--- In overlandtrails@yahoogroups.com, Hazelett wrote:

>
> However, there is another "middle route" which approaches the southern end
> of Lassen's trail. It is named for Beckwourth . . .

Jim Beckwourth claimed to have discovered Sierra Valley in late April 1850 -- just about a month before the Gold Lakers made their way in -- apparently traveling west to east from the Yuba (over Yuba Pass?). He then went on, saw waters flowing east and realized he had crossed the Sierra.

I don't know enough to dispute his claim. But it seems to fit.

The first report I find of the opening of what MAY be the road over Beckwourth Pass is in the Marysville Herald of 8 March 1851. However, Beckwourth himself is not mentioned at all. Rather, it is stated that the pass was discovered by a Mr. William Hutchinson, his brother, and two men named Elliott, all then living in Sonoma County. Also said to be familiar with the new route was a Col Brophy of Linda (just south of Marysville).

The following June 3 an article in the same paper reports that James P. Beckwourth was then employed in opening a new route over the Sierra. Clearly this one is Beckwourth's Pass. Whether it is related at all to the route discussed three months earlier is anyone's guess.

Like many of the "late" routes across the Sierra, the Beckwourth road was opened at the behest of some California community that wanted to attract emigrants to boost local commerce. In the case of the Beckwourth route, it was Marysville that paid the bills.

Interestingly, even that very first report of a new route (Beckwourth's or not) in March 1851 linked the discovery with the promise of a Pacific railroad. A decade later--when the Central Pacific got the franchise to build part of the Pacific railroad from Congress and it became apparent that they needed to actually start building or shut up in the matter--Huntington and Judah went up to Sierra Valley to check it out. They hired a couple Chinese miners to pack their gear and explored down the Feather to Bidwells Bar. Clearly they had heard about Beckwourth's pass and the Feather River, but they didn't have all the details straight. They went down the wrong fork, and based upon their dismal experience concluded that the Feather was useless for a railroad. The Middle Fork of the Feather is still wilderness.

One other thought about that new emigrant route announced in that March 1851 paper: a road was opened over Henness Pass in 1852, but it had obviously been discovered before that. Maybe it was what the paper was talking about. Like Beckwourth to the north, Henness was of interest in Marysville. Having been over both Henness and Donner on various occasions, I have wondered if old "Truckee" the Indian hadn't tried to tell the Stevens-Townsend-Murphy party about Henness rather than Donner back in 1844. The two passes are as different as night and day, with Henness approached along a gentle-flowing branch of the Truckee through a pleasant valley. It gets a little dicey over on the west side with the various forks of the Yuba to contend with, but no worse (to my mind) than dropping your wagons down into Bear Valley from Emigrant Gap.

Wendell