# Route across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California (1982)

ROUTE ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
ROUTE
ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF OREGON AND CALIFORNIA;
THEIR
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES, THEIR RESOURCES, SOIL, CLIMATE, PRODUCTIONS, &c., &c.
BY
OVERTON JOHNSON AND WM. H. WINTER
OF THE EMIGRATION OF 1843
YE GALLEON PRESS
FAIRFIELD, WASHINGTON
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Johnson, Overton. Route across the Rocky Mountains.
Reprint. Originally published: Lafayette, Ind.: J.B. Semans, printer, - 1846.
Includes index.
West (U.S.)—Description and travel—To 1848. 2. Pacific States —Description and travel. 3. Oregon Trail. 4. Overland journeys to the Pacific. 5. Johnson, Overton. I. Winter, William H., 1819-1879. II. Title. F592.J63 1982 917.8'042 82-7044 ISBN 0-87770-269-1 AACR2
ERRATA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
JOURNEY FROM CAPTAIN SUTTERS TO FORT HALL, WITH SOME OF ITS INCIDENTS
Chapter VII
JOURNEY FROM OREGON CITY TO THE WESTERN PART OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, WITH SOME OF ITS INCIDENTS
Chapter VIII
INTRODUCTION
The Great Immigration of 1843 was supposed to have brought one thousand persons to Oregon and numerous books proudly present this information, actually misinformation, as there were only 265 men in this rather large wagon train. There were women and children along. It is a matter of regret that their names were not recorded. We know that the total number of souls was more than 400 and less than 500. This one great wagon train did more than double the population of U.S. citizens in Oregon, however the roster that is known is of those who started for Oregon. At least seventeen men left the train at a point west of Fort Hall and went on to California. A few men died along the way and a few turned back. An alphabetzied list of the men will be appended to this book and also information will be given on those persons who for one reason or another did not reach the Oregon for which they so enthusiastically began their journey. And of those who did make that two thousand mile journey and so did reach their goal of Oregon, not all remained and became citizens of that territory and state. Among those who did reach Oregon and who did not remain there are two names, Overton Johnson and William Winter, the authors of one of the rarest books pertaining to travel out on the Oregon Trail.
These two young men were intelligent, adventurous, and not without literary ability. Their curiosity impelled them to write of what they saw and what was of interest to them at the moment. They commented on the route of travel, the grass available for their animals, the ability of the land to support settlers, and of course the Indians...the native Americans they distrusted. Their prudent, factual sentences are enlivened at times with enthusiastic paragraphs approaching what is fanciful as they describe the wonders of Oregon, and they were young enough to appreciate the dances and the damsels of California.
William H. Winter is said to have been born in Vigo County, Indiana, in 1819. At age 22 he moved to Missouri where he lived for two years before making his adventurous trip west on the Oregon Trail in 1843, traveling on to California and returning to Indiana in 1845. His wandering ​feet took him to California again in 1849, along with thousands of other would-be gold seekers. Not finding wealth in the gold fields he returned to his native Indiana where he lived until 1853. In that year he traveled to Texas but finding dry Texas plains not to his liking he went for a third time to California, first to Colusa County, then to Lake County, and finally to Napa, where he lived the rest of his life. He died in 1879, aged sixty and the father of five sons.
Overton Johnson is more of a mystery. We know he was a young man in 1843, probably somewhere in his twenties. His father was James B. Johnson, said to be postmaster at Concord, Indiana, and a land owner at that place. Like many other men of the date, James Johnson had political ambitions which seem not to be realised beyond his appointment as postmaster. Overton Johnson taught school for several years after his return to Indiana, and intended to take part in the 1849 gold rush to California, however this did not come about as he is said to have died February 15, 1849, still in Indiana. As an educated man he is believed to have written most of the travel narrative, but the California portion was probably written to William H. Winter.
A word could be said about the printer of the original edition of the Route Across the Rocky Mountains. The imprint on the title page gives us the date of 1846; the place as Lafayette, Indiana; and the printer as John B. Semans. This man, Semans or Seaman, had been printing a newspaper, the Western Argus, in Wilmington, Ohio, but drifting west in the fashion of the day, he came to Lafayette in 1829. He left this place in the 1830's but returned in 1841 and printed the Tippecanoe Journal and Lafayette Free Press. The 1846 edition of the Winter and Johnson book was printed, rather crudely, on this newspaper equipment. This was forty years before the first linotypes were on the market and rather more than that before these composing machines reached small newspaper offices, so the book was set by hand, one piece of lead type at a time, and presumably with the same worn type used to print the newspaper.
It could be kept in mind that the date of 1843 was three years before the boundary settlement with Great Britain divided the old Oregon Territory on the 49th parallel, and ten years before Washington Territory was seperated from Oregon Territory. In 1843 Upper California was still a Mexican Province and ownership of Old Oregon, particularly that portion north of the Columbia river, was in dispute. The glowing description of ​Oregon seems written to appeal to prospective emigrants, yet the authors do in fairness state some disadvantages of the trip and some portions of Oregon. There must have been some magic in the name Oregon for it drew thousands of persons over the Oregon Trail and Oregon achieved statehood some 40 years before Washington became a state. By 1879 migration over the Oregon and California Trails had slowed to a trickle, in part because of the completion of a trans-continental railroad to California the previous year, but a few families, short of money or traveling with a sizeable number of animals, continued to come out on the Oregon Trail until the beginning of the twentieth century or a few years past that point. A few late comers were pleased to find electric street cars in the streets of Walla Walla.
Glen Adams Fairfield, Washington January, 1982
Dedicated to those stalwart pioneers of Old Oregon who took part in the Great Immigration of 1843.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1978 and March 1, 1989 (inclusive) without a copyright notice, and without subsequent copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1879, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 144 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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