Tradegy Springs (quad)
(long, lat)
Description:
At Tragedy Springs we were up over seven thousand feet. This place took its name from a fearful tragedy. Four men were killed here by the Indians and their bodies burned. Their names are carved on a large tree by the spring, their only monument.
The
story of Tragedy Springs is told in Serg. Daniel Tyler, A Concise
History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1846-1847 (1881),
p. 337. A party of the Mormon Battalion, returning from southern
California to Utah by way of the San Joaquin Valley in the summer of
1848, sent scouts ahead to find a way across the Sierra. About the
middle of July the main party, about thirty-seven in number, advanced
into the mountains. Because of the rarity of the book, the incident is
here quoted in full: “Some four or five miles took them to what they
named Tragedy Springs. After turning out their stock and gathering
around the spring to quench their thirst, some one picked up a
blood-stained arrow, and after a little search other bloody arrows were
also found, and near the spring the remains of a camp fire, and a place
where two men had slept together and one alone. Blood on rocks was also
discovered, and a leather purse with gold dust in it was picked up and
recognized as having belonged to Brother Daniel Allen. The worst fears
of the company: that the three missing pioneers had been murdered, were
soon confirmed. A short distance from the spring was found a place about
eight feet square, where the earth had lately been removed, and upon
digging therein they found the dead bodies of their beloved brothers,
Browett, Allen and Cox, who left them twenty days previously. These
brethren had been surprised and killed by Indians. Their bodies were
stripped naked, terribly mutilated and all buried in one shallow grave.
From Up
and Down California by William Brewer, Book 4, Chapter5,
Trips:
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment