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Death Valley

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Death Valley Ghost Towns Volume 2

Into the Jaws of Hell – Sutak, Tom
Jefferson Hunt (1804-1879) was born in Bracken County, Kentucky, son of John Hunt and Martha Jenkins. He arrived in Utah in 1847. He was married to Celia Mounts in 1823 and Martha Jane Nease in 1846.
Geology of Death Valley: Landforms, Crustal Extension, Geologic History, Road Guides
An Unnatural History of Death Valley
Death Valley History Revealed: Proceedings of the Sixth Death Valley Conference on History and Prehistory
Death Valley in ’49: An Autobiography of a Pioneer Who Survived the California Desert

Roadside Geology of Utah (Roadside Geology Series) affiliates.abebooks.com/KeDgra

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Little Girl Lost

from: Little Water – Many Indians
Disaster at the Colorado — by Charles W. Baley, 2002

. . . After dinner, while making preparations to get underway, it was
discovered that six oxen were missing. Several men were sent back to
look for them. After tracking the missing animals for some distance, the
searchers came upon four carcasses. Two of the carcasses had all the meat
cut away while the other two were partially butchered. A short distance
farther, the other two oxen were found. They were freshly killed and
still warm, the Indians apparently scared off by their pursuers before
they could strip the meat from the animals. Due to approaching darkness
and the possibility of an ambush, the pursuit was called off.

During this phase of the journey, the wagon train was doing
much of its traveling at night, owing to the great daytime heat of the
desert and the long distances between water holes. At regular intervals,
during the night they would stop for a short rest. At one of these rest
stops, eleven-year-old Ellen Baley, a daughter of Gillum and Permelia
Baley, fell asleep and failed to awaken when the wagon train moved on.
Somehow, she was not missed until the train traveled some distance. The
poor girl awoke to find herself alone in the middle of a vast hostile
desert. Filled with fright, she began running to catch up with the
wagon train, but in her confusion, she took off in the opposite direction.
When she was discovered missing, her father and older brother,
George immediately rode back to where they had stopped. To their
horror, she was not there! Captured by the Indians must have been their
conclusion! Nevertheless, they continued their search by calling out the
little girl’s name at the top of their voices as they rode back. Their efforts
were soon rewarded when, far off in the distance, came a faint cry,
“Papa, Papa.” Her father immediately answered and kept calling her
name until he caught up with her. When reunited with her family and
the other members of the wagon train, Ellen had a tale that would
be told and retold by family members until the present day.

Disaster at the Colorado — by Charles W. Baley, 2002

The Execution of Nowereha

Adapted from :
Captivity of the Oatman Girls – by R.B. Stratton – 1858
Editor – Walter Feller
CHAPTER V

Mojave Indian war club and weapons
Mojave Indian war club and weapons

“IN the spring of 1854, the project of some exciting hostile expedition against a distant tribe was agitated among the Mohaves. It was sometime before any but the ‘Council’ knew of the definite purpose of the expedition. But when their plans had been laid, and all their intentions circulated among the tribe, it proved to be one of war upon the Cochopas, a large tribe seven hundred miles away. The Cochopas were a tribe with whom the Mohaves had never been at peace. According to tradition, this hostility had been kept actively flaming through all past generations. And the Mohaves were relying on equal certainty upon the truth of the traditional prophecy that they were ultimately to subject the Cochopas to their sway or obliterate them. The Mohaves had as yet been successful in every engagement. They were confident of success, and this was all the glory their ambition was capable of grasping. As for any intrinsic merit in the matter of the contest, none was known to exist. About sixty warriors made preparations for a long time to undertake the expedition.

“Bows and arrows and war clubs were prepared in abundance, also stone knives. The war club was made of a very solid wood that grew upon the mountain. It was of a tree that they called Cooachee,’ very hard and heavy, and lost but very little of its weight in the seasoning process:

Olive Oatman
Olive Oatman

” Great preparations were also made by the squaws, though with much reluctance, as most of them were opposed to the expedition, as they had been also in the past to kindred ones. Those of them who had husbands and brothers enlisted in the expedition, tried every expedient in their power to dissuade them from it. They accused them of folly and a mere lust of war and prayed them not thus to expose their own lives and the lives of their dependent ones. It was reported that since the last attack upon them, the Cochopees had strengthened themselves with numerous and powerful allies, by uniting several surrounding tribes with themselves for purposes of war. This was pleaded by these interested women against the present purpose, as they feared that this distant tribe would be now able to avenge the past injury, besides beating the Mohaves in this projected engagement. But go they would, and on the day of their departure there was a convocation of nearly the whole tribe, and it was a time of wild, savage excitement and deep mourning.

” I soon learned, though by mere accident, that so far as life was concerned, I had an interest in this expedition equal to that of the most exposed among the warriors. It had been an unvarying custom among them that if any of their numbers should be slain in battle, the lives of prisoners or captives must be sacrificed, therefore, up to the number of the slain, (if that number should be among them,) and that in the most torturing manner. This was not done to appease their gods, for they had none, but was a gift to the spirits of the other spheres. Their only theory about a Supreme Being is that there is a chief of all the Indians who reigns in splendor and pomp and that his reign is one of wisdom and equity, and would last forever. They believed that at the gate of their Elysium a porter was in constant attendance, who received all good, brave Indians, and welcomed them to immense hunting grounds and all manner of sensual pleasures; that if one sought admittance there without a bow and hunting implements, he was to subsist as best he could, for no provision was to be made for him after leaving his tribe. Many were the questions they asked me after they had ascertained what I believed concerning the nature of the heaven of which I spoke, and the employments there. But generally, they would wind up the conversation with ridicule and mockings. When they saw me weep or in trouble, they would sometimes say: ‘Why don’t you look up and call your great God out of the sky, and have him take you up there.’ But under all this, I could plainly see that their questions were not wholly insincere. They frequently marveled, and occasionally one would say: ‘You whites are a singular people; I should like to know what you will be when a great many moons have gone by?’ Sometimes they would say as did the Apaches, that we must be fools for believing that heaven was above the sky; that if it were so the people would drop down. One of the squaws said tauntingly to me: ‘ When you go to your heaven you had better take a strong piece of bark and tie yourself up, or you will be coming down among us again.’ After the soldiers had departed they told me plainly that my life must pay for the first one that might be slain during this contest.

“I had but a little before learned that we were not much further from the white settlements than when among the Apaches, and had been fondly hoping that as parties of the tribe occasionally made excursions to the settlements, I might yet make my situation known and obtain relief. But now I was shut up to the alternatives of either making an immediate effort to escape, which would be sure to cost my life if detected or to wait in dreadful suspense the bare probability of none of these soldiers being slain, as the only chance for myself if I remained.

” The report of the strengthening of the Cochopas since their last expedition gave me a reason to fear the worst. Thus for a long time, and just after having reached a bright place (if there can be in such a situation) in my captivity, I was thrown into the gloomiest apprehensions for my life. I could not calculate upon life; I did not.

” For five months not a night did I close my eyes for a troubled sleep, or wake in the morning but last and first were the thoughts of the slender thread upon which my life was hung. The faint prospect in which I had been indulging, that their plans of increasing traffic with the Mexicans and whites might open the doors for my return, was now nearly blasted.

“I had been out one fine day in August several miles gathering roots for the chief’s family, and returning a little before sunset, as I came in sight of the village I saw an Indian at some distance beyond the town descending a hill to the river from the other side. ‘ He was so far away that it was impossible for me to tell whether he was a Yuma or a Mohave. These two tribes were on friendly terms, and frequent * criers or news carriers passed between them. I thought at once of the absent warriors, and of my vital interest in the success or failure of their causeless, barbarous crusade. I soon saw that he was a Mohave, and tremblingly believed that I could mark him as one of the army.

