Parley P. Pratt

Start on my Pacific Mission:—Sketch of the Journey:—Attacked by Indians:—Crossing the Desert:—Arrival at Los Angelos.

March 16th, 1851.

I left Great Salt Lake City for the Pacific, on a mission to its islands and coasts, being commissioned and set apart for that work by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Jay Saints.

Passing through various settlements, and visiting the brethren, I arrived at Fort Utah, and assisted the Presidency to organize a stake of Zion, with its High Council and other officers, and to ordain and set them apart.

Friday, 21st—I took leave of my friends and pursued my journey on horseback, twenty-eight miles to Peteetneet, where I overtook my teams, and spent Saturday in organizing the company with which we journeyed. Their outfit consisted of about one hundred and fifty wagons. Most of the company were emigrating with C. C. Rich and A. Lyman to Southern California.

My own party of missionaries consisted of the following elders, viz.: John Murdock, Rufus Allen, Wm. Perkins, S. Woodbury, F. H. Hammond, P. B. Wood, Mr. Hopkins and Morris Miner.

Mr. Perkins, Mr. Woodbury, Mr. Hammond and Mr. Hopkins were accompanied by a wife each, as well as myself.

Monday, 24th—We commenced our journey from Peteetneet organized in companies of tens, fifties and one hundred—fifty journeying together.

Our fifty, commanded by Captain Seely, traveled six miles to Summit Creek.

Tuesday, 25th—I took a walk in the morning about three miles and ascended a beautiful height, which afforded a fair view (with a telescope) of the head of Utah Lake and the valley of Salt Creek, which enters the lake through an extensive meadow at the head of the lake, forming at its junction a beautiful harbor and a convenient beach of sand. The depth of water not known, but its deep blue color intimated sufficient depth for small crafts.

About two miles west of an encampment on Summit Creek I discovered a beautiful and inexhaustible stone quarry of blue lime, which, both for building and lime, will be very useful and convenient to the settlement which will soon grow up on that beautiful site.

Returning to camp, we journeyed eleven miles to Willow Creek the country being rich in grass, and watered by Salt Creek, a stream of one and a half rods wide, and several large springs running north into Utah Lake.

Friday, 28th—I ascended a ridge of mountains, and obtained a view of an extensive country to the west, composed of desert plains, hills, and confused fragments of broken mountain chains, without fertility or anything to redeem or enliven this landscape except the windings of the Sevier River and narrow, grassy bottoms. And even this scene soon loses itself amid the black and barren hills of the dreary waste.

This day we passed through about ten miles of waste country, with some grassy spots and cedar groves, and encamped on the Sevier River.

Saturday, 29th—We passed the ford, three feet deep and one hundred and fifty feet wide—a smooth and sluggish current—and encamped on its southern bank.

The weather bad, with squalls of snow and cold winds. The hills afford some scattered bunch grass, which is very good.

Monday, 31st—We traveled thirteen miles through a pass where the hills were very rich in grass and fuel, and full of fine stone quarries. This pass was five miles from the river.

Thence through a valley rich in grass and soil, beautiful and extensive, and abundantly supplied with fuel on its borders, but destitute of living streams, although the melting snows of its bordering mountains supply some streams which run a short distance at certain seasons of the year, and then sink.

April 1st—Camp divided for convenience of travel, and General Rich and myself, with twenty-three wagons, traveled thirteen and encamped at a beautiful spring brook, among grassy hills, interspersed with cedar, like an orchard.

Our road to-day led through a pass in the mountains by a gradual assent for about three miles, and then down very gradually for ten miles among hills, plains and little vales, more rich in bunch grass and cedar fuel, and more varied and beautiful than any other country I ever beheld. Every high hill, every dell, every vale or nook seemed richly coated with a living green of rich grass, and set about with cedars from twelve to twenty-five feet high, like an old orchard.

Its northern bounds, limited by a rocky and barren range of high mountains through which we had passed.

Its eastern limit was a snowy and timbered range, which divides between the valley where we were and the Sevier River, which heads in the south, near the rim of the Great Basin, in a beautiful salmon trout lake, surrounded with lofty pines and cedars, and runs in a northerly direction, till it sweeps round to the west and southwest, and forms a lake which is in view from our camp, and appears like a silver mirror at some thirty or forty miles distance.

I arose in the morning, and with my large telescope viewed from an eminence the vast country before me.

