tried to touch bottom with a ten-foot pole, but couldn't do it. We had to guard our stock to keep them from getting into these holes. There were a few willows growing in this valley. "Just after leaving Spring Valley we struck the head of the Humbolt River. Here we came in contact with hostile Indians, the first we encountered on the trip. We traveled down river for several days. There were thick willows and good grass all the way down; but the water was bad. We had only one rain on us during the whole trip across the plains. When we buried our dead we had to bury them in the corral and let the stock tramp everything down so the Indians would not find the place, for they would dig it up and get the cloth the body was wrapped in. Three of our men were killed by Indians. They used poisoned arrows; and when shot by one of them the poison would go all through one's system. The Indians would hide in the willows and shoot arrows in our stock. We had to corral our stock every night and guard them while they were feeding. When we got to the 'sink' of this river we found that we had a desert of 35 miles to cross without water or grass. We started in the evening and traveled all night reaching the Truckee river the next evening. This was a beautiful river; and there was plenty of grass for the stock. We traveled down the river for two days and crossed and recrossed it 25 times. We then left the river and bore to the west. This brought us into the mountains where we found we had very rough country to travel over. When we came to the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mts. it looked as though we could not get any farther; but as we had no time to lose we double-teamed and took one wagon at a time up to the summit. It was so rocky that we had to work our way around the rocks, and only got a short distance in two days. We had a rocky road to travel over after we got up the mountain; but it was not very steep until we got to Boca Creek, where we had to chain a tree to the wagons in order to get down the hill safely. This was the steepest hill we had on the whole trip. After we got down to the creek we had to stop and grade a road to get up the hill. There were two companies; and it took us three days to complete the grade. This brought us on to a dividing ridge which we followed down to the North Fork of the American River, a distance of fifty miles. By this time a good many of the company were out of flour; so they started myself and another man to Johnson's place to get flour. We got 100 pounds and started back to the company. "The men that had left the Donner Party overtook us about 30 miles from Johnson's and told us what had happened ... and that they were fearful lest the party would never get through. Our company reached Johnson's place all right and in good spirits. We laid over there two days. While there we heard that the American fleet had landed and hoisted the American flag over the Capitol, and also in Los Angeles. From here we started for Sutter's Fort, a distance of fifty miles. There was no road; but it was level country...We laid over there several days, bringing the time up to the tenth of October, making a six months' journey from Independence, Mo. The first American child born in California was born the next day after we arrived at Sutter's Fort. They named the child John Sutter Whisman; he is now living in Oregon. Sutter had two flour mills running to supply the immigrants with flour. This flour was coarse and had not been bolted. The mills were built in a cheap style. They used two stones with a lever attached; and a squaw could turn the lever around. We got fine beef. They were only worth what the hide and tallow would bring. A large beef was valued at $5. After being here five days the immigrants divided up, some going to Napa County and others to Santa Clara County. "Just before we separated, Lt. Blackburn came up from Monterey as a recruiting officer for Col. Fremont to enlist men to join his regiment going to Lower Calif., where the American flag had been pulled down and the Spanish flag hoisted instead. All of the men who could go enlisted; and their families were ordered to go to Santa Clara Mission, where they could be guarded and have houses to live in. Col. Fremont commissioned Capt. Arom to raise a company and guard the women and children.'' -- Steve Williams [email protected] California Pioneer Project http://www.compuology.com/cpl/ Tulare County GenWeb Page http://www.compuology.com/cagenweb/tularcty.htm