The Death Valley '49ers were a group of American pioneers that endured a long and difficult journey through the Great Basin Desert and the Mojave Desert during the California gold rush. Departing from Hobble Creek (near present-day Provo, Utah) on 1 October 1849, most of the pioneers finally arrived in Rancho San Francisco on 4 February 1850.
Background
On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall and his crew found gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. This discovery would lure tens of thousands of people from the United States and foreign nations. People packed their belongings and began to travel by covered wagon to what they hoped would be new and better life. Since the first great influx of these pioneers began in 1849, they are generally referred to as 49ers. However, the Donner Party pioneers had provided a sobering lesson after mis-scheduling their overland trip to California in 1846–47. Those pioneers had started too late in the year, and elected to follow the Hastings Cutoff, a new and slower route. They reached the Sierra Nevada late in fall of 1846. There, a storm trapped them in the mountains, resulting in an infamous disaster.
The stories of the Donner Party were still fresh on everyone's mind when a group of wagons arrived at Salt Lake City and organized in early fall 1849. This was too late in the season to reach and cross the Sierra Nevada without risk of being similarly trapped, so it appeared the group would have to wait out the winter in Salt Lake City. They heard about the Old Spanish Trail, a route that went around the south end of the Sierra and was safe to travel in the winter. It was not certain if wagons could navigate the route, but some had recently headed for the trail to try, so the group found a guide by name of Jefferson Hunt who had previously traveled the route in 1847 and agreed to lead them. These individuals would become part of a story of human suffering in a place which they named Death Valley.
Departing Hobble Creek
No contemporary sources record the number of people at the beginning of the expedition, though a 1913 newspaper article states that “Nearly 290 people were in the party at the beginning.” The 107 wagons that would start the journey were scattered about the Salt Lake City area. Hunt advised the wagon train should organize into seven divisions, each led by a captain, with Hunt in overall command. Each division would spend a day leading the rest of the group, establishing the road and preparing the way for the rest, then falling to the rear the next day. With seven divisions, each would lead the journey once a week. Hunt instructed the group to wait a few more days before departing, so that cooler weather would prevail during the group’s trek through the desert. The group's constitution was drafted and accepted on 30 September 1849, and they departed Hobble Creek on 4 October.
The first several days of travel from their gathering point at Hobble Creek (near present-day Provo, Utah) went well. This portion of the route closely follows the present course of Interstate 15 to reach the Old Spanish Trail, near present-day Parowan. The group reached the Sevier River on October 9. After some delays due to illness and tribunals, the group arrived at the Beaver River on October 18.
Though he had never traveled this route before, Hunt led the party west down the Beaver River to a location near present day Minersville, Utah, where they camped for two nights to rest and prepare for a long stretch with no water. The group then turned south on October 21, traveling before making a dry camp. Hunt assumed that he would come across Coal Creek (near present-day Cedar City), where the group could rest. However, Hunt continued southwest across the Escalante Desert without locating a water source; while the group waited, they ended up driving their stock back to the river for water. Hunt ultimately failed to find water, nearly dying from thirst during the attempt, and the party ended up turning back.
The group splits up
The group's patience and confidence in Hunt was diminished by the gaffe at the Beaver River. while they were in camp recovering, a pack train group led by Orson K. Smith and Charles C. Rich rode in on October 22 and temporarily joined the larger group. Smith showed a map made by Elijah Barney Ward, a former trapper who had trailed stolen horses from California over Walker Pass, which showed a route west across the Escalante Desert to Walker Pass. According to an alternate account, a map had been shown by Mr. Williams while the group was still in Salt Lake City; the Williams cut-off led to Owens Lake, and at least one group had a copy of the Williams map. Yet another alternate account stated the map was a copy of one made by John C. Fremont during his military campaign in 1845. After backtracking, the group continued down the I-15 corridor over the difficult Beaver Ridge to the Parowan Valley, where they camped near Little Salt Lake on October 27. The attempted shortcut had cost them seven days, which would strain their provisions for the rest of the trip. In addition, the sheer size of the group exceeded the capacity of the desert watering holes and pasturelands along the route. Part of the group, led by Rich and Francis Pomeroy, broke off on October 28 to follow the Ward route. Rich's group later reunited with Hunt on November 18.