“With trembling and fear I watch his hastened though evidently wearied pace.- He went down into the river and as he rose again upon the bank I recognized him. ‘ He is wearied,’ I said, ‘ and jogs heavily along as though he had become nearly exhausted from long travel. “Why can he be coming in alone?’ Questions of this character played across my mind and were asked aloud by me ere I was aware, each like a pointed javelin lashing and tormenting my fears. ‘Have the rest all perished?’ again I exclaimed; at any rate, the decisive hour has come with me.’

” I stopped; my approach to the village had not been observed. I resolved to wait and seek to cover one desperate effort to escape under the first shades of night. I threw myself flat upon the ground; I looked in every direction; mountain chains were strung around me on every side like bulwarks of adamant, and if trails led through them I knew them not. I partly raised myself up. I saw that Indian turn into a hut on the outskirts of the town. In a few moments, the ‘criers’ were out and bound to the river and to the foothills. Each on his way started others, and soon the news was flying as on telegraphic wires. ^But what news I could but exclaim. I started up and resolved to hasten to our hut and wait in silence for the full returns.

“I could imagine that I saw my doom written in the countenance of every Mohave I met. But each one maintained a surly reserve or turned upon me a sarcastic smile. A crowd was gathering fast, but not one word was let fall for my ear. In total, awful silence I looked, I watched, I guessed, but dared not speak. It seemed that everyone was reading and playing with my agitation. Soon the assemblage was convened, a fire was lit, and ‘Ohitia’ rose up to speak; I listened, and my heart seemed to leap to my mouth as he proceeded to state, in substance, thus: ‘Mohaves have triumphed; five prisoners were taken; all on their way; none of our men killed; they will be in to-morrow !’

” Again one of the blackest clouds that darkened the sky of my Mohave captivity broke, and the sunshine of gladness and gratitude was upon my heart. Tears of gratitude ran freely down my face. I buried my face in my hands and silently thanked God. I sought a place alone, where I might give full vent to my feelings of thanksgiving to my heavenly Father. I saw his goodness, in whose hands are the reins of the wildest battle storm, and thanked him that this expedition, so freighted with anxiety, had issued so mercifully to me.

“The next day four more came in with the captives, and in a few days, all were returned, without even a scar to tell of the danger they had passed. The next day after the coming of the last party, a meeting of the whole tribe was called, and one of the most enthusiastic rejoicing seasons I ever witnessed among them it was. It lasted, indeed, for several days. They danced, sang, shouted; and played their corn-stalk flutes until for very weariness they were compelled to refrain. It was their custom never to eat salted meat for the next moon after the coming of a captive among them. Hence our salt fish were for several days left to an undisturbed repose.

“Among the captives they had stolen from the unoffending Cochopas and brought in with them, was a handsome, fair-complexioned young woman, of about twenty-five years of age. She was as beautiful an Indian woman as I have ever seen; tall, graceful, and ladylike in her appearance. She had fairer, lighter skin than the Mohaves or the other Cochopa captives. But I saw upon her countenance and in her eyes the traces of awful grief. The rest of the captives appeared well and indifferent about themselves.

“This woman called herself ‘Nowereha.’ Her language was as foreign to the Mohaves as the Americans, except to the few soldiers that had been among them. The other captives were girls from twelve to sixteen years old; and while they seemed to wear a ‘ don’t care appearance, this Nowereha was perfectly bowed down with grief. I observed she tasted but little food. She kept up a constant moaning and wailing, except when checked by the threats of her boastful captors. I became very much interested in her and sought to learn the circumstances under which she had been torn from her home. Of her grief, I thought I knew something. She tried to converse with me.

” “With much difficulty, I learned of her what had happened since the going of the Mohave warriors among her tribe, and this fully explained her extreme melancholy. Their town was attacked in the night by the Mohave warriors, and after a short engagement the Cochopas were put to flight; the Mohaves hotly pursued them. Nowereha had a child about two months old; but after running a short distance her husband came up with her, grasped the child, and run on before. This was an act showing humaneness that a Mohave warrior did not possess, for he would have compelled his wife to carry the child, kicking her along before him. She was overtaken and captured.

” For one week Nowereha wandered about the village by day, a perfect image of desperation and despair. At times she seemed insane: she slept but little at night. The thieving, cruel Mohaves who had taken her, and were making merry over her griefs, knew full well the cause of it all. They knew that without provocation they had robbed her of her child, and her child of its mother. They knew the attraction drawing her back to her tribe, and they watched her closely. But no interest or concern did they manifest save to mock and torment her.

“Early one morning it was noised through the village that Nowereha was missing. I had observed her the day before, when the chief’s daughter gave her some corn, to take part in the same, after grinding the rest, to make a cake and hide it in her dress. “When these captives were brought in, they were assigned different places through the valley at which to stop. Search was made to see if she had not sought the abiding place of some of her fellow captives. This caused some delay, which I was glad to see, though I dared not express my true feelings.

” “When it was ascertained that she had probably undertaken to return, every path and every space dividing the immediate trails was searched, to find if possible some trace to guide a band of pursuers. A large number were stationed in different parts of the valley, and the most vigilant watch was kept during the night, while others started in quest of her upon the way they supposed she had taken to go back. When I saw a day and night pass in these fruitless attempts, I began to hope for the safety of the fugitive. I had seen enough of her to know that she was resolved and of unconquerable determination. Some conjectured that she had been betrayed away; others that she had drowned herself, and others that she had taken to the river and swam away. They finally concluded that she had killed herself, and gave up the search, vowing that if she had fled they would yet have her and be avenged.

” Just before night, several days after this, a Yuma Indian came suddenly into camp, driving this Cochopa captive. She was the most distressed-looking being imaginable when she returned. Her hair disheveled, her -a few old clothes torn, (they were woolen clothes,) her eyes swollen, and every feature of her noble countenance distorted.

“‘Criers’ were kept constantly on the way between the Mohaves and Yumas, bearing news from tribe to tribe. These messengers were their news- carriers and sentinels. Frequently two criers were employed, (sometimes more,) one from each tribe. These would have their meeting stations. At these stations, these criers would meet with promptness, and by word of mouth each would deposit his store of news with his fellow expressman, and then each would return, to his own tribe with the news. When the news was important, or was of a warning character, as in the time of war, they would not wait- for the fleet foot of the ‘runner,’ but had their signal fires well understood, which would telegraph the news hundreds of miles in a few hours. One of these Yuma criers, about four days after the disappearance of Nowereha, was coming to his station on the road connecting these two tribes when he spied a woman under a shelf of the rock on the opposite side of the river. He immediately plunged into the stream and went to her. He knew the tribe to which she belonged, and that the Mohaves had been making war upon them. He immediately started back with her to the Mohave village. It was a law to which they punctually lived, to return all fleeing fugitives or captives of a friendly tribe.

” It seemed that she had concealed that portion of the corn meal she did not bake, with a view of undertaking to escape.

” When she went out that night she plunged immediately into the river to prevent them from tracking her. She swam several miles that night, and then hid in a willow wood; thinking that they would be in close pursuit, she resolved to remain there until they should give up hunting for her. Here she remained for nearly two days, and her pursuers were very near her several times. She then started and swam where the river was not too rapid and shallow when she would out and bound over the rocks. In this way, traveling only at night, she had gone near one hundred and thirty miles. She was, as she supposed, safely hidden in a cave, waiting for the return of night, when the Yuma found her.

