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Collection: Directories and Documents > Historical Clippings

Newspaper Notes - 1860's (NN-1860-69)(1860s) (238 pages)

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=20— y And there were times when the steamers and pack trains were unable to move sufficiént supplies to the mines during the regular freighting season to provide winter stockpiles, thus severe privation, hardship, and near starvation became a spectre during winter. In November 1850, Edward McIllhany and his Mexican mule“teers with a train of three hundred mules were moving badly needed provisions (and Christmas supplies) to Onion Valley high in the Sierra Nevada. One morning two feet of snow covered the trail and a blizzard cut visibility to about seventy-five feet. The lead bell mare was unable to follow the trail, so McIllhany, who knew the trail well, mounted a large mule and broke trail. In the howling blizzard, a Mexican muleteer and seven mules disappeared. On McIllhany's return trip to Marysville, he fed his mules on one-dollar-per-pound barley. He managed to get his mules to Marysville, and later, the Mexican returned, but the seven missing mules had frozen to death. More unfortunate during the same winter was another pack train on the trail to La Porte. Before reaching their destination, eighteen men and sixty mules had frozen to death. The most disastrous winter for pack teams was that of the 1852-1853 season. An extreme shortage of provisions in the mountains and high freight rates lured many packers to the trail. The ventures, however, proved costly. For example, forty-two mules perished in snow drifts between Litte Grass Valley and Onion Valley. Another train had to be abandoned above Foster's Bar. By the following summer, the bleached.