The Old Spanish Trail
The Old Spanish Trail actually consisted of several different routes, many overlapping, crisscrossing, and parallel to each other, for various portions of the route. Departing from Santa Fe to California, the South or Main Branch headed northwest past Colorado's San Juan mountains and Mancos, Colorado, Dove Creek, Colorado, and Moab, Utah to near Green River, Utah. The North Branch proceeded due north upstream on the Rio Grande into Colorado's San Luis Valley and crossed the Continental Divide over Cochetopa Pass to follow the Gunnison and Colorado rivers to meet the Southern Branch near Green River. From central Utah the Trail trended southwest to the vicinity of modern St. George, Utah and an area today shared by Utah, Nevada and Arizona. It crossed southern Nevada and passed through the Mojave Desert to San Gabriel Mission and Los Angeles.
The Fancher Party was camped 6 miles east of Salt Lake City in early August of 1857, and it was reported they had been there for a time, waiting for the weather to cool before traveling south through Utah to cross the Mojave Desert. A hostile atmosphere greeted emigrant trains when they arrived in Salt Lake City. (See The Mormon War of 1857, also called the Utah War). The emigrant wagons moved on quickly, although it was probably not in their original plans to do so. The Mormons were under orders there, and in the towns that dotted the trail in southern Utah, to refuse to sell anything to non-Mormons emigrants. By this time, the party had grown and was comprised of a large number of individual trains, and was said to be one of the richest wagon trains to California ever assembled. In addition to these wagons and oxen, there were carriages, a herd of horses, and it is estimated that there were more than 900 head of cattle.
At Salt Lake, emigrants had to chose between two roads across the Great Salt Lake Basin: the "Northern Route" along the Humboldt River, or the "Southern Route" along the Old Spanish Trail, which would take them through Utah's southern settlements to the Mojave Desert. There were informed by the Mormons that the "Northern Route" was dangerous to travel because of Indian attacks. The Fancher Party and other wagon trains made the fateful decision to take the "Southern Route", which Captain Alexander Fancher was already familiar with from his 1850 trip to California Later, the eyewitness account of Malinda (Cameron) Scott indicated that Mormons informed her father, William Cameron, that grazing for their stock was better along that southern route. (The Scott Train seperated from the Cameron Train and took the Northern Route. Malinda's husband was killed on that trail in an incident unrelated to the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Her father's train took the southern route through the Meadows, and none of the Cameron family survived the Massacre.)
From Salt Lake City, the Fancher Train took the "Southern Route" of the Old Spanish Trail, which traveled through southern Utah to the Mojave Desert, passing by Mountain Meadows:
The average distance covered in an overland journey West was said to be 10 to 15 miles per day. For the distance of 160 miles from Salt Lake City to Corn Creek, near Kanosh, the Party averaged a more leisurely pace of approximately 8-1/2 miles a day. For the 170 mile distance from Corn Creek to Mountain Meadows, the Party increased their speed, and averaged about 12 miles a day. This was about the fastest the trains could travel with oxen teams and a large herd of cattle. This part of the trail entered rough mountain country and was much more difficult than the road from Salt Lake had been. Now, the Party was moving quickly over very rugged terrain, and it is believed that they were pushing hard to get out of Mormon country. The train climbed 1000 feet to cross the 6000-foot pass of the Pahvant Range, and a second 6785-foot pass, then crossed the Black Mountains at the north end of the Parowan Valley, a climb which took them to 6680-feet.
The Party arrived in Beaver about noon on August 29, and the emigrants continued on the southern route pushing on through Red Creek (Paragonah), Parawan and then on to Cedar City. They arrived in Cedar City on September 4, 1857, and camped at the corner of a cooperative field about three miles from the town. Approximately 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, the Old Spanish trail would next follow along the west side of the Mountain Meadows to a campsite at the south end of the valley. The party arrived, in detachments, at Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory on Sunday evening, September 6. In 1857.
The Mountain Meadows area was an "oasis of lush grass and fine spring water" located between the Pine Valley and Bully Valley ranges. Captain Alexander Fancher had camped there before, on his 1850 trip to California, with his brother John. Mountain Meadows was the last resting place on the trail before beginning the arduous 400 mile journey that would take the Arkansas emigrants across the Mojave Desert and into California; and for these families, it would become their final resting place. At the first light of dawn on Monday, September 7, they were viciously attacked by a group of Mormon militia, disguised as Indians, and their Indian allies. After a five day seige, under a duplicitous flag of truce and a vow of safe passage by the Mormons, more than 120 men, women and children were murdered in cold blood on Friday, September 11, 1857. This horrific event is known as the (5) Mountain Meadows Massacre. No men or women survived. 2/3 of the members of these trains were women and children. Of the more than 50 children (under the age of 16), only seventeen children under the age of 6 survived.
T The Western Writers of America hike to the Mountain Meadows Massacre Site
along the Old Spanish Trail in Utah in June, 2004.
İFancher
Family Association