Great God Pan

Overland in 1846 is divided into two separate volumes. Volume One, which we are concerned with here, consists of excerpts from diaries and personal letters to friends and loved ones back East. Volume Two includes newspaper accounts and "has a broader outlook, perhaps not less personal, but exhibiting a more deliberate purpose of communicating to others what it was like to go West in 1846, and whether California and Oregon were worth the troubles occasioned in getting there." Though less polished Morgan's collection of letters accomplishes a similar goal.
Morgan does not lead us abruptly into the individual writings of the diarists. Instead he establishes an atmosphere of exhilaration in regards to the emerging tales of open land and new fortunes. Perhaps the man most responsible for the "buzz" on California was a young Missouri lawyer named Lansford W. Hastings. Invigorated by his first trip to California, Hastings deemed it his duty to inform Americans of the great opportunities that lay there. His Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California published in the spring of 1845 created quite a stir with its glowing descriptions of the land beyond the "Stoney Mountains" The settlers he guided along the trail were impressed with his rakish demeanor and helpful suggestions, describing him "an ideal representative of the mountaineer. . . dressed in a suit of elegant pattern made of buckskin, handsomely embroidered and trimmed at the collar and openings, with plucked beaver fur." But Hastings' motives were not entirely altruistic. An opportunist undoubtedly, and filibusterer in his own mind, Hastings and his profit-minded motives exemplified the early capitalist attitude of the frontier. Claiming dubious alliance with both the U.S. government and the Latter-day Saints, Hastings in reality hoped to establish himself ruler of a new California Republic, although he would settle for a position in the lucrative merchant business in the soon-to-be populated regions of the San Joaquin Valley. In a letter to U.S. envoy Thomas Larkin at Monterey on March 3, 1846, Hastings speaks of thousands of Americans on their way by ship to Californi—a "confidential government arrangement"—"for the promotion of what object, you will readily perceive." He goes on to brag, confidentiality aside, that "a new era in the affairs of California, is about to arise," one of a "highly civilized life" and "unbounded enterprise," from which Hastings no doubt would be the beneficiary.
But Hastings was not alone in his provincial dreams. Miller Johann Sutter, himself lord of his own New Helvetia, was also impressed by these new settlers and the profits to be earned from them, suggesting the Mexican government go ahead and give them free land. His statement, "Nothing can stop this Emigration, in Case of Opposition they would fight like Lyons," prefigures the actual Bear Flag Revolt by several months. Meanwhile, at the beginning of the trail, similar spirits soared. "We doubt not that Mexico will find it for her interest to establish there a separate Republic, or leave it entirely to the control of the adventurous spirits already preparing to settle it," wrote a reporter for the Missouri Reporter on July 2, 1845 inspired no doubt by Hastings' book. The Mormons too were interested in California. They had sent Elder Sam Brannan and a shipload of "California-bound Saints" west to scout the Pacific coast that same summer. "California is a portion of the new world, so called, yea, a portion of that which God made choice above all others, we deem it sufficiently worthy of our attention," Brannan wrote upon his departure. On the same day that Brannan sailed from New York, Mormon overlanders left Illinois, their destination still unclear. California, Oregon, Utah, and Vancouver Island were reported destinations. From Morgan's perceptive inclusion of Hastings' correspondence, as well as that of Sutter, Larkin, and Brannan, we see that the seeds of an independent republic had already sprouted when Fr?mont swam his band of musky riflemen into the midst of the already rising tide, and how a large body of American settlers were to be a force to be reckoned with.
If Hastings failed in his goal of establishing his own kingdom, some of his predictions for the coast certainly came true. "I can not but believe, that the time is not distant, when those wild forests, trackless plains, untrodden valleys, and the unbounded ocean, will present one grand scene, of continuous improvements, universal enterprise, and unparalleled commerce. . . when the entire country, will be everywhere intersected, with turnpike roads, rail-roads and canals; and when, all the vastly numerous, and rich resources, of that now, almost unknown region, will be fully and advantageously developed."
