Volume 019-1 - March 1965 (2 pages)

ar with. By study of a number of these personal records, some of us in this region have been able to accurately mark the route of the Overland Emigrant Road in this area. This Overland Road was the principal route used by Gold Rush Wagon trains to California, and carried the great load of the over-the-plains travel to California from 1848 to 1852. In 1852, toll road improvements on both the Donner and Echo summits took the wagon wheels from the old tracks to better grades. Various people and organizations have placed signs on the route of emigrant travel from Donner Lake over the Sierra Summit. In 1934 the Auburn Native Sons and the Auburn Lions Club carried on the reconnaisance, location and signing work to Mule Springs. in 1940 the Auburn Native Sons and interested people in’Nevada County and Colfax carried the work of location to completion from Mule Springs to Johnson Rancho. As time marches on, the persons who did this location and signing work grow fewer innumbers. Many of the signs have been removed by curiosity seekers or destroyed by vandals. In some places through the timber from Chicago Park to Bear Valley, the route of the old road is overgrown, and remaining trail signs are difficult to find. In the grazing land region from Chicago Park to Johnson’s Ranch, changes in fence and ranch pat-" tern since 1940 require new attention to preserve the present historical significance of the ground location followed by the emigrant road. In 1949, renewed marking of the pioneer road was proposed to be undertaken as a centennial undertaking of history interested California organizations. In the work which has been done to locate and sign this road of the pioneers, there have been accumulated many old records and notes of the past. A few of these may be interesting, and are quoted here for you information. From the John Markle Diary of 1849, the original of which is in Auburn, comes the following, dated August 20, 1849; “Tonight we camped in a valley at the base of the mountain, about 3/4 of a mile east of Truckee Lake. Today we passed the valley where Donner encamped, and where his cabons were.” E, Douglas Perkins wrote in his diary of 1849, which isnowin the Huntington Library, “The ascent to the pass from the Donner cabins is about 5 miles, as the road was very winding in finding a passage through the trees and rocks. At 3 o’clock we arrived at the foot of the terrible passage over the backbone. The pass is through a slightdepression in the mountains, about 1500 feet lower than the tops of the mountains in its immediate vicinity. AS we came up to it, the appearance was like marching up to an ‘immense wall, and the road goes up to its very base, before turning short to the right, and then ascends bya track in the side of the mountain, when about 1/3 of the distance from the top, it turns left again, and goes directly over the summit. In a distance of about 1/2 mile, I judge this steep climb covers an elevation somewhere near 2,000 feet. We rested 1/2 hour at the top, and went down into the valley to camp.” Both the Markle and Perkins party camped in Summit Valley. The next day both of them mentioned a group of lakes on the road. Markle says, “They are six in number. The water in them is cool and perfectly clear. They average a mile or two in length, and from 400 to 500 yards in width.” Perkins speaks ‘in addition of a lofty and solitary rocky peak. This is today called Devil’s Peak. Beyond the Lakes, the road turned sharp down the side of the mountain to the valley of the South Yuba. Markle said it, is the “infernales roughest road that ever was traveled. The last mile was so steep we had to check down with ropes.” Perkins says, “Camp was down analmost perpendicular descent, where the wagons are let down with ropes, and trees at the top are cut and marked deeply by the friction.” All speak of a location in the granite rock along the South Yuba, where again they had to rope down a short distance. The tree used to check the wagons down this granite slope was located by one of the sign parties and the marks of the rope observed. This is only 200 yards from Rainbow Tavern on the north bank of the Yuba River. Below it, on the trail to Big Bend Ranger Station, are trees notched deeply where bumped by the hubs of emigrant wagons. A number of oxen shoes were found by a Sign Party along the route of the old road below Big Bend Ranger Station. Beyond the Cisco Road, the old road turns sharpupa rocky shelf, where all the wagons were compelled to travel in the same tracks, and where the rock was deeply scored with parallel wagon tracks, It again drops into the flat along the river at Indian Springs and then climbs directly up the ridge to Crystal Lake. Half way up this climb is the place where young Stanton of the Donner Party died of exhaustion, after so bravely guiding help and assistance to