--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Snow, Moroni collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 2 published: 1911-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Snow, Moroni, "From Nauvoo to Salt Lake. X," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 2 (December 1911): 165–168.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1502unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1502unse start_page: 165 end_page: 168 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1502unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # From Nauvoo to Salt Lake. X From Nauvoo to Salt Lake in the Van of the Pioneers. The Original Diary of Erastus Snow. EDITED BY HIS SON, MORONI SNOW. X. In our last issue the advance company was making prepara- tions for crossing the Platte. Continuing his journal, Erastus Snow records: June 10th. We have traveled today eighteen miles, struck the Platte at 3 o'clock p. m., and are camped tonight on Deer Creek, one-half mile from the Platte. This is the most delightful place we have seen since we left the states, — a large creek of clear water with a stony bottom, and the way our boys are hauling out the fish is not slow; excellent feed, thrifty timber, plenty of game, beautiful scenery; and, added to this, one of our miners has dis- covered a very excellent bed of bituminous coal up the creek, a sample of which he has brought into camp; also a quarry of ex- cellent sandstone. I have been agreeably surprised in the country of the Black Hills, over which we have travelled a distance of ninety miles from Fort Laramie. Instead of sand and continual barrenness, without water, as I had expected, we have found hard roads through the hills, and at convenient distances beautiful creeks skirted with timber, and bottoms covered with grass, though the country otherwise presents generally a rough and barren appearance. 11th. We have travelled seventeen miles today up the Platte. Have overtaken one party of emigrants who are preparing to cross the river. The rivulets we have passed today have all been flush with water from the melting snows which whiten the north sides of the peaks of a high range of hills on our left. 12th. Twelve miles travel today brought us to the place where our advance party were engaged in ferrying over a party of Oregon emigrants and their effects, in the leather skiff, swimming the horses and cattle and floating the empty wagons by means of 166 IMPROVEMENT ERA long ropes. They finished their job this evening, for which they got thirty dollars in provisions. Brothers Rappleyee and Johnson, taking different directions to visit the mountains south of us, wandered so far away that when night overtook them they were still from six to eight miles from camp, and the face of the country- being exceedingly rough, and the night dark, horns were sounded, guns fired, and a brisk fire kept up in camp. A file of horsemen, with the bugler, also started at dark in search of them. They found them not, but returned at half past twelve o'clock, just as the last of the two men came blundering into camp with half of a young elk which he had packed from the mountain. Their ex- treme mortification at being the cause of so much trouble and anxiety in camp served greatly to heighten the merited chastise- ment which they received from the president. They reported the mountains to be full of bear, elk, antelope and sheep, and snow from six to ten feet deep in places. Sunday, the 13th. The day passed off as usual, with a meet- ing in camp, and as a day of rest to ourselves and teams. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent in crossing the river, which was very high, and continually rising, and the current very rapid; and, added to this, the wind blew strongly down the stream, with but little cessation during the four days. We swam our horses and cattle, crossed our loads in the skiff, and at first tried the plan of floating our wagons by extending ropes down the river and attaching them to the end of the tongue, but the current would roll them over as if they were nothing but a log, wheels and bows appearing alternately upon the surface of the water, and two lashed together by means of poles placed under them shared the same fate. First one and then the other appeared uppermost, and when they struck the bottom in more shallow water, broken bows and reaches were the result. The plan was abandoned as too dangerous. The next plan was to try small rafts, but the difficulty of polling a raft in so deep and swift water was such that the wind, aiding the current, would not infrequently sweep them down from one to two miles before it would be possible to make the other shore, though the river was not more than forty or fifty rods wide. In attempting to drag rafts across the current with ropes, the cur- rent would draw them under. The plan that succeeded best was two rafts constructed with oars, well-manned, which would effect a landing in about half a mile, and were then towed up with oxen. IN THE VAN OF THE PIONEERS 167 In this way the last of our wagons passed over with parts of their loading. Mean time, a set of hands were engaged in preparing two canoes, two and one-half feet in diameter and twenty-three feet long, which, when coupled about five feet apart with cross timbers, covered with punchion and manned with good oars, made a boat with which three men could cross a wagon with its load. This was finished on Friday, and good landings being prepared, they were set to running to cross over a company of Oregon emigrants. During the day and the previous night, we had crossed over two or three small companies with our rafts and skiffs, for any of them would rather pay from $1.50 to $2.00 per wagon than to undertake the job themselves; and that, too, in provisions and cows at prices to correspond with prices in the states, and we received it as the providence of God in getting these supplies which we needed. Saturday, the 19th. We again took our line of march leaving Thomas Grover and eight other men and a blacksmith with in- structions to continue ferrying emigrants until the arrival of our other emigrants, and after ferrying them, to cache their boats , and come to us. We travelled today twenty-one and a half miles over a barren countiy, and we were obliged to camp in a miserable hole of salt springs and marshes where there was scarcely any feed, and no fuel but sage roots. Sunday morning, the 20th. We thought this a poor place to rest and put out. Finding no wood, we continued our march through the day, passed the noted Willow Springs at noon, and camped at night half a mile off the main road, on a beautiful creek which empties into the Sweetwater, having travelled twenty and one-half miles. Here we again had to resort to the roots of the mountain sage for fuel. This herb nearly covers this barren coun- try from Fort Laramie onward as far as we have travelled, and in fertile spots grows rank and becomes quite a shrub. 21st. Seven and one-half miles of travel brought us to Sweet- water, near the celebrated Independence Rock, where we baited at noon. We forded the river a mile above the rock. The water ran into our lowest wagon beds, though it appeared to be rapidly falling. This is a beautiful little river, and flows rapidly through a little bottom forming the most numerous and curious crooks of any stream I ever saw. Directly before us is one of the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, a chain which seems to run parallel with the river, but crosses it a few miles above. From the ford, we gradually 168 IMPROVEMENT ERA ascended about five miles, passed through an opening in the chain of rocks, descended to the river bottom again, and camped about a mile above what is commonly called the Devil's Gate (having travelled about fifteen miles today), which is an aperture in the mountains or chasm through which the river forces itself: It is about one hundred feet wide with perpendicular rocks on either side, the barometrical height of which was ascertained by Prof. Pratt, to be four hundred feet. From the lower end of this aper- ture I followed a foot path on the brink of the river, about half a mile until I was directly under the highest point of the rocks where the river, roaring furiously among the huge rocks, filled its narrow channel, and compelled me to retreat by the way I came. 22nd. Today, we have travelled twenty-one miles. We are camped tonight on the river, at the base of an imposing Butte about two hundred and fifty feet high, with a company of Oregon emigrants about three miles in advance of us, and another about the same distance in our rear. These two companies left the Platte, one about an hour before, and the other about an hour after, we did. Our road today, lying off from the river, chiefly has been sandy and rough, with no particular change in the products or face of the country. 23rd. We have travelled today seventeen miles; — good weather, the roads about the same as yesterday. The main road this afternoon would have led us across the river four times in ten miles. Anticipating difficulty in fording at this stage of the water, we took a less frequented trail which led off from the river, but found deep sand and very heavy wheeling. We are again at the river in a convenient camping ground, with two companies of emi- grants in view before us, and one in our rear, a small detachment from which has just driven up to our camp to get our blacksmiths to do some work for them. This granite ridge, or chain of gray rock, which is almost entirely naked, still continues on our right, and running parallel on our left, at a distance from five to twenty miles, is another ridge of snow-capped hills which seem to be chiefly covered with timber. In the distance, at the west of us, appears the towering heights of the Wind river chain of the Rocky Moun- tains, covered with immense patches of snow. (To be continued.)