Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Peter Lassen - Danish Pioneer of California Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: Franklin D. Scott Source(s): Historical Society of Southern California # of Pages: 13 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-08-27 15:03:44 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:50:06 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:50:06

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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Historical Society of Southern California restless Danish pioneer. From time to time he took off on exploratory trips up the-rivers and into the Sierra. But he was not among the few who recorded their findings. We must learn about Lassen from the writings of others. By February 1847, even the friendly Indians were beginning to feel that too many whites were infiltrating their area. They were killing cattle belonging to Lassen, Daniel Sill, and others, and a petition was sent to Fort Sutter for a “military force suffi. cient stationed in this vicinity to keep the Indians in awe.” A small troop came, killed a few Indians, and a kind of peace was agreed upon. Lassen looked to the future. In the summer of 1847 he trekked eastward with Commodore Robert F. Stockton in a band of forty-six men. The editors of the memoirs of j. Goldsborough Bruff say that Lassen went along in order to attend the courtmartial of Fremont,"' but there seems to be no evidence that he appeared in Washington. Certainly he went to Missouri, where he probably spent the winter from November 1847 to May 1848. His two achievements at this time were the acquisition of a charter for the first Masonic lodge in California, and the recruitment of twelve wagonloads of emigrants to populate his dream city on the Sacramento. When he led his emigrant train in the spring of 1848 across mountains and deserts and wilderness, there was no easy pass over the great Sierra. Furthermore Lassen wanted his people to come into northern rather than central California; for that reason he avoided the Truckee and Carson passes, He took his group by a way which he knew at least partially, and which became known as the Lassen Trail. This route began with the Oregon Trail, veered off in a northwesterly direction from the Humboldt River in Utah Territory via the Lassen, or Fandango, Pass to Goose Lake in northeastern California. Thence it moved southward from the headwaters of the Pit River along the east side of Snow Butte, now called Lassen Peak, to Mountain Meadows, Big Meadows, now Lake Almanor, and down Deer Creek to Lassen’s Ranch. The route’s divergence at the Humboldt “was indicated by a post stuck in the desert sands, surrounded by a watchful bodyguard of sagebrush... [and] a shake bearing the legend ‘Lassen’s Road to guide the unwary immigrant.” The guide's own party had trouble on the long and tortuous trail in [120] Peter Lassen the Sierra; at one point Lassen himself got lost in the uncharted wilderness, and his life was threatened by his followers. Provisions were scarce, and at some sharp declivities the wagons had to be lowered by ropes. But the group came through with no loss of life — which was far better than the fate of many other ains. . In the next year, 1849, the Lassen Road was used by thousands, but the story of their hardships gave the route a bad reputation. After 1850 the newly discovered Nobles’ Road was found to be shorter and better; it led from the Humboldt through Honey Lake Valley to Fort Reading, using some sections of Lassen’s Road.'” It was at best rough and hazardous territory, and credit is due to the man who found a way and brought his people through in safety. One strong testimonial to the Lassen routes was offered by J. Goldsborough Bruff who led a large party from Washington in 1849: “Lassen’s, or Fandango Pass, is incomparably easier than either the Truckee or the Carson Pass. It was the desert stretches after leaving the Humboldt and the difficult terrain beyond Goose Lake, as well as its length, that made this trail so hard and brought it into disrepute.””” Major Rucker, who had charge of Government relief on all the incoming trails, also reported: “Although the distance is much greater than by the old routes, and some of the emigrants were longer in getting in, I cannot but think it a fortunate circumstance they did so, for the loss of property would have been greater on the old trail, as the grass would all have been eaten off long before they could have arrived.”"* Magnificent scenery greeted the travelers — if they were not too weary to enjoy it! The rushing streams, the great pine trees, the cool blue lakes, and the towering peaks made a deep imPression on a person like the Reverend J.H.C. Bonte, who wrote of the mammoth collapsed volcano Mt. Tehama, that left four high peaks around the central crater: “a brotherhood of mountains; a congress of oval summits; a celestial gathering of redeemed volcanoes, resting on the bosom of the great patriarch.”'* Highest of all was the peak named for Lassen — 10,457 feet — a landmark for travelers; a series of eruptions occurred in the period from 1914 to 1921, and there are boiling sulphurous Springs to this day. Until Mt. St. Helens exploded in the spring [121]