Describing this journey in the
Century Magazine (Vol. 41), Mr. Bidwell says:--
"The party consisted of sixty-nine persons. Each one furnished his own
supplies of not less than a barrel of flour, sugar, and other rations in
proportion. I doubt whether there was a hundred dollars in money in the
whole party, but all were anxious to go.
"Our ignorance of the route was complete. We knew that California lay
west, and that was all. Some of the maps consulted and supposed to be
correct showed a lake in the vicinity of where we now know Salt Lake to
be, that was three or four hundred miles in length, with two outlets,
both running into the Pacific Ocean, either apparently larger than the
Mississippi River. We were advised to take along tools to make canoes,
so that if we found the country too rough for our wagons, we could
descend one of these rivers to the Pacific." It was two years later that
Fremont, the pathfinder and roadmaker of the West, surveyed the great
Salt Lake and made a map of it. The Bidwell party after many hardships
reached California in safety.
The unhappy Donner party, also home seekers, made the journey in 1848.
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