On the east the high mountain chains at several miles distance appears snowy and timbered, and pierced with gorges accessible for roads to be made to the timber; and giving rise to several streams which meander though this vast valley on our south and west, and enter the lakes or sinks in their own rich alluvials.

To our southwest and northwest the view is almost boundless; consistent of a vast valley interspersed with fertile meadows, desert spots, known by their darker hues; lakes, rivulets, distinguished by the yellow meadow grasses and red willow streaks; and hills here and there dotted with cedars, and the whole bounded, in the vast and dim distance, by dark mountains not very high. Beyond which, at the distance of perhaps a hundred miles, appear other and more lofty peaks white with snow, and looking up like distant white clouds on the horizon.

Here are resources for farming, stock raising, fuel, etc., in sight of present encampment, probably more than sufficient to sustain the present population of Rhode Island; and yet, not a domestic animal, except those of the passing traveller, or a human being, save the occasional savage in his wanderings, occupies any portion of this wide domain.

Crossing several streams in the same large valley, all bordered by lands, we at length left the valley and journeyed two miles over a hilly country, well supplied with cedar and shrub pines for fuel, and bunch grass for feed, but not well watered.

Thence a few miles over a worthless country to the Beaver River.

This is a large stream, swift and clear, running in several branches through a large and fertile bottom; the soil of which appears rich, but highly impregnated with saleratus, and the table lands, which surround it, barren or nearly destitute of pasturage.

However, I think the place worthy of settlement, and, probably, containing eight or ten thousand acres of land which may be watered and cultivated.

Leaving this place, we passed another long stretch of upland, destitute of all resources, except grass and fuel, which were abundant in places.

We were at length met by G. A. Smith and others, from Little Salt Lake settlement; and accompanied by them, we all arrived on Red Creek, in the same valley. Here the camp found water and grass to refresh themselves after so wearisome a journey.

April 10th.—Same evening I arrived in the fort, accompanied by the citizens, who came out to meet us. I found the inhabitants all well, and the settlement in a truly flourishing condition. Hundreds of acres of grain had been sown, gardens planted, etc., and the farming land nearly enclosed; together with a most substantial saw mill, and many houses of wood and of sun dried brick, built and in progress. Building materials consisting of timber of the finest quality, viz.: pine, fir and cedar, together with good building stone and brick, were scattered in profusion in every direction.

Water ditches were flowing for mills and irrigation purposes in many directions.

Mechanics' shops were in operation; such as joiners, carpenters millwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, shoemakers, etc.

All this was the work of two or three months, in winter and early spring; not to mention a large enclosure of pickets in the center of the fort—a council house of hewn timber, and a bastion of the same material.

The number of men composing the settlement and performing all this work, did not exceed one hundred and twenty all told including old men, boys and Indian servants, just being tamed and initiated into the first rudiments of industry.

All the camps moved from Red Creek and encamped near the fort, where we tarried a few days.

April 12th.—Celebrated my birthday by a feast jointly provided by us and G. A. Smith, at his house. Ten or twelve persons sat down to a sumptuous repast.

April 14th.—We removed to Summit Creek—distance seven miles. Here we tarried one week, in course of which the rear camp, headed by Amasa Lyman, arrived in good condition.

Sunday, 20th.—All met in a general assembly, to worship God and to edify one another; being joined by the people from the fort, we had a good time. The Spirit was poured out upon us. G. A. Smith and others spake with power in the Spirit and testimony of Jesus; rebuking iniquity, worldly mindedness, unbelief, profanity, and all manner of iniquity, and exhorting the people to obey the servants of the Lord in all righteousness.

As the meeting was about to close P. B. Lewis, who lived in this settlement, was set apart by prayer, prophecy and the laying on of hands of the four Apostles present, as one of the Pacific missionaries. He had already moved into camp with his wife and teams, etc., to accompany us. We travelled eight miles to a stream called Coal Creek. Encamped and built a bridge across the deep and narrow channel, about four feet wide, and tarried here next day for the remainder of our company, some of whom had failed to obtain their animals the day before.

This encampment was about ten miles below the crossing of the same stream on the old road. I had, however, looked out a new route, which would save some eight or ten miles.

This stream forms a rich meadow bottom, of about fifteen miles long and two broad.

