Alexander Combs Erkson was one of the pioneers of 1849, having left the
state of Iowa in the month of May, when he assisted in organizing a
company known as the "Badger Company" at Kanesville, the object being
mutual assistance and protection. This company joined the Bennett party
mentioned so prominently in this history, at the Missouri, and traveled
with them or near them to the rendezvous near Salt Lake where the new
company was organized for the southern trip taken by the Death Valley
party, the Jayhawkers and others. As the experience of Mr. Erkson was in
some respects different to that of the parties mentioned, he having
taken a different route for a part of the way, it was thought best to
embody it in this history. The following was dictated to the editor of
this book, and as Mr. Erkson died before the written account could be
revised by him, it is the best that can possibly be obtained.
* * * * *
MR. ERKSON'S STATEMENT.
"We arrived at the Mormon camp near Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, in the
month of August. Several of us went to work getting out lumber for
Brigham Young while we were waiting and resting. The mormons all advised
us not to undertake to go on by the northern route, and as the travelers
gathered at this point they canvassed the situation. We used our teams
when we were at work for Brigham and assisted in building a dam across a
cañon where he intended to build a woolen mill. I earned about a hundred
dollars by my work, which was paid to me in ten-dollar pieces of a gold
coin made by the Mormons. They were not like the U.S. coins. I remember
one side had an eye and the words--'Holiness to the Lord.'
We entered into an agreement with Capt. Hunt, a Mormon, to pilot us
through, and turned all our gold into that company, thus bringing none
of the Mormon gold with us. We went on with the company as has been
related in the foregoing pages, till we arrived at Mt. Misery, so named
by us, when we took the back track, while Mr. Manley and the others went
on as they have related. We had meetings by the light of a greenwood
fire, and the matter was talked up in little knots of people, and then
some one would get up and speak. One J.W. Brier, a preacher, was the
principal blower. 'You are going wrong!' said he, We should go west, and
in six weeks we will be loaded with gold!'
Hunt got a little confused at a place called Beaver Meadows, or Mountain
Meadows, and thought perhaps he could find a new road. Several men were
sent out to look, and some of us in camp played ball for amusement while
we were waiting. Hunt's men came back and said there were no prospects
of a new road, and he said he knew the southern route and believed it
would be safe to go that way.
He told us that we must decide the next day. When we came to the road
where we were to separate he filed off on his road and the others filed
off on their road and then came back with their whips in their hands. I
had filed in after Hunt, and they tried to convince me that I was very
wrong. A Mr. Norton of Adrian, Mich., promised Mrs. Erkson a horse to
ride if she would go, and so I left Hunt and turned in on the other
road, the hindmost wagon. This is going back a little with the history
and bringing it up to Mt. Misery. On my way back from Mt. Misery I
climbed up on a big rock and inscribed the date--Nov. 10, 1849.
In our journey we came to what is called 'The rim of the Basin,' and
traveled along on that a distance till we came to the Santa Clara River
and saw where the Indians had raised corn and melons. We followed on
down that stream and found our teams gradually failing. Noting this we
decided to overhaul our loads and reject a lot of things not strictly
necessary to preserve life. I know I threw out a good many valuable and
pretty things by the roadside. I remember six volumes of Rollin's
Ancient History, nicely bound, with my name on the back, that were piled
up and left. We followed along near the Santa Clara River till it
emptied into the Virgin River. It was somewhere along here that we first
saw some Yucca trees. The boys often set fire to them to see them burn.
The Virgin River was a small stream running on about the course we
wanted to travel, and we followed this course for thirty or forty miles.
We found plenty of wood and water and mesquite. After awhile the river
turned off to the left, while we wanted to keep to the right, so we
parted company there. We heard of a river beyond which they called the
'Big Muddy' and we went up a little arroyo, then over a divide to some
table land that led us down to the Big Muddy. We made our wagons as
light as possible, taking off all the boards and stakes we could
possibly get along without. Wm. Philipps and others were placed on short
allowance. They had an idea that I had more provisions in my wagon than
I ought to have, but I told them that it was clothing that we used to
sleep on. I divided among them once or twice. When we reached the Muddy
we stopped two or three days for there was plenty of feed. It was a
narrow stream that seemed as if it must come from springs. It was narrow
between banks, but ran pretty deep, and a streak of fog marked its
course in the morning. We understood it was not very far from where we
left the Virgin River to the Colorado, some said not more than fourteen
miles and that the Colorado turned sharply to the south at that point.
Mr. Rhynierson and wife had a child born to them on the Virgin River,
and it was named Virginia.
