Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1892 — THE FAMOUS DEATH VALLEY [ARTICLE]

THE FAMOUS DEATH VALLEY

A Feature of the Great American Dead! in California. The most fatally famous part of the Great American Desert is Death Valley, in California. There Is on all the globe no other spot more forbidding, more desolate, more deadly. It is a concentration of tho horrors of that wholo hideous area; and it has a bitter history. One of the most interesting and graphic stories I ever listened to was that related to mo several years ago, by one of tho survivors of the famous Death Valley party of 1849 the Rev. J. W. Brier, an aged Methodist clergyman now living In California. A party of live hundred emigrants started on the last day of September, 18454; from the southern end of Utah to cross the desert to the (then new) mine’s of California. There were one hundred and five canvastopped wagons, drawn by sturdy oxen, beside which trudged tho shaggy men, ritks in baud, while under the canvas awnings rodo tho women and children. In a short time there was division of opinion as to the proper route across that pathless waste in front; and next day live wagons and their people went east to Santa Fo (whence there were dim Mexican trails to Los Angeles), and tho rest plunged boldly Into tho desert. The party which went by way of Santa Fo reached California in December, after vast sufferings. Tho larger company traveled In oomfort for a few days until they reached about whore Pioche now Is. Then thoy entered the Land of Thirst; and for more than three months wandorod loot in that realm of horror. It was almost impossible to get wagons through a country furrowed with canyons; so they soon abandoned their vehicles, packing what they could upon the b;icks of the oxen. They struggled on to glittering lakes, only to And them deadly poison, or but a mirage on bairon sands. Now and then a weo spring in the mountains gave them new life. Ono by one the oxen dropped, day by day the scanty flour ran lower. Nino young men who separated from tho rost, being stalwart and unencumbered with fumllics, reaohod Death Valley ahead of tho othora, and wero lost. Their bones wore found many years later by Governor Blalsdell and his survoyors, who gave Death Valley its name. Tho valley lies In Inyo County, and Is about ouo hundred and fifty miles long. In width It tapers from three miles at Its southern end to thirty at the northern. It is over two hundred feet below tho level of tho sea. Tho main party crossed It at about the middle, whero It Is but a few miles wide, hut sufferod frightfully there. Day by day some of their number sank upon the burning sands never to rise. Tho survivors were to weak too help tho fallen.

Tho strongest of the wholo party was nervous little Mrs. Brier, who had come to Colorado an invalid, and who shared with her boys of 4,7, and 9 years of age that indescribable tramp of 900 miles. For tho last three weeks she had hud to lift her athletic husband from the ground ov* cry morning, and steady him a few moments before he could stand. She gave help to wasted giants any one of whom, a few months before, could have lifted her with one hand. At last the few survivors crossed the range which shuts off that most dreadful of deserts from tho garden of tho world, and were tenderly nursed to health at the hacienda, or ranch house, of a courtly Spaniard. Mr. Brier hud lost ono hundred pounds In weight, and tho others were thin in proportion. When I saw him last he was a halo old man of seventy-five, cheerful and active, but with strange furrows In his face to tell of those bygone sufferings. Ills heroic little wife was still living, and tho hoys, who had had such a blttor experience as perhaps no other boys ever survived, are now stalwart men.—St Nicholas.