Abundance of cedar fuel and rich pasturage is found on the table lands which border this bottom; and iron ore abounds a few miles to the southwest, not to mention a large cottonwood grove in the upper part of the meadow, and a canyon opening into the mountains, from which the stream issues. Taken all together, this place combines materials for a large settlement.

Wednesday, 23d, we travelled twenty miles without water, over hills and plains, and among forests of cedar, and encamped after dark at a spring, having regained the old road a few miles before encamping.

While the cattle were feeding I ascended an eminence, and, with my telescope, viewed the largest valley I had ever seen in the great basin. It might have been seventy miles from south to north, and thirty miles from east to west.

Some signs of water and rich and fertile spots appeared in the dim distance; but, generally speaking, it was a cheerless monotony, without water, and clothed in the leaden hue of the desert.

We travelled several miles over a fine table land, on east of said valley, which still stretched away some thirty miles to the west, and was finally bounded by a low range of mountains on its south and west, and these again were backed by a still higher range and white with snow. Their lofty peaks, at fifty or sixty miles distance, peeping up from behind the nearer hills like distant clouds on the far off horizon.

After passing a few miles of very hilly road we came down upon a small stream, which heads in numerous spring meadows near the rim of the basin, on the divide between it and the Colorado. Here we camped to rest on Saturday and Sunday.

This little mountain paradise was, by the present road, three hundred and eleven miles from the Great Salt Lake City, and was altogether the most beautiful place in all the route. Some thousand or fifteen hundred acres of bottom, or meadow lands, were spread out before us like a green carpet richly clothed with a variety of grasses, and possessing a soil both black, rich and quick—being a mixture of sand, gravel and clayey loam, and the decayed visitations of ages. It was everywhere moistened with springs, and would produce potatoes, vegetables and the smaller grains in abundance without watering.

The surrounding hills were not abrupt, but rounded off, presenting a variety of beauteous landscapes, and everywhere richly clothed with the choicest kind of bunch grass, and bordered in their higher eminences with cedar and nut pine sufficient for fuel.

Afar off, behind the hills in the east, could be seen from the eminence high, snowy mountains, black in places with tall timber, plainly distinguishable with the telescope, probably from ten to twenty miles distance.

May 13th—We encamped at a large spring, usually called the Vegas—having travelled nearly two hundred miles since the foregoing was written. The country through which we have passed is a worthless desert, consisting of mountains of naked rock and barren plains, with the exception of here and there a small stream, with feed sufficient for our cattle.

The longest distance without water is about fifty miles, which we passed on Saturday and Sunday last, and arrived here safe and without much suffering. We have as yet lost no cattle through hunger, thirst, or fatigue. Two cows were stolen from us by the Indians on the Rio Virgin.

The place where we now are is about two hundred and fifty miles from the coast settlements on the Pacific. It is well watered, abundance of grass, and would admit of a small settlement—say one or two hundred families—has a good soil, good water and fuel, but no building timber.

The same remarks would apply to the last stream, fifty-three miles from this, called the Muddy. The Indians already raise wheat and corn there.

Wednesday, 21st—We encamped at a place called Resting Springs, where we arrived on the 19th after dark.

This is a fine place for rest and recruiting animals being a meadow of rich grass and sufficiently extensive to sustain thousands of cattle. The water is sufficient for all travelling purposes, although the stream is small.

Since leaving the Vegas we have travelled seventy-five miles through a most horrible desert, consisting of mountain ridges and plains of naked rock, or sand and gravel, and sometimes clay, destitute of soil or fertility, except a few small springs and patches of grass.

The weather, contrary to our expectations, has been universally cool since we left the Muddy; thick vests, and sometimes coats, have been worn in the noon of a sunny day, and the sun has been sought rather than the shade. The nights have all been cool, and some of them as cold in the middle or latter part of May as the nights usually are in March and April in Great Salt Lake City.

Twenty miles from the Vegas, our camp was assailed in the evening, ten o'clock by a shower of arrows from the savage mountain robbers; some of which passed near men's heads and all fell promiscuously among men, women, children and cattle, but did no injury. Our men mustered and returned the fire without effect.

Afterwards, in the same place, a savage, single handed, made his way among the cattle, in open day, while they were under the care of armed herdsmen and shot an ox and a mule; one was wounded in the hip, and the other in the leg; but they are both doing well.

Friday, 23d.—Provided with water and hay we travelled on fourteen miles. Road heavy, up hill and sandy; day hot. Arrived at Salt Spring gold mines towards evening; water brackish; but answered for stock and use.