It was a gloomy trip the whole time on the Muddy. I lost three or four
head of cattle, all within a day and a night. Mrs. Erkson walked to
lighten the load, and would pick all the bunches of grass she saw and
put them on the wagon to feed the oxen when we stopped. I let them pass
me and stopped and fed the cattle, and slept ourselves. It was said that
we ran great risks from Indians, but we did not see any. I had at this
time only two yoke of oxen left.
We overtook the party next morning at nine o'clock, having met some of
them who were coming back after us. All were rejoiced that we had come
on safely. Here I met Elisha Bennett and told him my story. He said he
could sell me a yoke of oxen. He had a yoke in J.A. Philipps' team and
was going to take them out. He said nothing in particular as to price. I
said that I wanted to see Mr. Philipps and talk with him about the
matter, for he had said Bennett should not have the cattle. I went over
to see him and spoke to him about Bennett's cattle and he told me they
had quarreled and I could have them, and so we made a bargain. I gave
twenty dollars for the cattle, the last money I had, and as much
provisions as he could carry on his back. They were making up a party to
reach the settlements at the Williams ranch, and I made arrangements for
them to send back provisions for us. About thirty started that
way--young men and men with no families with them.
I got along very well with my new team after that. It was about forty
miles from water to water, and I think we camped three times. At one
place we found that provisions had been left, with a notice that the
material was for us, but the red-skins got the provisions. We struck a
spring called-----, a small spring of water, and a child of some of the
party died there and was buried.
We then went more nearly south to find the Mojave River, for we hoped to
find water there. It was very scarce with us then, We had one pretty
cold day, but generally fine weather, and to get along we traveled at
night and a party struck the Mojave. Here there was some grass, and the
mustard was beginning to start up and some elder bushes to put forth
leaves. I picked some of the mustard and chewed it to try to get back my
natural taste. Here the party divided, a part going to the left to San
Bernardino and the remainder to the right to Cucamunga. I was with the
latter party and we got there before night.
Rhynierson said to one of the party--'Charlie, you had better hurry on
ahead and try to get some meat before the crowd comes up.' Charlie went
on ahead and we drove along at the regular gait which was not very fast
about these times. We saw nothing of Charlie and so I went to the house
to look for him and found him dead drunk on wine. He had not said a word
to them about provisions. That wine wrecked us all. All had a little
touch of scurvy, and it seemed to be just what we craved. I bought a big
tumbler of it for two bits and carried it to my wife. She lasted it at
first rather gingerly, then took a little larger sup of it, and then put
it to her lips and never slopped drinking till the last drop was gone. I
looked a little bit surprised and she looked at me and innocently
asked--'Why! Haven't you had any?' I was afraid she would be the next
one to be dead drunk, but it never affected her in that way at all. We
bought a cow here to kill, and used the meat either fresh or dried, and
then went on to the Williams, or Chino ranch. Col. Williams was glad to
see us, and said we could have everything we wanted. We wanted to get
wheat, for we had lived so long on meat that we craved such food. He
told us about the journey before us and where we would find places to
camp. Here we found one of the Gruwells. We camped here a week, meeting
many emigrants who came by way of Santa Fe.
We went on from here to San Gabriel where we staid six weeks to rest and
recuperate the cattle. In the good grass we found here they all became
about as fat as ever in a little while. Here the party all broke up and
no sort of an organization was kept up beyond here. Some went to Los
Angeles, some went on north, trading off their cattle for horses, and
some went directly to the coast. We went to the Mission of San Fernando
where we got some oranges which were very good for us. There is a long,
tedious hill there to get over. We made up ten wagons. By the time we
reached the San Francisquito Ranch I had lost my cattle. I went down to
this ranch and there met Mr. and Mrs. Arcane getting ready to go to San
Pedro. We came north by way of Tejon pass and the Kern River, not far
from quite a large lake, and reached the mines at last. I remember we
killed a very fat bear and tried out the grease, and with this grease
and some flour and dried apples Mrs. Erkson made some pretty good pies
which the miners were glad to get at a dollar and even two dollars
apiece."
Mr. Erkson followed mining for about a year and then went into other
business until he came to Santa Clara Valley and began farming near
Alviso. He has been a highly respected citizen and progressive man, He
died in San Jose in the spring of 1893.
* * * * *
THE EXPERIENCE OF EDWARD COKER.
Edward Coker was one of a party of twenty-one men who left their wagons,
being impatient of the slow progress made by the ox train, and organized
a pack train in which they were themselves the burden carriers. They
discarded everything not absolutely necessary to sustain life, packed
all their provisions into knapsacks, bravely shouldered them and started
off on foot from the desert to reach California by the shortest way.
