To-night we did not succeed in getting the howitzer into camp. This was the most laborious day we had yet passed through, the steep ascents and deep snows exhausting both men and animals.
Possibly now the thought began to take possession of him that the weapon must be left behind. For long weary days it had been a constant companion. It had been dragged over the plains, mountains and canyons. It was made to ford rivers, plunge through quicksands and wallow through bog, mire, mud, marsh and snow. Again and again it delayed them when coming over sandy roads, but tenaciously Frémont held on to it. Now deep snow forbade its being dragged further. Haste over the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada was imperative, for such peaks and passes are no lady's playground when the forces of winter begin to linger there, yet one can well imagine the regret and distress felt by the Pathfinder at being compelled to abandon this cannon, to which he had so desperately clung on all the wearisome miles his company had hitherto marched.
On the 29th he writes:
The principal stream still running through an impracticable canyon, we ascended a very steep hill, which proved afterwards the last and fatal obstacle to our little howitzer, which was finally abandoned at this place. [This place appears to be about eight or ten miles up the river from Coleville, and on the right or east side of the river.] We passed through a small meadow a few miles below, crossing the river, which depth, swift current, and rock, made it difficult to ford [this brings him to the west bank for the first time, but the cannon did not get this far, and therefore was left on the east side of the river. This is to be noted on account of the fact that it was found on the other side of the river in another canyon], and after a few more miles of very difficult trail, issued into a larger prairie bottom, at the farther end of which we camped, in a position rendered strong by rocks and trees.
The reader must not forget that the notes in brackets [ ] are interjections in Frémont's narrative by Mr. Smith, (see the chapter on Frémont's discovery of Lake Tahoe).
Frémont continues:
The other division of the party did not come in to-night, but camped in the upper meadow, and arrived the next morning. They had not succeeded in getting the howitzer beyond the place mentioned, and where it had been left by Mr. Preuss, in obedience to my orders; and, in anticipation of the snow-banks and snow-fields ahead, foreseeing the inevitable detention to which it would subject us, I reluctantly determined to leave it there for a time. It was of the kind invented by the French for the mountain part of their war in Algiers; and the distance it had come with us proved how well it was adapted to its purpose. We left it, to the great sorrow of the whole party, who were grieved to part with a companion which had made the whole distance from St. Louis, and commanded respect for us on some critical occasions, and which might be needed for the same purpose again.
[It is the impression of those of the old settlers on Walker River, of whom we have inquired regarding the subject, that the cannon was found early in the 60's near the head of Lost Canyon. This canyon comes into Little Antelope Valley—a branch of Antelope Valley—from the south. This impression evidently was accepted by the government geological surveyors, for they twisted the name of the creek coming down this canyon to "Lost Cannon Creek", and called a peak, which looks down into this canyon, Lost Cannon Peak. The origin of the name of this canyon lies in the fact that an emigrant party, on its way to the Sonora Pass, and in an endeavor probably to avoid the rough river canyon down which Frémont came, essayed this pass instead of the meadows above. It is a canyon which, at first, promises an easy pass but finally becomes almost impassable. The party in question found it necessary to abandon several of their wagons before they could get over. They, or another party, buried one of their men there, also some blacksmith tools. My endeavors to ascertain what party this was have thus far not been successful. Mr. Timothy B. Smith, who went to Walker River in 1859, says that the wagons were there at that time. The cannon is supposed to have been found with or near these wagons. Mr. Richard Watkins, of Coleville, who went into that section in 1861, or soon after, informs me that wagons were also found in one of the canyons leading to the Sonora Pass from Pickle Meadow. The cannon, according to Mr. Watkins, was found with these wagons. At any rate, it seems likely that the cannon was not found at the place where Frémont left it, but had been picked up by some emigrant party, who, in turn, were compelled to abandon it with several of their wagons.]
For several years the cannon remained where its emigrant finders removed it, then at the breaking out of the Civil War, "Dan de Quille," William Wright, the author of The Big Bonanza, the fellow reporter of Mark Twain on one of the Virginia City newspapers, called the attention of certain belligerent adherents of the south to it, and they determined to secure it. But the loyal sons of the Union were also alert and Captain A.W. Pray, who was then in the Nevada mining metropolis, succeeded in getting and maintaining possession of it. As he moved to Glenbrook, on Lake Tahoe, that year, he took the cannon with him. Being mounted on a carriage with fairly high wheels, these latter were taken and converted into a hay-wagon, with which, for several years, he hauled hay from the Glenbrook meadows to his barn in town. The cannon itself was mounted on a heavy wooden block to which it was affixed with iron bands, securely held in place by bolts and nuts. For years it was used at Glenbrook on all patriotic and special occasions. Frémont never came back to claim it. The government made no claim upon it. So while Captain Pray regarded it as his own it was commonly understood and generally accepted that it was town property, to be used by all alike on occasions of public rejoicing.
After Captain Fray's death, however, the cannon was sold by his widow to the Native Sons of Nevada, and the news of the sale soon spread abroad and caused no little commotion. To say that the people were astonished is to put it mildly. They were in a state of consternation. Frémont's cannon sold and going to be removed? Impossible! No! it was so! The purchasers were coming to remove it the next day.
Were they? That remained to be seen!