After resting for a few hours we started on in the evening and travelled all night, with the exception of short intervals of rest. The hot day and heavy road had so harassed the cattle that we made but little progress.

Next morning we continued to travel, finding no grass nor water. The road was up hill for ten or twelve miles, and rough; the day rather cool.

Long before night our hay and water were consumed, and the camp in a suffering condition. Some cattle had given out entirely; and fifteen or twenty miles still intervened between us and water, and without grass sufficient to feed a goat. Six or eight miles of the way was still up hill. This was the most trying time of all.

At dark, about fourteen miles from water, our ten was behind, and my two wagons were the rear of all; and some of my oxen had already failed. We still rolled slowly, resting every few minutes. We soon found the different portions of the camp ahead, halted, and lost in slumber—every man and beast, by common consent, sunk in profound slumber, and probably dreaming of water and feed ahead.

We, viz., our ten, with some exceptions, slipped quietly past them, and resting often and a few minutes at a time continued to roll. The night was cool, and a miraculous strength seemed to inspire the cattle.

At sunrise next morning we arrived at the Bitter Springs; the water of which was about as palatable as a dose of salts.

The other camps followed us in, and by ten o'clock all were in, except three oxen left by the way, and two wagons with their loads, left twenty miles back.

Men and animals were so exhausted that, after digging and improving the water, and a general watering, it was ten hours or more before the cattle were driven to what little feed there was, a mile or two distant.

I rode back ten miles and carried water and feed to two animals, and tried in vain to drive them in.

In this desert we had travelled, without much intermission, two days and two nights; during which we had no feed nor water, excepting that which we carried with us, and the Salt Springs, and the Bitter Springs, and a little dry feed to refresh upon after this toil women and children, young and old, and old men walked on foot day and night.

It was certainly the hardest time I ever saw; but we cried unto God, and in the name of Jesus Christ asked Him to strengthen us and our teams, and He did so in a miraculous manner, and we were saved from the horrors of the desert.

Wednesday, 28th. We arrived on the Mohave River in the evening, in an exhausted condition; having travelled thirty-one miles without water or much rest. The day had been warm and some two or three cattle gave out, and were left by the way.

At this camp we found plenty of water, timber, soil and grass. Those appointed to the Pacific mission (with the exception of Brother Hopkins, who said he should not fill the mission), now took leave of Brother Rich and company, and travelled twelve miles up the Mohave, and encamped in a pleasant place, with water, feed and fuel.

June 1st.—Rested Sunday. At two o'clock had a prayer meeting in the shade of some trees. All the members of the mission offered themselves in prayer, acknowledging their faults and imperfections; seeking the remission of the same; renewing their covenants with God and with each other; and giving thanks to Him for deliverance from the perils of the desert, and praying that God would graciously open the way for the further prosecution of the appointed mission. All seemed renewed in spirits, faith and union, and felt blessed of the Lord.

Passing on our journey over one hundred miles we came to a fine farm, which had wheat and other grain, gardens, and even bearing fruit trees, etc. We also found a member of our society by the name of Crisman, who, with his family resided on the place. We were kindly received, and after resting a few days, obtained a team, and Brother Wood went to Los Angeles, thirty miles, to obtain supplies to send back. We sent a load of supplies to the companies on the Mohave River, and then moved our camp to brother Crisman's, where we arrived at noon, and were received with welcome; and all rejoiced that our desert and toilsome journey was at an end. Having rested the last week, every man who was with me as a fellow missionary accompanied me to the lone hills, about one mile from camp, where in solitude we joined in prayer with all the energy we possessed; praying in turn, and asking our Father in Heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, to open our way, to guide us in wisdom in our duties, to give us the gift of the Holy Ghost, bind to supply us with means to proceed on our journey in His own way, and in His own time.

We also remembered our families before the Lord, and all the authorities and interests of the kingdom of God.

Selling some of our cattle and one wagon, we journeyed seventeen miles and encamped on a small stream near some hills of wild oats, which served us for feed. We also pulled several bundles to fill our beds, and to take with us to Los Angeles, where we arrived in the evening of the 16th of June.

Several Americans called on us, conversed in a friendly manner, and seemed much interested in the Mormon settlement about to be made. More particularly as to the additional security this population would afford to the peace and order of a distracted country.