” On her return, another noisy meeting was called, and they spent the night in one of their victory dances. They would dance around her, shout in her ears, spit in her face, and show their threats of a murderous design, assuring her that they would soon have her where she would give them no more trouble by running away.

” The next morning a post was firmly placed in the ground, and about eight feet from the ground a cross-beam was attached. They then drove large, rough wooden spikes through the palms of poor Nowereha’s hands, and by these they lifted her to the cross and drove the spikes into the soft wood of the beam, extending her hands as far as they could. They then, with pieces of bark stuck with thorns, tied her head firmly back to the upright post, drove spikes through her ankles, and for a time left her in this condition.

“They soon returned and placed me with their Cochopa captives near the sufferer, bid us keep our eyes upon her until she died. This they did, as they afterward said, to exhibit to me what I might expect if they should catch me attempting to escape. They then commenced running around Nowereha in regular circles, hallooing, stamping, and taunting like so many demons, in the wildest and most frenzied manner. After a little while several of them supplied themselves with bows and arrows, and at every circlet would hurl one of these poisoned instruments of death into her quivering flesh. Occasionally she would cry aloud and in the most pitiful manner. This awakened from that mocking, heartless crowd the most deafening yells.

” She hung in this dreadful condition for over two hours ere I was certain she was dead, all the while bleeding and sighing, her body mangled in the most shocking manner. When she would cry aloud they would stuff rags in her mouth, and thus silence her. “When they were quite sure she was dead, and that they could no longer inflict pain upon her, they took her body to a funeral pile and burned it.

“I had before this thought, since I had come to know of the vicinity of the whites, that I would get borne knowledge of the way to their abodes by means of the occasional visits the Mohaves made to them, and make my escape. But this scene discouraged me, however, and each day I found myself, not without hope it is true, but settling down into such contentment as I could with my lot. For the next eighteen months during which I was witness to their conduct, these Mohaves took more care and exercised more forethought in the matter of their food. They did not suffer and seemed to determine not to suffer the return of a season like 1852.

“I saw but little reason to expect anything else than the spending of my years among them, and I had no anxiety that they should be many. I saw around me none but savages, and (dreadful as was the thought) among whom I must spend my days. There were some with whom I had become intimately acquainted, and from whom I had received humane and friendly treatment, exhibiting real kindness. I thought it best now to conciliate the best wishes of all, and by every possible means to avoid all occasions of awakening their displeasure, or enkindling their unrepentant, uncontrollable temper and passions.

” There were some few for whom I began to feel a degree of attachment. Every spot in that valley that had any attraction, or offered a retreat to the sorrowing soul, had become familiar, and upon much of its adjacent scenery, I delighted to gaze. Every day had its monotony of toil, and thus I plodded on. . . .

Read the complete Chapter V., here


No Paraphernalia Required!

The March 1915 issue of Motor magazine contained an article by A. L. Westgard on “Motor Routes to the California Expositions.” The following is an excerpt from that article:

Owing to the recent improvement of the transcontinental routes, it is no longer necessary to load one’s car down with all sorts of paraphernalia to combat the many difficulties which formerly were strewed along the path, nor is it, in this day of dependable motor cars, necessary to carry a multiplicity of parts. Still, it is well to outfit with reasonably limited equipment to provide against mud, possible breakdowns, and climatic changes.

To begin with, limit your personal outfit to a minimum, allowing only a suitcase to each person, and ship your trunk. Use khaki or old loose clothing. Some wraps and a tarpaulin to protect you against cool nights and provide cover in the case of being compelled to sleep outdoors are essential. Amber glasses, not too dark, will protect your eyes against the glare of the desert. You will, of course, want a camera, but remember that the high lights of the far west will require a smaller shutter opening and shorter exposure than the eastern atmosphere.

Carry sixty feet of 5/8-inch Manila rope, a pointed spade, a small ax with the blade protected by a leather sheet, a camp lantern, a collapsible canvas bucket with spout, and a duffle bag for the extra clothing and wraps. Start out with new tires all around, of the same size if possible, and two extra tires also, with four extra inner tubes. Select a tire with tough fabric; this is economical and will save annoyance. Use only the best grade of lubricating oil and carry a couple of one-gallon cans on running-board as extra supply, because you may not always be able to get the good oil you ought to use.

And, mark this well, carry two three-gallon canvas desert water bags, then see that they are filled each morning. Give your car a careful inspection each day for loose bolts or nuts and watch grease cups and oil cups. Carry two sets of chains and two jacks, and add to your usual tool equipment a coil of soft iron wire, a spool of copper wire, and some extra spark plugs.

West of the Missouri carry a small commissary of provisions, consisting of canned meat, sardines, crackers, fresh fruit or canned pineapples, and some milk chocolate for lunches. The lack of humidity in the desert sections, combined with the prevalence of hard water west of the Missouri River is liable to cause the hair to become dry and to cause chaps and blisters on the face and hands as well as cause the fingernails to become brittle and easily broken. To prevent this, carry a jar of outing cream and a good hair cleanser. Use them every night.

-.-

Wallflowers

The Wallflower Collection

A collection of historic and vintage photographs by a variety of photographers reworked and colorized. Working with these old photos like this has given me reassurance that the things I see, they would have seen in much the same way.

California Southern

The importance of our railroad

The Southern Pacific had a monopoly on Southern California’s Transcontinental Railroads. Nothing came in or went out on any other rails than Southern Pacific rails.


However, the Southern Pacific at Needles needed to connect with the bridge at the Colorado River to the Atlantic and Pacific. In order to do this, they worked out an agreement wherein the Atlantic & Pacific could use their rails to ship to and from San Francisco. Southern California still remained in a monopoly.

San Diego wanted a share in the rapid growth of the state. With the high cost of getting there, most tourists simply stopped in Los Angeles.

The California Southern, backed by investors from Boston, built from San Diego to Colton, but the Southern Pacific delayed their progress further north for over a year in what became known as the ‘Frog War.’ ‘Frog’ is the term for a rail crossing rail assembly so that either track can cross the other.

Formidable, but not impossible, building through the Cajon Pass to the Mojave River, through the upper and lower narrows, and then along in the same direction to Waterman, now known as Barstow. San Diego now had the benefit of a link to a transcontinental railroad and Southern California had a competitive transportation network.

W.feller.

The object of the Route Map

MAPS AND SURVEY – 1913
BY ARTHUR R. HINKS, M.A., F.R.S.

CHAPTER III
route traversing
The Explorer’s Route Map

The first care of a traveler who passes through an unknown, or partially explored country, is to make a record of where he has been, and of the main features of the country along the route by which he has traveled. Often singlehanded, encumbered by transport, compelled to keep to the track, and unable to leave his party, he cannot hope to make anything in the nature of a map, in the ordinary sense of the term. But for his own guidance, to avoid getting lost, he is compelled to determine his position day by day in much the same way that the position of a ship is determined at sea, by observation of the Sun and the stars, so that he is able to say roughly in what latitude, and perhaps in what longitude his halting places were. Moreover, as he goes along he is able to make such observations of the shape and course of his path as to enable another man coming after him not only to arrive more or less at the same place but to follow the same route. And finally, he can keep a sort of running record of the things that lie immediately to the side of his path. All this is done by the construction of a “route traverse” or “route map.”

Old Crump

In 1849 a wagon train bound for California split up with many of the members opting for a supposed shortcut to the goldfields. The shortcut did not work out and these intrepid wanderers found themselves stranded, lock, stock, barrel, and four children on the floor of a place that would become known as ‘Death Valley.’

Bennett’s Long Camp

Over a month of hardship and waiting had passed while two heroic young men walked to find a way out and return with supplies in order to bring this band of Lost 49ers to safety. This they did, returning with food, a white horse, and a one-eyed mule. Sadly enough, the white horse had to be abandoned at a dry fall in the Panamint Mountains.

