Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1892-05-14
SATURDAY, May Z.
ACROSS DEATH VALLEY.
Terrible Trip of an Emigrant Band Whose
Bravest hlember was q Woman


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. 1t is a concentra.
tion OF the horrors of that whole hideous
area, and it has bitter history
One of the most interesting and graphic
stories | ever listened to was that related
TO me, several years ago, by one of the
survivors of the famous Death Valley
Party Of l849 Rev. j. w. Brier, an aged
Methodist clergyman now living in Cali.
lornia. A party of 500 emf grants started
on the last day Of September l849 from
the southern end Of Utah to cross tie
desart TO the then new mines Of California
There were los canvas topped wagons,
drawn by sturdy oxen, beside which
trudged the shaggy men, rites in hand
while under the canvas awnings rode the
women and children. In a short time
there was division of opinion as to the
proper route across that painless waste
In front, and next day five wagons and
their people went east to reach Santa Fe
(whence there we're dim Mexican trails to
Los Angeles), and the rest plunged bold.
y into the desert The party which went
by way of Santa Fe reached California in
December, after vast suffsriugs. The
larger company travelled in comfort for a
few days until they reached about where
Phoebe is now. Then they entered the
Land OF Thirst and for more than three
months wandered lost in that realm Of
horror 1t was almost impossible to get
wagons through a country furrowed with
nq I
vehicles, packing what they could upon
the backs OF the oxen. They struggled on
to glltterlng lakes, only to find them
deadly poison or but mirage of barren
sands Now aud then a wee spring in
the mountains gave them new life One
by one the oxen dropped; day by day the
scanty Hour ran lower. Nine young men
who separated from the rest, being stall
wart and unercumbered with families,
reached Death Valley ahead of the others,
and were lost. Their bones were found
many years later by Gov B3isdell and his
surveyors, WHO gave Death Valley its
name.
The valley lies in Inyo county and is
about one hundred and fifty miles long
In width it tapers from three miles at its
southern end TO thirty at the northern.
1t Is over two hundred feet below the
level of the sea. The main party crossed
it at about the middle, where it is but
few miles wide, but suffered frightfully
there Day by day some of their num-
her sank upon the burning sands never to
rise. The survivors were to weak to help
tue fallen.
The strongest Of the whole party was
nervous little Mrs Brier, who had come
to Colorado an invalid, and who shared
with her boys of four, seven and nine
wears of age the indescribable tramp Of
300 miles. For the last three weeks she
had to lift her athletic husband from the
ground every 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 band
At last tie few survivors crossed the
range which shuts of that most dreadful
OF deserts from he garden of the world,
and were tenderly nursed to health at the
hacienda or ranch house of a courtly
Spanlard. Mr., Brier had lost 100 pounds
IA weight and the others were thin 10
proportion. When ] saw him last be was
"a hale Old man Of seventy-6ve, cheerful
ami active, but with strange fu1Ows IN
ms face 70 tell Of those bygone sutfsrlngs
His heroic little wife was still liviul and
the boys, who had such bitter expert
ence as perh ps no other boys ever sur
Vyed, are now staivart men. &C. f. Lum
mis- IN the Century.
MONDAY, May 8.