the snow bound camf from Sutter’s Fort. All along this portion, the road is again clearly defined by red rust from the wagon tracks among the granite ledges and boulders. Beyond Crystal Lake at the pass into Six Mile Valley is a place where many emigrants were forced to abandon their wagons. M.A. Kelly of Newcastle stated he saw them there in 1858. A short distance below is a cottonwood tree blazed in 1847. On the road beyond Carpenter Flat the Emigrant Road passed through the famous Emigrant Gapto Bear Valley. The old Emigrant Gap is now covered by a 90 foot railroad fill. Markle states “In descending to the valley, there is a very steep hill where we let down with ropes for 3/4 of a mile. The trees are much worn by the friction of the ropes. We camped at the lower end of the valley, and mowed grass for our stock.” Near the top of the Lowell Hill Ridge beyond Bear Valley a limb stripped cedar tree which John C, Fremont used as a flag pole for one of the camps of his party. It is probably the first place in the mountain region of California to fly the American Flag. Nearby were two massive cedars, marking the grave of a ’*49er emigrant traveler. Not far beyond Fremont’s Flag pole is the location of Mammoth Springs, where a 16 year old emigrant girl, Eliza Ann McAulay wrote in her diary, “This is most delicious water, Beyond Springfield Flat was the famous Mother Pine which was recorded by many members of emigrant trains as the largest pine tree ever seen by them in California. This was a gigantic sugar pine 13 feet in diameter and with a circumference then of 48 feet. Many years later, two men of Lowell Hill, sought shelter under the Mother Pine during a winter blizzard, and to warm their chilled bodies, they built a fire in the hollow of the tree. Their fire spread up the trunk, and in a few hours the Mother Pine became a deadtree, and now is only a blackened stump. From the Mother Pine, the Emigrant Road leads over the shoulder of a hill to Mule Springs in a beautiful meadow, which was used in 1846 as the base of operations by the rescuers of the Donner Party. The name of a party of Mormons is retained at Mormon Springs where two of them were buried at the base of a large black oak. West of the Liberty Hill hydraulic diggings the road passes over the Came] Humps, and into Steep Hollow, which was named from the Diary record of Edwin Bryant when he stated in 1846 that “We entered a Steep Hollow by a descent so steep for a mile and

ar with. By study of a number of these personal records, some of us in this region have been able to accurately mark the route of the Overland Emigrant Road in this area. This Overland Road was the principal route used by Gold Rush Wagon trains to California, and carried the great load of the over-the-plains travel to California from 1848 to 1852. In 1852, toll road improvements on both the Donner and Echo summits took the wagon wheels from the old tracks to better grades. Various people and organizations have placed signs on the route of emigrant travel from Donner Lake over the Sierra Summit. In 1934 the Auburn Native Sons and the Auburn Lions Club carried on the reconnaisance, location and signing work to Mule Springs. in 1940 the Auburn Native Sons and interested people in’Nevada County and Colfax carried the work of location to completion from Mule Springs to Johnson Rancho. As time marches on, the persons who did this location and signing work grow fewer innumbers. Many of the signs have been removed by curiosity seekers or destroyed by vandals. In some places through the timber from Chicago Park to Bear Valley, the route of the old road is overgrown, and remaining trail signs are difficult to find. In the grazing land region from Chicago Park to Johnson’s Ranch, changes in fence and ranch pat-" tern since 1940 require new attention to preserve the present historical significance of the ground location followed by the emigrant road. In 1949, renewed marking of the pioneer road was proposed to be undertaken as a centennial undertaking of history interested California organizations. In the work which has been done to locate and sign this road of the pioneers, there have been accumulated many old records and notes of the past. A few of these may be interesting, and are quoted here for you information. From the John Markle Diary of 1849, the original of which is in Auburn, comes the following, dated August 20, 1849; “Tonight we camped in a valley at the base of the mountain, about 3/4 of a mile east of Truckee Lake. Today we passed the valley where Donner encamped, and where his cabons were.” E, Douglas Perkins wrote in his diary of 1849, which isnowin the Huntington Library, “The ascent to the pass from the Donner cabins is about 5 miles, as the road was very winding in finding a passage through the trees and rocks. At 3 o’clock we arrived at the foot of the terrible passage over the backbone. The