With these heroes returning they could now make their escape. The children were weak, tired, and sick and would not make the trip if they had to walk, so the pioneers sewed several shirts together making saddlebags to carry them in.

The children were uncomfortable and sick. They cried and cried, but ‘Crump,’ the ox selected to bear this burden seemed to sense the importance of carrying its cargo as gently as possible, never missing a step, stumbling, or even making a sudden, jarring move.

This ordeal, beginning late in 1849 and finishing up early in 1850 then became a distant memory to the members of the party.

Years later, a much older William Manly, one of the two heroes that saved the emigrants (John Rogers being the other), was walking down a road in the central valley. He noticed that over in a shady pasture there was a fat ox relishing the long, tender blades of grass. Strangely enough, the ox looked vaguely familiar. Sure enough, it was Old Crump, warm and gentle as ever.

Back in 1850, when things settled after their hardship-fraught journey and arrival at their destination, the owner of the ox retired the creature as a reward for its distinguished service and Crump never worked a day in its life again.

Chapter XI – Death Valley in 49
Wm. Lewis Manly

Mojave Trail

Mojave Trail

Monument at Las Flores Ranch

This secluded valley once bore primitive traffic and knew the lithe tread of native feet. The ancient Indian trail from the Colorado River to the coast led up the Mojave River into the mountains and climbed Sawpit Canyon to the summit of the range. The Piute Indians, using this trail, leaving a pathway that guided a Spanish priest, explorers, and pioneers across the desert waste and over the mountain barrier. When the Mormons came, in 1851, immigrant wagons wore a well-marked road through Cajon Pass. Thereafter, the old Mojave Trail through Summit Valley was little used.

Billy Holcomb Chapter No. 1069, E Clampus Vitus

The Fault Route

Click the map to view a larger image

It seems that people have made use of the San Andreas Fault long before automobile or even wagon roads were developed along its seam. Shown is a 1901 U.S.G.S. map where I have traced the route leading from near Blue Cut in the Cajon Pass, just about straight northwest to Valyermo. The dotted line portion shown at the Big Pines saddle may have been either a mule trail or a road possibly impassible or without increased effort by wagon or auto. Indians likely used the features of the fault as a footpath to do as we all do; go from here to there.

By-Passing Barstow

Bits from an interesting 1961 article about by-passing downtown Barstow and modernizing transportation infrastructure at the geographical descendant of ‘Forks-in-the-Road‘ of pioneering times. Speaks to the morphology of the transportation corridor from the classic Route 66 to the modern Interstate 15 Freeway. Also, see Sidewinder Road for maps between Victorville and Barstow.

On July 5, nine miles of the Barstow Freeway, known locally as the “Barstow By-Pass”, were opened to traffic by construction contractors Gordon H. Ball and Ball & Simpson.

The project is an extension of the 24-mile freeway from Victorville to Barstow which was opened in January 1959. It makes available the improvement to full freeway standards of an important link of Federal Interstate Route 1 S (U.S. 91) and the first step of freeway improvement of Interstate Route 40 (U.S. 66) toward Needles.

California Highways, Sep/Oct 1961.
Modern ‘Forks-in-the-Road’ junction at Interstate 15 & 40 Freeways
Forks-of-the-Road – Where the Salt Lake Road and Mojave Road come together and become the Mojave River Trail

Historic Victor Valley Wagon Roads

Primary regional road network — USGS 1901

Not all-inclusive, this 1901 map shows basic transportation routes between the Cajon Summit on the west and east from there through either the San Bernardino Mountains or Lucerne Valley to where the two roads meet in the Big Bear Valley.

This map below was made in 1883 and shows an earlier and geographically expanded version of the routes.

1883 map of route network in the upper Mojave River region (note; no railroad)

The 1883 map is more inclusive and contains a couple of items I want to keep track of. There are differences but the road segments look about the same.

I made a copy of the 1883 roads layer and made it red to stand out better.

There are some nuances between the two maps, and right now the Oro Grande Wash area seems considerably off, fiddling with it some I can get a better fit–but not at these rates. The 1901 would be the more accurate depiction of what went on out there even if it were 35 years or so after the fact.

Williams USGS survey map 1853

Note that in the above map the variations of trails from across the valley leading to the Cajon Summit seem not to have been developed at this time and instead the trail along the Mojave River is shown.

1901 trail routes transposed over modern street map through Hesperia

The Northers

Then there were the “Northers,” which the heavy winds that swept down the Cajon Pass from the Mohave desert were called. They were much more severe then and sometimes very cold, blowing for about three days at a time. Many people treated them as they would rainy weather, and by way of derision, they were sometimes called “Mormon rains,” coming as they did by way of San Bernardino. They often came before the rains and when sheep had been pastured in the early summer the surface of the ground was cut into fine dust and we would have a dust storm which would cover the inside of the houses with dust. Since the land was planted and roads oiled, the “Northers” have lost most of their disagreeable features. Being dry they clear the atmosphere and are one of the beneficial features in our healthy climate.

History of San Bernardino County – John Brown Jr., 1922

Agua Mansa

Traders in the caravans coming to California did not just trade with those at the missions, but with any group or community they came across. The little settlement of Agua Mansa enjoyed the benefit of being the first village of any size once the mule trains dropped in from the mountains after crossing the deserts.

Agua Mansa cemetery

It was called Aqua Mansa, meaning Gentle Water, and was composed entirely of immigrants from New Mexico, numbering some 200 souls–simple, good souls they were, too, primitive in their style of living, kind and hospitable to strangers, rich in all that went to make people happy and content, never having been, up to that time, vexed by the unceremonious calls of the tax collector, owing allegiance to none save the simple, kindhearted old priest who looked after their spiritual welfare. With peace and plenty surrounding them, the good people of Aqua Mansa went to make as contented and happy of people as could be found in the universe.

Bell, Horace, Reminiscences of a Ranger – 1927

Lost on the Trail – Ellen Baley

During this phase of the journey the wagon train was doing much of its traveling at night, owing to the great daytime heat of the desert and the long distances between water holes. At regular intervals during the night they would stop for a short rest. At one of these rest stops, eleven-year-old Ellen Baley, a daughter of Gillum and Permelia Baley, fell asleep and failed to awaken when the wagon train moved on. Somehow, she was not missed until the train traveled some distance. The poor girl awoke to find herself alone in the middle of a vast hostile desert. Filled with fright, she began running to catch up with the wagon train, but in her confusion, she took off in the opposite direction. When she was discovered missing, her father and older brother, George, immediately rode back to where they had stopped. To their horror, she was not there! Captured by the Indians must have been their conclusion! Nevertheless, they continued their search by calling out the little girl’s name at the top of their voices as they rode back. Their efforts were soon rewarded when, far off in the distance, came a faint cry,
“Papa, Papa.” Her father immediately answered and kept calling her name until he caught up with her. When reunited with her family and the other members of the wagon train, Ellen had a tale that would be told and retold by family members until the present day.

from:
Disaster at the Colorado
Beale’s Wagon Road and the First Emigrant Party
Charles W. Baley

Lake Adelaide

by Walter Feller

A small dam was erected to raise the water level up against a gate to a flume that could be opened letting water from Deep Creek flow into a stone-walled channel. This channel ran along a carefully continuous slope to a headwater, into a pipeline across the Mojave River, then on to an open reservoir in what is now the City of Hesperia, Ca.

Lake Adelaide – Deep Creek – Hesperia’s water source of the late 1800s and onward . . .
Gate at end of the flume. Looking upstream.
Canal at flume looking downstream.

