goldfields

“October 1st. The stream had already attained the size of which we supposed Mary’s river to be, and yet its course was due N.W. Distance 20 miles.”

Still in doubt about whether they had found Mary’s River or not, the company continued on.

Without the Humboldt River, the journey across the Great Basin would have been impossible, for Bidwell’s group or any subsequent travelers. By the time emigrants reached this point in their trek, their supplies, their animals, and their own bodies were exhausted. The river made it possible for them to traverse the harsh environment of the Great Basin.

Drawing the the Humboldt River Valley by 49er Daniel Jenks.

The Humboldt was known to Bidwell as Mary’s River. Before he came that way it had had other names, and by the time the Gold Rush came the name would change again.

This area of northern Nevada was sparsely inhabited by Paiute and Shoshone Indians,  What they called this river I don’t know. The first recorded sighting of the river was on November 9, 1828, by Peter Skene Ogden, a fur trapper for the Hudson Bay Company.  Ogden explored the river for several hundred miles, making the first known map of the region. He initially named the river “Unknown River”, since he had no idea where it came from or where it went, but later he named it “Paul’s River”, after one of his trappers who died on the expedition and was buried on the river bank.

Ogden later changed it again to “Mary’s River,” after his Native American wife, and this is the name that “Broken-Hand” Fitzpatrick used.  Ogden, who couldn’t seem to make up his mind, later suggested calling it “Swampy River,” because it ended in a marshy sink.

Evidently the explorers Benjamin Bonneville and Joseph Walker hadn’t got the word about any of these names, or else they just wanted to put their own mark on the map. When they came exploring in 1833 they called it “Barren River.”  Not content with this, Washington Irving, who made Bonneville famous with his book about the expedition, called it “Ogden’s River”, a name that was used by many early travelers. But at Fort Hall they hadn’t heard of Washington Irving, and still called it “Mary’s River.”

In 1845 the river was explored by the “Pathfinder”, John C. Fremont. By his day the explorations of the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt were well-known to all.  Humboldt had never been anywhere near either the Humboldt River or Humboldt County on the northern California coast, but his explorations of South and Central America were famous, so Fremont must have thought it fitting to give his name to this river. It’s certainly better than “Swampy River” or “Barren River.” Although I must admit “Unknown River” has a certain appeal.

“Tuesday, 28th. Traveled about 70 miles. Several Indians came to our camp this evening–no timber excepting willows, grass plenty.”

70 miles?  How did they do that? Most days they made 18 or 20 miles, which was a good rate of travel for weary men and beasts.  Either the 70 is a typo in the printed version of the journal, or in Nunis’s The Bidwell-Bartleson Party , or else they made rafts out of those willows and traveled on the river. Bidwell doesn’t mention making any kind of watercraft.

“Wednesday, 29th. Traveled about 20 miles, course of the stream was W.N.W. According to the map Mary’s river ran W.S.W. Strong doubts were entertained about this being Mary’s river. The men who got directions at Fort Hall were cautioned that if we got too far south, we would get into the Great Sandy Desert–if too far north, we would wander and starve to death on the waters of the Columbia, there being no possibility of getting through that way. We had now been 6 days on this stream, and our course had averaged considerably north of west.”

Between Elko and Battle Mountain the Humboldt River runs west, and then at Battle Mountain it takes a turn north and runs northwest for some 50 miles. This is where Bidwell & Co. got very worried. If they kept going north they were going to end up in those bewildering canyons they had been warned about.

I didn’t think that the group had a compass with them, but Bidwell frequently indicates their direction. Someone may have had a compass after all, or maybe he was simply estimating the direction by the sun. He mentions a map, but they definitely did not have a map. There was not an accurate map to be had. Possibly the men who went to Fort Hall had seen a map.

Bidwell had been shown a map of the West before he left Missouri. It showed two mighty rivers flowing out of the Great Basin all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Possibly that was the map he had in mind.  That map, which he had seen at the home of Elam Brown, where he boarded during the winter of 1840-41, showed both rivers traveling southwest to the sea. No wonder he was worried.

“Sunday, 26th. The valley, seen yesterday evening, was but 4 or 5 miles in length and led into another difficult defile, though not so long as the one of yesterday, for we passed it into another valley. Distance 18 miles–the stream continued to increase in size.”

They were by now on Mary’s River, but didn’t know it. They were still unsure of their position.  How do you know you have gotten to the place you have been looking for, when you don’t know what it looks like, and there are no signposts?

In Echoes of the Past Bidwell states that the day after some men climbed up the precipice and saw a valley a few miles ahead, they arrived at the river. This would have been the 26th. “By one o’clock that day [we] came out on what is now known as the Humboldt River.” But this is looking back from the vantage point of 40 years later. At the time, in his journal, the company debates their position for several days before they decide that they are indeed headed in the right direction.