After Smith and the pack train had left with Ward's map, intending to take the trail themselves, discussion continued. Everyone agreed that the Ward route would shorten their journey by , so most of the 107 wagons decided to follow Smith's pack train. The party proceeded to a point near present-day Enterprise, Utah in early November. At that point, most of the group continued west while a small group turned south to follow the Spanish Trail with Hunt. The Jefferson Hunt Monument was constructed south of Newcastle, UT to commemorate this historic split. According to several accounts, just seven wagons followed Hunt south. Those that continued west on Ward's route soon found themselves confronted with the precipitous obstacle of Beaver Dam Wash, described as a gaping canyon on the present-day Utah–Nevada state line (Beaver Dam State Park, Nevada) with cliff walls. Smith and the pack train had been able to traverse the canyon on foot and hoof, but the wagons could not. The combination of the sheer wall and tough foraging led some to nickname the place "Mount Misery" or "Poverty Point".
Most of the people became discouraged and followed Mr. Rynierson back to join Hunt on November 7, and 27 wagons decided to continue on through the wash. The larger portion would reunite with Hunt on December 22. Despite their lack of a reliable map, the smaller group decided to continue, believing that they would find the pass if they simply continued westward. A new leader was elected, Jim Martin, and the group continued north to find a way around the canyon. After William L. Manly discovered they were backtracking north towards Salt Lake City while he was serving as an advance scout, he convinced Martin to turn west. The Martin group was overtaken by a separate all-male group of pioneers calling themselves the “Jayhawkers”, who continued north but later turned west and joined the Martin group. It took several days to find a route for the wagons around the canyon, after which the group passed through the area of present-day Panaca, Nevada, and crossed over "Bennetts Pass" to Del Mar Valley. Here they started having difficulty finding water but eventually found their way to Crystal Springs in the Pahranagat Valley. The oxen grew weak from lack of nourishment and water, and the pioneers began discarding treasured items in late November, approximately west of "Mount Misery" near present-day Hiko. They continued over Hancock Summit into Tikaboo Valley and then on to Groom Lake, now encompassed by Area 51, where they rested and took water.
Second split and Death Valley days
At Groom Lake they again got into a dispute on which direction to travel. One group, the “Bennett-Arcane party”, wanted to head south toward the distant, snow-clad Mount Charleston in hopes of finding a good water source, based on Manly's scouting. The other group—the “Jayhawkers”—wanted to stay with the original plan of traveling west. The Jayhawkers took 20 wagons, while the Bennett-Arcanes kept 7 and Manly. While split, both groups were saved from dying thirst by a snowstorm and eventually reunited at Ash Meadows in the Amargosa Desert of the Amargosa Valley, east of Death Valley. From here they continued on, following the Amargosa River bed to present-day Death Valley Junction, California, and then along the same route followed by current California State Route 190 past the Funeral Mountains.
On Christmas Eve of 1849, the group arrived at Travertine Springs, the west-facing canyon of the Amargosa Range and located about a mile from Furnace Creek Wash in Death Valley. The lost pioneers had now been traveling across the desert for about two months since leaving the Old Spanish Trail. Their oxen were weak from lack of forage and their wagons were in poor shape. They too were weary and discouraged but their worst problem was not the valley that lay before them. It was the towering Panamint Range mountains to the west that stood like an impenetrable wall as far as could be seen in both directions.
Burnt Wagons (Jayhawkers) At Furnace Creek, the groups split again. The Jayhawkers decided to head northwest toward a rough pass ("Towne Pass"), but after discovering it was impassable to wheeled traffic due to strewn boulders, they decided to leave their wagons and belongings behind and walk to civilization. They slaughtered several oxen and used the wood of their wagons to cook the meat and make jerky. The place where they did this is present-day Stovepipe Wells, and is located near the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. From here, they began climbing toward Towne Pass and then turned south over Emigrant Pass to Wildrose Canyon in the Panamint Range. After crossing the mountains and dropping down into Panamint Valley, they turned south and climbed a small pass into Searles Valley before making their way into Indian Wells Valley (near present-day Ridgecrest). It was here that they finally got their first look at the Sierra Nevada mountain range. They turned south and traveled across Fremont Valley, close to the route followed by present-day California State Route 14. Ironically, they walked right by Walker Pass, the mountain pass they had set out to look for almost three months earlier.
After traveling past Walker Pass, they entered into what was to become the worst part of their journey, across the Mojave Desert and its Antelope Valley. This is a region with very few water sources. Eventually they found their way over a pass in the Sierra Pelona Mountains near present-day Palmdale, and, following the Santa Clara River, were finally discovered and rescued by Mexican Californios cowboys from Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando, located near present-day Santa Clarita Valley. The Jayhawkers arrived at Rancho San Francisco on February 4, 1850; the survivors later held reunions and celebrated annually on that day from 1872 to 1918.
Long Camp (Bennett-Arcane)