The slope along the canal has to be even to avoid turbulent flow. The walls need to be high enough all along the canal to maintain volume, accommodate hydraulic jump and prevent sloshing over the side. A smooth, even flow like that is called laminar flow.

Stunning Lake Adelaide

The smooth flow we look for in an open channel aqueduct is called ‘laminar flow.’ As water passes through the 3 or 4 miles, if the flow is turbulent, all kinds of contaminants may become entrapped and entrained in the water, which is undesirable.

The floor of the channel needed to be flat and to hold a uniform, gentle, even slope for a long distance.

So, water diverted at the flume passes through the gate and into a specifically engineered channel to be delivered to the next step, the headworks.

This is the last stretch before the water leaves the mountains. The headworks were at the washed out area to the left.

Think of the headworks as sort of a funnel with the water pouring from the channel into the top of the siphon. There most likely was a grate on there to keep large objects from falling into the pipeline and clogging it.

Headworks at the top of the siphon

Looking north (downstream) at Mojave River from southern side of Deep Creek Canyon
Hesperia Lake, looking southeast toward mountains.

The pipeline changes direction at Hesperia Lake. The origin of the lake is not exactly clear. One story I have heard is that the lake began when the pipeline was leaking and the water did not drain. There is a shallow well in the park that empties into the lake. The spiral-coiled pipe that was used may very well have sprung a leak under the high pressure of being the lowest point of the siphon, as well as a turning point in the line.

Map of water transmission system.

The pipeline turned west at the lake and continued up the little canyon crawling up to the area locally known as ‘the mesa.’ The pipeline then terminated at an open reservoir at what is now Lime Street Park.

Reservoir at end of the pipeline. (courtesy Hesperia Old Time Museum)

All of this rather than dig a hole for a well.

Rotary drilling was being developed, still. Water was down 500-600′ below the surface at this specific location where the reservoir needed to be. Building this canal the 12-14 miles it was, was preferable to digging a well that deep by hand.

The location of the reservoir was well thought out. The water needed to be here for the community that was being developed. Also, water in an open reservoir that could be seen from a train window was a big attraction for those interested in the area.

The canal and pipeline were completed in 1886 when the California Southern track was finished and trains began running.

The water in the reservoir would be fed into the water system to fill the tank at the little railroad station across the street from where Walters’ General Store and the Hesperia Hotel would be built, and at the school just over on the east side of the tracks. There at the little schoolhouse at the center of the little community the water that would be delivered at a pressure of 45 PSI, which is about the perfect pressure for use in a home or commercial business.

Water at this location was critical. 500 feet below the surface there was plenty of water, but the drilling technology to get to it was 30-40 years in the future.
circa – 1900

So, hopefully, all things have been considered and that is the story of how and why water was brought to our mesas and providing our opportunity to grow into the collective mega-empire we are to this very day. IMO.

-end-

Technology Advancements in Wells

from; A Quick History of Water Wells

by Hanna Landis

Until the early 19th century, water wells were still dug by hand. In 1808 in the United States, mechanical drilling was invented by the Ruffner Brothers. The Ruffner Brothers successfully first used mechanical drilling in Charleston, West Virginia to access water and salt at Great Buffalo Lick. This invention allowed many more wells to be drilled efficiently all over America.

By the 1820s and 1830s, auger boring machines came on the scene. These machines allowed wells to be drilled deeper and for the water to remain uncontaminated as it came up through pipes made of the first iteration of steel. By the early 20th-century rotary drilling technology became standard after the invention of the roller cone drill bit in 1908 by Howard Hughes Sr. Hughes invention is still used today for many types of drilling.

The 1940s brought the invention of portable drilling tools – until then they were all platform-based. And that brings us to the technology that is still in use today.

Hodge, Ca.

Undesert

“It is often said that America has no real deserts. This is true in the sense that there are no regions such as are found in Asia and Africa where one can travel a hundred miles at a stretch and scarcely see a sign of vegetation—nothing but barren gravel, graceful, wavy sand dunes, hard, wind-swept clay, or still harder rock salt broken into rough blocks with upturned edges. In the broader sense of the term, however, America has an abundance of deserts—regions which bear a thin cover of bushy vegetation but are too dry for agriculture without irrigation…. In the United States the deserts lie almost wholly between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountain ranges, which keep out any moisture that might come from either the west or the east. Beginning on the north with the sagebrush plateau of southern Washington, the desert expands to a width of seven hundred miles in the gray, sage-covered basins of Nevada and Utah. In southern California and Arizona the sagebrush gives place to smaller forms like the salt-bush, and the desert assumes a sterner aspect. Next comes the cactus desert extending from Arizona far south into Mexico. One of the notable features of the desert is the extreme heat of certain portions. Close to the Nevada border in southern California, Death Valley, 250 feet below sea-level, is the hottest place in America. There alone among the American regions familiar to the writer does one have the feeling of intense, overpowering aridity which prevails so often in the deserts of Arabia and Central Asia. Some years ago a Weather Bureau thermometer was installed in Death Valley at Furnace Creek, where the only flowing water in more than a hundred miles supports a depressing little ranch. There one or two white men, helped by a few Indians, raise alfalfa, which they sell at exorbitant prices to deluded prospectors searching for riches which they never find. Though the terrible heat ruins the health of the white men in a year or two, so that they have to move away, they have succeeded in keeping a thermometer record for some years. No other properly exposed out-of-door thermometer in the United States, or perhaps in the world, is so familiar with a temperature of 100° F. or more. During the period of not quite fifteen hundred days from the spring of 1911 to May, 1915, a maximum temperature of 100° F. or more was reached in five hundred and forty-eight days, or more than one-third of the time. On July 10, 1913, the mercury rose to 134° F. and touched the top of the tube. How much higher it might have gone no one can tell. That day marks the limit of temperature yet reached in this country according to official records. In the summer of 1914 there was one night when the thermometer dropped only to 114° F., having been 128° F. at noon. The branches of a pepper-tree whose roots had been freshly watered wilted as a flower wilts when broken from the stalk.”

—The Chronicles of America.—Volume I. “The Red Man’s Continent,” by Ellsworth Huntington.

Millie

Georgia Walters – circa 1917

Millie was undeniably beautiful. She was quite clever also. She developed a system wherein she could chop wood without lifting a finger. Living at the post office and only store for miles around, she became quite astute at knowing when the cowboys and other such young men would be coming to pick up supplies and mail. She would study the dust coming off the roads in the distance. Seeing this she would walk over to the woodpile, take up her ax, and ineffectively swing it in a feigned attempt to split firewood as her happy victims arrived. She would sigh. What buck could resist? A delightful young lady, an ax, and a pile of wood needing splitting was just what a young man would need to impress and earn her attention. Before too long, a cord of expertly prepared firewood would be neatly stacked ready for cooking and heating.