Among those whom Mr. Coker can recollect are Capt. Nat. Ward, Jim Woods,
Jim Martin of Missouri, John D. Martin of Texas, "Old Francis," a French
Canadian, Fred Carr, Negro "Joe" and some others from Coffeeville,
Miss., with others from other states.
Mr. Coker related his experience to the Author somewhat as follows:--
"One other of the party was a colored man who joined us at the camp when
we left the families, he being the only remaining member of a small
party who had followed our wagon tracks after we had tried to proceed
south. This party was made up of a Mr. Culverwell who had formerly been
a writer in a Government office at Washington, D.C., a man named Fish
claiming to be a relative of Hamilton Fish of New York, and another man
whose name I never knew. He, poor fellow, arrived at our camp in a
starving condition and died before our departure. The other two
unfortunates ones died on the desert, and the colored man reported that
he simply covered their remains with their blankets.
I well remember that last night in camp before we started with our
knapsacks and left the families, for it was plain the women and children
must go very slow, and we felt we could go over rougher and shorter
roads on foot and get through sooner by going straight across the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. Our condition was certainly appalling. We were without
water, all on the verge of starvation, and the three poor cattle which
yet remained alive were objects of pity. It seemed almost a crime to
kill the poor beasts, so little real food was there left on their
skeleton frames. They had been so faithful and had plodded along when
there seemed no hope for them. They might still serve to keep the party
from starvation.
It was at this camp that Mr. Ischam died. The night before our departure
he came wandering into camp and presented such an awful appearance,
simply a living skeleton of a once grand and powerful man. He must have
suffered untold agony as he struggled on to overtake the party, starving
and alone, with the knowledge that two of his companions had perished
miserably of starvation in that unknown wilderness of rocks and alkali.
Our journey on foot through the mountains was full of adventure and
suffering. On our arrival at the shores of Owen's Lake not a man of the
party had a mouthful of food left in his pack, and to add to our
difficulties we had several encounters with the hostile Indians. There
was a fearful snow storm falling at Owen's Lake on the evening that we
arrived there, and we could make no fire. The Indians gathered around us
and we did not know exactly what to make of them, nor could we determine
whether their intentions were good or bad. We examined the lake and
determined to try to ford it, and thus set out by the light of the moon
that occasionally peeped out from behind the clouds, while the red
devils stood howling on the shore.
The following morning we found what was then known as the Fremont Trail,
and by the advice of some friendly Indians who came into our camp, we
kept the "big trail" for three days and came to Walker's Pass. While on
this trail we were followed at night by a number of wild Indians, but we
prudently avoided any collisions with them and kept moving on. Going on
through the pass we followed the right hand branch of the trail, the
left hand branch leading more to the south and across a wide plain. We
soon came to a fair-sized stream, now known to be the south fork of the
Kern River, which we followed until we came to its junction with a
larger river, the two making the Kern River. Here we were taken across
by some friendly Indians who left the Missions farther west during the
Mexican war and took to their own village located at the foot of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains. At this village we were on exhibition for
several hours with an audience of five hundred people or more, of the
red men, and on the following morning we commenced the ascent of the
mountains again, the Indians furnishing us with a guide in the person of
an old Pi-Ute. He brought us over the range, through the snow and over
the bleak ridges, in the month of December, 1849, and we made our first
camp at an Indian village in Tulare Valley, a few miles south of where
Porterville now stands.
From this Indian village we walked on until we arrived at the present
site of Millerton on the south bank of the San Joaquin River. Our
sufferings were terrible from hunger, cold, and wet, for the rains were
almost continual at this elevation, and we had been forced several times
to swim. The sudden change from the dried-up desert to a rainy region
was pretty severe on us. On our arrival at the San Joaquin River we
found a camp of wealthy Mexicans who gave us a small amount of food, and
seemed to want us to pass on that they might be rid of us. I can well
believe that a company of twenty-one starving men was the cause of some
disquietude to them. They gave us some hides taken from some of the
cattle they had recently slain, and from these we constructed a boat and
ferry rope in which we crossed the river, and then continued our journey
to the mining camp on Aqua Frio, in Mariposa county.
It is very strange to think that since that time I have never met a
single man of that party of twenty-one. I had kept quite full notes of
the whole trip from the state of New York to the mines, and including my
early mining experience up to the year 1851. Unfortunately this
manuscript was burned at the Russ House fire in Fresno, where I also
lost many personal effects."
In the year 1892 Mr. Coker was living in Fresno, or near that city, in
fairly comfortable health, and it is to be hoped that the evening of his
days, to which all the old pioneers are rapidly approaching, may be to
him all that his brightest hopes pictured.