On the 18th of September, 1854, I started for Carson Valley, by the advice and consent of Brigham Young, and in the employ of Colonel E. J. Steptoe of the U. S. army.
I went south of the Great Salt Lake and across the then unknown deserts where now are many towns, villages and cities, the settlement of which was hastened some years by that trip of exploration.
The city of Genoa, immediately under the shadow of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, consisting of about a dozen or fifteen houses, was the only actual settlement between Grantsville and Hangtown, California, a distance of one thousand miles by the wagon road over the Goose Creek Mountains, which are one hundred miles north of Salt Lake City; and to find a shorter road so as to save this one hundred miles and to avoid the mountains was the object of my journey.
At the time of which I write this great mountain country of five hundred miles in each direction from Salt Lake City, was an almost unknown wilderness, a country inhabited only by Indians and wild game, excepting the few settlements of this people; and the country was but little explored, except so far as the wants of the people made it necessary.
Colonel Steptoe was sent by the United States government, with two companies of the U. S. army, as a military governor to take the place of Brigham Young. This was a very quiet, secret movement of our nation to establish a new form of republican government over this people; but thanks to that overruling, inspirational power of God that has so often turned the hearts of men, and the good, honest sense of Col. Steptoe, who, when he had spent eight or nine months with this people, declined the dishonorable and unrepublican office of military governor of Utah. He said that no man but Brigham Young could govern this people, "and if he stepped into Governor Young's place, Brigham Young would still govern the people." He therefore decided to leave for California as early in the Spring of 1855 as he could, and in order to find a new route through south of the Lake he sent an exploring party through to Carson and back that Fall, late as it was.
He applied to Brigham Young for suitable persons for so arduous and hazardous an undertaking. I was chosen as one and was furnished an interpreter (my nephew, C. A. Huntington), and an Indian guide, a young man by the name of Natsab, a son of the Indian chief who was ruler in Salt Lake Valley when we first settled the country—these two were designed to return with me. Besides these was Col. John Reese, now living in Salt Lake City, and he was an excellent companion. His home was in Carson Valley, which at that time was a part of Utah Territory, and he had two men with him, one Willis and a man by the name of Davis, who had been to California, made a raise, returned to the States and was now making his way west again with a very fleet race-horse in hope of opening another "stake" by gambling.
My outfit consisted of six animals to ride and pack, a quantity of goods to use as presents in making peace with the savages we might pass on the way, a good compass to guide us on cloudy days in the deserts and a good quantity of provisions and bedding.
When we had got about two or three miles from Salt Lake City we found eleven men, formerly of Col. Steptoe's outfit of teamsters, camp-followers, etc., who, knowing of our search for a short route to California, determined to sail under the "Mormon" flag as far as Carson.
I had no objections, because their numbers would lend us an appearance of strength among the native tribes. They were rather poorly mounted, armed and provisioned, which latter condition occasioned me eventually some annoyance and suffering, compelling the whole company to live on horseflesh during two hundred and fifty miles of the journey; and during one day and night we were without even that.
For some time nothing of importance occurred on our way, except that we had one horse shot accidentally and one of our strangers lost a mule in a night march across a mud desert.