-Walter Feller

Massacre – Murders and Mayhem

from; The Captivity of the Oatman GirlsChap. II

“Though the sun had hid its glittering, dazzling face from us behind a tall peak in the distance, yet its rays lingered upon the summits that stretched away between us and the moon, and daylight was full upon us. Our hasty meal had been served. My father, sad, and seemingly spell-bound with his own struggling emotions, was a little on one side, as if oblivious of all immediately about him, and was about in the act of lifting some of the baggage to the wagon, that had as yet remained unloaded since the ascent of the hill, when, casting my eyes down the hill by the way we had come, I saw several Indians slowly and leisurely approaching us in the road. I was greatly alarmed, and for a moment dared not to speak. At the time, my father’s back was turned. I spoke to him, at the same time pointing to the Indians. What I saw in my father’s countenance excited in me a great fear, and took a deeper hold upon my feelings of the danger we were in, than the sight of the Indians. They were now approaching near us. The blood rushed to my father’s face. For a moment his face would burn and flash as it crimsoned with the tide from within ; then a death-like paleness would spread over his countenance, as if his whole frame was suddenly stiffened with horror. I saw too plainly the effort that it cost him to attempt a concealment of his emotions. He succeeded, however, in controlling the jerking of his muscles and his mental agitations, so as to tell us, in mild and composed accents, ‘ not to fear; the Indians would not harm us.’ He had always been led to believe that the Indians could be so treated as to avoid difficulty with them. He had been among them much in the “Western states, and so often tried his theory of leniency with success that he often censured the whites for their severity toward them ; and was disposed to attribute injury received from them to the unwise and cruel treatment of them by the whites. It had long been his pride and boast that he could manage the Indians so that it would do to trust them. Often had he thrown himself wholly in their power, while traveling and doing business in Iowa, and that, too, in times of excitement and hostility, relying upon his coolness, self-possession, and Olive, with my older sister, was standing upon the opposite side of the wagon ; Mary Ann, a little girl about seven years old, sat upon a stone holding to a rope attached to the horns of the foremost team ; the rest of the children were on the opposite side of the wagon from the Indians. My eyes were turned away from the Indians.

Though each of the family was engaged in repairing the wagon, none were without manifestations of fear. For some time every movement of the Indians was closely watched by us. I well remember, however, that after a few moments my own fears were partially quieted, and from their appearance I judged it was so with the rest.

In a subdued, tone frequent expressions were made concerning the Indians, and their possible intentions ; but we were guarded and cautious, lest they might understand our real dread and be emboldened to violence. Several minutes did they thus remain a few feet from us, occasionally turning an eye upon us, and constantly keeping up a low earnest babbling among themselves. At times they gazed eagerly in various directions, especially down the road by which we had come, as if struggling to discern the approach of some object or person either dreaded or expected by them.

” Suddenly, as a clap of thunder from a clear sky, a deafening yell broke upon us, the Indians jumping into ‘the air, and uttering the most frightful shrieks,. and at the same time springing toward us flourishing their war- clubs, which had hitherto been concealed under their wolf-skins. I was struck upon the top and back of my head, came to my knees, when with another blow, I was struck blind and senseless.” One of their numbers seized and jerked Olive one side, ere they had dealt the first blow.

“As soon,” continues Olive, as they had taken me one side, and while one of the Indians was leading me off, I saw them strike Lorenzo, and almost at the same instant my father also. I was so bewildered, and taken by surprise by the suddenness of their movements, and their deafening yells, that it was some little time before I could realize the horrors of my situation. When I turned around, opened my eyes, and collected my thoughts, I saw my father, my own dear father struggling, bleeding, and moaning in the most pitiful manner! Lorenzo was lying with his face in the dust, the top of his head covered with blood, and his ears and mouth bleeding profusely. I looked around and saw my poor mother, with her youngest child clasped in her arms, and both of them still, as if the work of death had already been completed; a little distance on the opposite side of the wagon, stood little Mary Ann, with her face covered with her hands, sobbing aloud, and a huge-looking Indian standing over her; the rest were motionless, save a younger brother and my father, all upon the ground dead or dying. At this sight a thrill of icy coldness passed over me; I thought I had been struck ; my thoughts began to reel and became irregular and confused; I fainted and sank to the earth, and for a while, I know not how long, I was insensible.

“When I recovered my thoughts I could hardly realize where I was, though I remembered to have considered myself as having also been struck to the earth, and thought I was probably dying. I knew that all, or nearly all of the family had been murdered; thus bewildered, confused, half conscious and half insensible, I remained a short time, I know not how long, when suddenly I seemed awakened to the dreadful realities around me. My little sister was standing by my side, sobbing and crying, saying : ‘Mother, O mother ! Olive, mother and father are killed, with all our poor brothers and sisters.’ I could no longer look upon the scene. Occasionally a low, piteous moan would come from some one of the family as in a dying state. I distinguished the groans of my poor mother, and sprang wildly toward her, but was held back by the merciless savage holding me in his cruel grasp, and lifting a club over my head, threatening me in the most taunting, barbarous manner. I longed to have him put an end to my life. ‘0h!, thought I, ‘must I know that my poor parents have been killed by these savages and I remain alive !’ I asked them to kill me, pleaded with them to take my life, but all my pleas and prayers only excited to laughter and taunts the two wretches to whose charge we had been committed.

” After these cruel brutes had consummated their work of slaughter, which they did in a few moments, they then commenced to plunder our wagon and the persons of the family whom they had killed. They broke open the boxes with stones and clubs, plundering them of such of their contents as they could make serviceable to themselves. They took off the wagon wheels, or a part of them, tore the wagon covering off from its frame, unyoked the teams and detached them from the wagons, and commenced to pack the little food, with many articles of their plunder, as if preparatory to start on a long journey. Coming to a feather bed, they seized it, tore it open, scattering its contents to the winds, manifesting meanwhile much wonder and surprise, as if in doubt what certain articles of furniture, and conveniences for the journey we had with us, could be intended for. Such of these as they selected, with the little food we had with us that they could conveniently pack, they tied up in bundles, and started down the hill by the way they had come, driving us on before them. “We descended the hill, not knowing their intentions concerning us, but under the expectation that they would probably take our lives by slow torture. After we had descended the hill and crossed the river, and traveled about one half of a mile by a dim trail leading through a dark, rough, and narrow defile in the hills, we came to an open place where there had been an Indian camp before and halted. The Indians took off their packs, struck a fire, and began in their own way to make preparations for a meal. They boiled some of the beans just from our wagon, mixed some flour with water, and baked it in the ashes. They offered us some food, but in the most insulting and taunting manner, continually making merry over every indication of grief in us, and with which our hearts were ready to break. We could not eat. After the meal, and about an hour’s rest, they began to repack and make preparations to proceed.

The Captivity of the Oatman Girls

Cajon Pass Trails — Notes

Originally, possibly a footpath for trade and society. There is no written record of that. After explorers, and then trade caravans wore in mule trails and braided paths as travelers do, to find the path of least resistance. Following the Mojave River, and to get to the hills and valleys of southern California this route was the most direct way, and indeed it was the only way for miles and miles in either direction where wagons could pass through the mountains.

Road over the divide at the summit.

All the frayed trails come together at essentially one point. Within a few yards either way, most all travelers would pass through this trail bottleneck. If there were remnants or traces of old wagon roads where pioneers and freighters passed through and they could still be seen, it would be here where this faint suggestion of an old trail can be observed.

Lowering the grade on the old road
Another cut into the hillside.
Cut in the road to lessen the grade.
Cut in road near the summit
At the southern end of the toll road was Martin’s Ranch. The northern end was just beyond the Cajon Summit.
Footpaths are as wide as a man’s gait. Mule trails are wider with their broad stance and cargo.

I have heard that Captain Jefferson Hunt brought the first wagon through the pass. Since he succeeded at that, Captain Hunt became instrumental in bringing the early pioneer wagon trains across the Mojave Desert.

The bottom of the canyon, about the last half mile, was strewn with boulders and impassible by any wheeled vehicle.

Steep at the top and rocky at the bottom, the solution was to disassemble wagons at the bottom and use mules to pack everything through the rocks on the mule trail, then put it all back together.

This map, dated 1859, shows the beginnings of the Cajon road network.
There were two ways of coming down or going up the stretch of canyon at the summit; either the low spots between the hills or the one of the long ridges, which ever provided a less steep grade to work with.
The best thing about coming up or going down the 2500 ft between the summit and foot of the pass is that it isn’t done all at once. I suppose it is like one would eat an elephant; one bite at a time.

