A little later this same year (1851) George A. Johnson came to the mouth of the river on the schooner Sierra Nevada with further supplies for the fort, including lumber for the construction of flatboats with which to go up to the post. Johnson afterwards ran steamers on the river for a number of years, but he was not the first to attempt steam-navigation here, that honour resting with Turnbull who built the Uncle Sam.
On the Yuma Desert.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.
Many of the emigrants, dreaming of ease and prosperity as they trudged their long course across the desolation of the South-west, never lived to touch the golden sands of wonderful California, but expired by the way, often at the hands of the Apache or of some other cutthroat tribe. One of the saddest cases was that of Royse Oatman, who, en route with his large family, was massacred (1851) on the spot now known as Oatman’s Flat, not far below the great bend of the Gila. His son, left for dead, revived and escaped. Two daughters were carried off and afterwards sold to the Mohaves, among whom one died and the other was restored by purchase to freedom (1856) by Henry Grinnell, and was sent to her brother’s home in Los Angeles.[[7]] Another characteristic example is related by Hobbs, lit the desert beyond Yuma,
“we came upon the remains of an emigrant train, which a month previous had attempted to cross this desert in going from the United States to California. While passing over the desert they had been met by a sand-storm and lost the road by the sand blowing over it, and had wandered off into the hills. They had finally got back into the road; but by that time they were worn out, and they perished of fatigue and thirst.”
[7] For the full story see Capture of the Oatman Girls, by R. B. Stratton.
They had passed the watering-place, a small pool, and as they had already been two or three days without water, the mistake was fatal. They had lightened their loads by casting off goods, but it was useless. A squad of soldiers was sent out from Fort Yuma to bury the bodies, of which eight were women and children and nine were men. The desert has no compassion on the human intruder, and he who ventures there must count only on his own resources.
The crossing of Green River was also difficult, except at low water, on account of the depth and force of the current. Sometimes the emigrants utilised a waggon-box as a boat, and the Mormons, who passed in 1847, established a ferry. Later others operated ferries, and the valley vied with Yuma in the matter of human activity. Fort Bridger was a place for rest and repairs, for there was a primitive blacksmith forge and carpenter shop. Here lived Bridger with his dark-skinned wife, chosen from a native tribe, and Vasquez, also a famous hunter. The fort was simply a few log cabins arranged in a hollow square protected by palisades, through which was a gateway closed by timber doors. Simple though it was, its value to the emigrant so far away from any settlement can hardly be appreciated by any who have never journeyed through such a wilderness as still existed beyond the Missouri. Could we pause here and observe the caravans bound toward the sunset, we could hardly find anywhere a more interesting study. There were the Californian emigrant, and the Mormon with his wives and their push-carts, there were the trapper and the trader, and there were the bands of natives sometimes friendly, sometimes hovering about a caravan like a pack of hungry wolves. There is now barely an echo of this hard period, and that echo smothered by the rush of the express train as it dashes in an hour or two so heedlessly across the stretches that occupied the forgotten emigrant days or weeks. In the search for a route for the railway much exploration was accomplished, and these expeditions, together with those in connection with the Mexican boundary survey, added greatly to the accumulating knowledge of the desolation enveloping the Colorado and its branches.