pass is through a slightdepression in the mountains, about 1500 feet lower than the tops of the mountains in its immediate vicinity. AS we came up to it, the appearance was like marching up to an ‘immense wall, and the road goes up to its very base, before turning short to the right, and then ascends bya track in the side of the mountain, when about 1/3 of the distance from the top, it turns left again, and goes directly over the summit. In a distance of about 1/2 mile, I judge this steep climb covers an elevation somewhere near 2,000 feet. We rested 1/2 hour at the top, and went down into the valley to camp.” Both the Markle and Perkins party camped in Summit Valley. The next day both of them mentioned a group of lakes on the road. Markle says, “They are six in number. The water in them is cool and perfectly clear. They average a mile or two in length, and from 400 to 500 yards in width.” Perkins speaks ‘in addition of a lofty and solitary rocky peak. This is today called Devil’s Peak. Beyond the Lakes, the road turned sharp down the side of the mountain to the valley of the South Yuba. Markle said it, is the “infernales roughest road that ever was traveled. The last mile was so steep we had to check down with ropes.” Perkins says, “Camp was down analmost perpendicular descent, where the

wagons are let down with ropes, and trees at the top are cut and marked deeply by the friction.” All speak of a location in the granite rock along the South Yuba, where again they had to rope down a short distance. The tree used to check the wagons down this granite slope was located by one of the sign parties and the marks of the rope observed. This is only 200 yards from Rainbow Tavern on the north bank of the Yuba River. Below it, on the trail to Big Bend Ranger Station, are trees notched deeply where bumped by the hubs of emigrant wagons. A number of oxen shoes were found by a Sign Party along the route of the old road below Big Bend Ranger Station. Beyond the Cisco Road, the old road turns sharpupa rocky shelf, where all the wagons were compelled to travel in the same tracks, and where the rock was deeply scored with parallel wagon tracks, It again drops into the flat along the river at Indian Springs and then climbs directly up the ridge to Crystal Lake. Half way up this climb is the place where young Stanton of the Donner Party died of exhaustion, after so bravely guiding help and assistance to the snow bound camf from Sutter’s Fort. All along this portion, the road is again clearly defined by red rust from the wagon tracks among the granite ledges and boulders. Beyond Crystal Lake at the pass into Six Mile Valley is a place where many emigrants were forced to abandon their wagons. M.A. Kelly of Newcastle stated he saw them there in 1858. A short distance below is a cottonwood tree blazed in 1847. On the road beyond Carpenter Flat the Emigrant Road passed through the famous Emigrant Gapto Bear Valley. The old Emigrant Gap is now covered by a 90 foot railroad fill. Markle states “In descending to the valley, there is a very steep hill where we let down with ropes for 3/4 of a mile. The trees are much worn by the friction of the ropes. We camped at the lower end of the valley, and mowed grass for our stock.” Near the top of the Lowell Hill Ridge beyond Bear Valley a limb stripped cedar tree which John C, Fremont used as a flag pole for one of the camps of his party. It is probably the first place in the mountain region of California to fly the American Flag. Nearby were two massive cedars, marking the grave of a ’*49er emigrant traveler. Not far beyond Fremont’s Flag pole is the location of Mammoth Springs, where a 16 year old emigrant girl, Eliza Ann McAulay wrote in her diary, “This is most delicious water, Beyond Springfield Flat was the famous Mother Pine which was recorded by many members of emigrant trains as the largest pine tree ever seen by them in California. This was a gigantic sugar pine 13 feet in diameter and with a circumference then of 48 feet. Many years later, two men of Lowell Hill, sought shelter under the Mother Pine during a winter blizzard, and to warm their chilled bodies, they built a fire in the hollow of the tree. Their fire spread up the trunk, and in a few hours the Mother Pine became a deadtree, and now is only a blackened stump. From the Mother Pine, the Emigrant Road leads over the shoulder of a hill to Mule Springs in a beautiful meadow, which was used in 1846 as the base of operations by the rescuers of the Donner Party. The name of a party of Mormons is retained at Mormon Springs where two of them were buried at the base of a large black oak.. West of the Liberty Hill hydraulic diggings the road passes over the Came] Humps, and into Steep Hollow, which was named from the Diary record of Edwin Bryant when he stated in 1846 that “We entered a Steep Hollow by a descent so steep for a mile and