Floods were common and so was the erosion which would cause damage to the already rugged trails. One time this way would be good, the next time another.

An earthquake in 1899 caused serious damage to the roadway. A bypass was graded in order to avoid the narrows entirely.
A generalized map of the upper narrows and toll road through Coyote Canyon in the Cajon Pass.

This road is the great thoroughfare from Los Angeles and San Bernardino to the great gold and silver fields now known to exist and which at present are being worked, east of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range Mountains. And not only this but over it, all the travel from the north, not passing over the San Fernando Mountain, going southward, must pass. At the head of the cañon is one of the steepest mountains in the State, over which a road passes, and teamsters have always complained of the great difficulties encountered in the ascent. So severely has this been felt, that many of them have offered $5 a load toll to any parties who would cut down the mountain and make a turnpike road of it. As the travel on this road has been greatly increased of late by the trade to the mines, it has become absolutely necessary to take steps to improve the mountain pass road. For this purpose subscription lists have been circulated this week here and in San Bernardino, to raise money to cut down the road across the mountain, and thus facilitate transit to the mines.
– Los Angeles Star – April 6, 1861

Martin’s Ranch — The southern and of the toll road.
Brown significantly improved the old pack trail through the upper narrows.
Upper toll gate

The road which I followed in 1865 crosses from left to right bank of the river a few miles above the Grapevine place said, continues past Cottonwood to Point of Rocks, 22 miles from Grapevine, on a southwest course; at Point of Rocks it turns due south to what was called Lane’s, or the Upper crossing, and there leaves the river entirely to strike straight south by west for Cajon pass in the mountains, reached in 19 miles from Lane’s. This is the way I went, as my itinerary shows: ” Nov. 9. To Martin’s ranch, 29 miles S. from Lane’s crossing; more than half the distance in open country, and then we entered the Cajon pass in the mountains, where there is a tollgate. The pass is a narrow, deep, and tortuous canon, the roughest I have ever traversed on wheels; there was 10 miles of this from the tollgate to Martin’s ranch.” Now Garces has been sent through Cajon pass, with a query, as by Bancroft, Hist. Cala., i, p. 275; but I do not think he went that way. Taking his courses on their face, he continued up the Mojave.

Elliot Coues – On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer
In 1882 John Brown wanted out of the toll road business–the day of the sale the Bear Flat Ranch became Cozy Dell.
Bear Flat Ranch – Cozy Dell – Lower toll gate

A Lonely Ride

by Bret Harte –

Francis Brett Hart, known as Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902), was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush.

I stood with my shawl and carpetbag in hand, gazing doubtingly on the vehicle. Even in the darkness the red dust of Wingdam was visible on its roof and sides, and the red slime of Slumgullion clung tenaciously to its wheels. I opened the door; the stage creaked easily, and in the gloomy abyss the swaying straps beckoned me, like ghostly hands, to come in now and have my sufferings out at once.

I must not omit to mention the occurrence of a circumstance which struck me as appalling and mysterious. A lounger on the steps of the hotel, who I had reason to suppose was not in any way connected with the stage company, gravely descended, and walking toward the conveyance, tried the handle of the door, opened it, expectorated in the carriage, and returned to the hotel with a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his position when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism that I grew quite nervous.

Perhaps I was out of spirits. A number of infinitesimal annoyances, winding up with the resolute persistency of the clerk at the stage office to enter my name misspelt on the waybill, had not predisposed me to cheerfulness. The inmates of the Eureka House, from a social viewpoint, were not attractive. There was the prevailing opinion–so common to many honest people–that a serious style of deportment and conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and elevated station. Obeying this principle, all hilarity ceased on my entrance to supper, and general remark merged into the safer and uncompromising chronicle of several bad cases of diphtheria, then epidemic at Wingdam. When I left the dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been supping exclusively on mustard and tea leaves, I stopped a moment at the parlor door. A piano, harmoniously related to the dinner bell, tinkled responsive to a diffident and uncertain touch. On the white wall the shadow of an old and sharp profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy curls. “I sez to Mariar, Mariar, sez I, ‘Praise to the face is open disgrace.'” I heard no more. Dreading some susceptibility to sincere expression on the subject of female loveliness, I walked away, checking the compliment that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips, and have brought shame and sorrow to the household.

It was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily upon me that I stood hesitatingly before the stage door. The driver, about to mount, was for a moment illuminated by the open door of the hotel. He had the wearied look which was the distinguishing expression of Wingdam. Satisfied that I was properly waybilled and receipted for, he took no further notice of me. I looked longingly at the box seat, but he did not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived recklessly after it, and–before I was fairly seated–with a great sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel door slipped behind, the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows moved solemnly upon us.

To say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity that encompassed the vehicle. The roadside trees were scarcely distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only by the peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly flowed in at the open window as we rolled by. We proceeded slowly; so leisurely that, leaning from the carriage, I more than once detected the fragrant sigh of some astonished cow, whose ruminating repose upon the highway we had ruthlessly disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, more the guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of our own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey that a moment’s hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver would have destroyed.

I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle I might obtain that rest so often denied me in its crowded condition. It was a weak delusion. When I stretched out my limbs it was only to find that the ordinary conveniences for making several people distinctly uncomfortable were distributed throughout my individual frame. At last, resting my arms on the straps, by dint of much gymnastic effort I became sufficiently composed to be aware of a more refined species of torture. The springs of the stage, rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical beat which began to absorb my attention painfully. Slowly this thumping merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female of the hotel parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and benumbing axiom–“Praise-to-the-face-is- open-disgrace. Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.” Inequalities of the road only quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length.

It was of no use to consider the statement seriously. It was of no use to except to it indignantly. It was of no use to recall the many instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to dwell sentimentally on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open commendation; of no use to except to the mysterious female, to picture her as rearing a thin-blooded generation on selfish and mechanically repeated axioms–all this failed to counteract the monotonous repetition of this sentence. There was nothing to do but to give in–and I was about to accept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions of darkness and necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of some other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last few moments. How quiet the driver was!

Was there any driver? Had I any reason to suppose that he was not lying gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman with blackened face who did the thing so quietly driving me–whither? The thing is perfectly feasible. And what is this fancy now being jolted out of me? A story? It’s of no use to keep it back– particularly in this abysmal vehicle, and here it comes: I am a Marquis–a French Marquis; French, because the peerage is not so well known, and the country is better adapted to romantic incident– a Marquis, because the democratic reader delights in the nobility. My name is something LIGNY. I am coming from Paris to my country seat at St. Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall asleep and tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me, and dream of an angel. The carriage at last stops at the chateau. It is so dark that when I alight I do not recognize the face of the footman who holds the carriage door. But what of that?–PESTE! I am heavy with sleep. The same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of the statues on the terrace; but there is a door, and it opens and shuts behind me smartly. Then I find myself in a trap, in the presence of the brigand who has quietly gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage thither. There is nothing for me to do, as a gallant French Marquis, but to say, “PARBLEU!” draw my rapier, and die valorously! I am found a week or two after outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier, with a hole through my ruffled linen and my pockets stripped. No; on second thoughts, I am rescued–rescued by the angel I have been dreaming of, who is the assumed daughter of the brigand but the real daughter of an intimate friend.