After establishing the atmosphere of 1846 in this opening introduction, Morgan initiates his original concept. What follows are the diaries of early Oregon wagoneers like William E. Taylor and John Craig—emigrants for health reasons, and those of California-bound individuals like Thomas Holt and George Mckinstry. Also of interest are several accounts of reverse-emigrants traveling the trails back east, and in the process shedding a new perspective on the migration. Among these is the journal of James Clyman who accompanied Hastings back across the Sierra in late April, and various eyewitness accounts of one Wales Bonney who traveled nearly all the way from Oregon to Missouri alone, by hiking all day and"caching himself" at night to avoid Indian trouble. All three men made it safely to Missouri although Clyman lost his pet water spaniel Lucky at a hot spring in Nevada when, "not knowing that it was Boiling hot he deliberately walked in to the caldron to slake his thirst and cool his limbs when to his sad disappointment and my sorrow he scalded himself almost instantly to death."
Overland in 1846 concludes with several entries related to the infamous Donner Party; their harsh passage across Hastings' Cutoff and their tragic encampment in the Sierra Nevada. Accounts of many of the participants are offered as well as those of the relief parties organized in part by Johann Sutter. Included are gory details including this Oedipal nightmare:"At one cabin they found children devouring the heart and liver of their father; they were even then tearing the raw flesh with their teeth. . . and their chins and bosoms were deluged with the blood," from James Frazier Reed's account for the Illinois Journal.
Intentional or not, Morgan scooped the New Western Historians on one of their favorite topics—the exploitation of the environment as a theme of the West—a theme, they claim, Turner and other thinkers shied away from or ignored altogether. Morgan unassumedly introduces the topic through a simple method—litter.
In 1846 Oregon-settler Jesse Applegate stumbled upon the remnants of a camp near Klamath Lake, presumably occupied by Colonel Fr?mont and his men just a few months before. "We came to a little stream coming in from the southward and there found pieces of newspaper and other unmistakable evidences of civilized people having camped there." Some of us may too have come across "civilized" trash like beer cans and food wrappers in our wilderness travels.
In his essay "Trashing the Trails" from 1991's Trails-Towards A New Western History, Richard White defines"environmental history" as "the history of the consequences of human actions on the environment and the reciprocal consequences of an altered nature for human society." Morgan's collection of diaries and accounts of Western travelers provides an early evidence of the heavy impact emigration would soon begin to incur upon the land. Though the impact of the migrations of 1846 was limited compared to the thousands of would-be Midases soon to be eroding away entire hills with great torrents of water in California, Americans were already leaving their typically formidable mark on the land. "The spot," laments Thomas R. McBride referring to a wooded Utah refuge that he had visited on an earlier cross-country trek, "had a barren and desolate appearance, though when I first saw it it was a charmingly shaded and inviting locality" Many of the best water holes and stands were despoiled early on, a lasting legacy for American and Indian populations alike. The slashed and burned trees of the early trailblazers soon fell beneath the axes of railroad construction and the magnificent landscapes before the smoke-belching graders of multi-lane highways.
Commenting on one overlanders count of 2,000 abandoned wagons on a single 40-mile stretch in Nevada in 1850, White concludes that "the debris, the dust, the manure, all of these things marked trails as an environment clearly shaped by human use." White also takes this opportunity to surmise that "much of the difference between the New and Old Western Historians is revealed by what they make of the garbage so lavishly strewn along the trails." He deduces the older generation ignored the rubbish and saw only pristine wilderness that still existed to dictate their emerging culture of the West. He then goes on to claim that his group see first the garbage&—the "debris and consequences." In this reference however, White has ignored another element of the detritus strewn along the trails. The wagons he speaks of were an integral part of the research of the Hastings’ Cutoff section of the Oregon-California trail. Charles Kelly, an associate of Morgan, documented much of this rusting and weathered “garbage” when retracing the emigrant route in 1932. It proved invaluable for not only for the research of his Salt Desert Trails, but also for the work of Morgan and other Great Basin historians.
As we have seen, diaries and first-hand accounts such as those collected here can be examined and evaluated from different angles and viewpoints. Dale Morgan's context establishment and keen observances of the varied motives of the early coastal pioneers provide an intriguing (and lengthy!) introduction to the series, but equally important is his compiling of various first-hand accounts of those early days of overland travel and the rescue of many from obscure files in various historical societies and their inclusion in an accessible and relatively complete series such as this one. In the words of Morgan himself, "The overland travelers of 1846 best tell their own story."