it is the intention of Bagley[1] & Mercer[2] to go on a head of us, contrary to his own proposal before he started from there, or Princeton. But we can make up a company as large as we pleas, I think, for there is a large number that are going with oxen, that intended to go in his (Baglies) company, and there is quite a large number that wishes to join us besides.
This place is one of the places you had better think. It is the place that the Mormons started, and is filled with them now, yet I should think that the largest part of them are going to Salt Lake, this spring. There is only now an then a farm in all thies parts that has had an inch of ground turned up for a new crop, and about one third of the Houses in town are for sale, the place is in a ravine, or at the lower end of one, with a high, very high roling country. The bottoms on the Missouri, I should think were from two to four miles wide, and the bluffs on the east side are verry high, and in the distance look like the craggy peaks of the New England mountains, yet I have not seen a stone of any kind in any of them.
In the day time the town perfectly filled with teams, fitting out making up companies, loading up, and preparing to cross the river. I have been told that the ferries were four weeks behind, we had our passage engaged for this morning but it has rained all day and all we have done is to load up. I have not seen or heard of any of the Troy Grove[3] people ...
We crossed the Des Moines 10 miles below the fort, and should have crossed some distance below at Red Rock had the road been fit to travel, and feed to be had. Our cattle have lived on grass a most of the time since crossing this river. We
- ↑ The Reverend Daniel Bagley, a Methodist minister who had lived in Princeton for ten years, and in 1852 was sent as a missionary to Oregon. With his family he left Princeton April 20, 1852, reaching Salem September 21. In 1860 he went to Seattle. There he was prominent in church work and also in building up the University of Washington; Bagley, II, 710-13.
- ↑ Thomas and Aaron Mercer were in the Princeton party. Thomas Mercer was one of the founders of Seattle and is frequently mentioned in these letters. He was born in Ohio in 1813 and went to Princeton in 1832. Upon his arrival in Oregon, he went to Salem and in the following spring went to Seattle; Bagley, II, 701 ff.
- ↑ Mr. Stevens had lived in Troy Grove, Illinois, before going to Princeton, as had also several members of the Princeton party.