Looking from the window again, in the vain hope of distinguishing the driver, I found my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. I could see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky woods, relieving a lighter sky. A few stars widely spaced in this picture glimmered sadly. I noticed again the infinite depth of patient sorrow in their serene faces; and I hope that the vandal who first applied the flippant “twinkle” to them may not be driven melancholy-mad by their reproachful eyes. I noticed again the mystic charm of space that imparts a sense of individual solitude to each integer of the densest constellation, involving the smallest star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern. When I awoke the full moon was rising. Seen from my window, it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was the full moon of NORMA–that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the CASTA DIVA is sung–the “inconstant moon” that then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative. The thumping springs essayed to beat time, and the private-box-like obscurity of the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view. But it was a vast improvement upon my past experience, and I hugged the fond delusion.

My fears for the driver were dissipated with the rising moon. A familiar sound had assured me of his presence in the full possession of at least one of his most important functions. Frequent and full expectoration convinced me that his lips were as yet not sealed by the gag of highwaymen, and soothed my anxious ear. With this load lifted from my mind, and assisted by the mild presence of Diana, who left, as when she visited Endymion, much of her splendor outside my cavern–I looked around the empty vehicle. On the forward seat lay a woman’s hairpin. I picked it up with an interest that, however, soon abated. There was no scent of the roses to cling to it still, not even of hair oil. No bend or twist in its rigid angles betrayed any trait of its wearer’s character. I tried to think that it might have been “Mariar’s.” I tried to imagine that, confining the symmetrical curls of that girl, it might have heard the soft compliments whispered in her ears which provoked the wrath of the aged female. But in vain. It was reticent and unswerving in its upright fidelity, and at last slipped listlessly through my fingers.

I had dozed repeatedly–waked on the threshold of oblivion by contact with some of the angles of the coach, and feeling that I was unconsciously assuming, in imitation of a humble insect of my childish recollection, that spherical shape which could best resist those impressions, when I perceived that the moon, riding high in the heavens, had begun to separate the formless masses of the shadowy landscape. Trees isolated, in clumps and assemblages, changed places before my window. The sharp outlines of the distant hills came back, as in daylight, but little softened in the dry, cold, dewless air of a California summer night. I was wondering how late it was, and thinking that if the horses of the night traveled as slowly as the team before us, Faustus might have been spared his agonizing prayer, when a sudden spasm of activity attacked my driver. A succession of whip-snappings, like a pack of Chinese crackers, broke from the box before me. The stage leaped forward, and when I could pick myself from under the seat, a long white building had in some mysterious way rolled before my window. It must be Slumgullion! As I descended from the stage I addressed the driver:

“I thought you changed horses on the road?”

“So we did. Two hours ago.”

“That’s odd. I didn’t notice it.”

“Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap. Bully place for a nice quiet snooze–empty stage, sir!”

Enrico Caruso Island

This is Lake Tuendae (to be beheld) at the Desert Studies Center, Zzyzx. In the center of the lake is an island with a fountain. The name of the island in Enrico Caruso Island.

Enrico Caruso Island is named Enrico Caruso Island in honor of Enrico Caruso but not Enrico Caruso the famous singer but the Enrico Caruso who built Enrico Caruso Island was named for the legendary Enrico Caruso and named it Enrico Caruso Island for himself.

Enrico Caruso

The Prophet and a Vision

John Brown senior was prolific in early San Bernardino County history. He was a man of many careers; sailor, soldier, frontiersman, store owner, road builder, and community leader. John Brown was also a Spiritualist and wrote a book about his experiences titled ‘Medium of the Rockies.’

John Brown had a Spirit Guide who would come to him and give him visions of things that were to happen.  Mr. Brown claimed his guide was very accurate in his predictions. He recalls one experience as follows:

One night, in my wild Mountain home, it was about 1843 or 4, dates I have forgotten, my guide came to me and told me: “Tomorrow you will throw a stone and break your riding mule’s hind leg. . . .

Mr. Brown may have been in a dream or meditative state when he had this vision.

. . . My guide took me out into the valley where my mule was standing, about 30 yards distant from us. I picked up a stone, threw it and broke the leg as my guide had said. He then said: “There, see what you have done. Now, you tell all your companions what I have shown you, and let them prevent it if they can.”

Establishing the sanctity of the moment:

At this time I lived in a lodge in Indian style, with two men named Brinks and Burrows, and as usual, I found, on waking, all the men encamped sitting quietly around me; as by this time they had become firm believers in what I could tell them, and no one would leave camp, or turn loose any horses until they consulted the prophet, as they called me, and would then use such means as they thought would prevent coming to pass what I had told them.

I suppose John’s talents and abilities have impressed the men previously since they call him the “prophet.”

And as use such means as they thought would prevent coming to pass what I had told them on this occasion, I requested them to prevent, if possible, breaking the mule’s leg; I told them it would occur about sunset. They then placed a guard over me and declared I should not go out of the lodge that day; and thus they felt sure they had Spirit and Prophet both in their power. And, I assure you, reader, I was just as just desirous as anyone to prevent the act from taking place. But notwithstanding they, on many other occasions, had used the same or similar methods to prevent my sayings coming true and always failed, yet they had the hopes of being successful this time. —

Mr. Brown details how horses were separated into two groups to keep marauders from stealing them all at once.

— I must explain to the reader that in the wild country, in those days, we had one man hired, usually a Mexican, the guard are animals in the daytime when we were not traveling, and bring them up to our camp about sunset, when every man who own horses would take them to some secluded spot and hide them, retaining a few, that would be tied encamped by the foot to a large stake. This was done to prevent the Indians from getting all, in case they came upon us.–

With that being said, Mr. Brown remains in the lodge throughout the day in order to prevent the events of his vision from taking place.

— I remained a prisoner and till nearly sunset, when a you and a cry was raised for all hands could turn out. Here comes the cabaloto! Band the horses, every man take care of his horses! Thus a tumult was raised, to which all were accustomed on occasions of this kind, and I, with all the camp rushed for two separate then drive my horses to their hiding place for the night.

Before Mr. Brown proceeds with the rest of the story he reminds the reader about the prediction and explains that at that moment it was on no one’s mind.

Reader, not a man in that camp remembered one word or thing which had been said or done regarding this mysterious affair. All thought in reference thereto was taken from all, not even myself, who had been a prisoner all day, had the least conceivable idea of breaking my mule’s leg. —

Of course. Perfect.

It so happened that one of Burrows’ mares had foaled a colt that day, to which my mule had become attached. Mr. B. was near his mare looking at the young colt, and as I was driving my horses, the mule, having made friends with the colt and its mother, would run back, which he continued to do as I would try to drive him away; after I had worked in this way for some time, I passed close to where Burrows stood and remarked to him that I would throw a stone at him which I did.

Within all the ruckus and confusion, a moment of clarity–A self-fulfilling prophecy?

And the instant the stone went from my fingers everything flashed upon my mind; I turned my back towards the mule and remarked to Burrows that I had broken my mule’s leg. He said: I reckon not at that distance, which was about 30 yards. I told him I saw the stone go just as I did in the night and I knew the leg was broken. He then said: “I believe you have, for the mule made a jump and now cannot put his foot to the ground.”

The witness speaks:

Mr. Burrows then remarked, “there is something wonderful about this affair–it is certainly mysterious to think that we never can prevent anything from transpiring that you say will.” . .

So says Mr. Burrows of the Prophet, the Medium of the Rockies.

. . . He then called all to come and witness that what I had told them had come true.

No one seems phased over the loss of a good mule.

Death Valley in 1926

About this Collection

The Death Valley Automobile Trip photograph album containing 76 prints appears to be the record of a sightseeing trip made from Los Angeles to Death Valley in 1926. Neither the diarist nor the photographer is identified. The album displays no one emphasis: it consists of a broad range of photographs, from automobiles and sightseers to the landscape, abandoned mines, schoolhouses, hotels, and homesteads of Death Valley. . .