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MEMOIRS OF MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER,
ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

Lost at Gublet’s Cutoff, they leave their wagon, but find their way back to the train. She goe walking and falls deep in quicksand, but is rescued. Eleanor expresses sympathy for the Indians. Walking ahead, her foot hits a round object. It’s a human skull.

Gublet’s Cutoff

There was only our own train for quite awhile so the men who drove the loose cattle were ahead of the wagons. Mr. Brittain drove the children and I and we were quite a distance ahead of the provision wagon. He thought that when we came to what was called Gublet’s Cutoff that he would go that way. I told him that he’d better not but he insisted. Before he had driven many miles he said, “Ellen, I am sorry I took that cutoff and I’m going to turn back.” This time I refused to turn back for I knew that the train was not ahead of us and that we probably could not catch up with them that night. If we had to stay alone we were in danger of being taken by the Indians as they had held up Rankin’s train a few days before and taken all his provisions. I knew this for one of Rankin’s men had come back to us and wanted us to go to his relief. Rankin should have been kept a prisoner for he was too stingy to buy his men guns. The Indians kept Rankin surrounded all night nearly.

We kept on Gublet’s trail and found ourselves in what we called the Black Hills. I had to get out of the wagon and walk up and down those hills for we could not see where we would land. All the while lamenting that he had taken the cutoff, my husband turned one yoke of oxen loose hoping that if there was any water near that they would go to it. He drove the other oxen letting them find the way the best that they could but finally turned them loose too and left the wagon. As the oxen could not travel yoked together he carried the ox yoke and could not help me with the children. My father’s old negro woman had made me some aprons with strong plaited strings. I tied my baby up in my apron and took my other little girl on my back and we started on our way. Although we were both having a very hard time and thought that every little strange noise we heard was the Indians and furthermore did not know where we were going or if we would ever get there, I still could not keep from laughing, the whole thing was so ridiculous. My husband, however, showed no cheerfulness. The first yoke of oxen went to camp.

When the boys saw the oxen they said that we were killed. My husband would holler often thinking that the boys would hear him and come to us. Finally Bacon heard him and said it was the Indians and took a mule and ran off.

Mr. Brittain kept up his hollering and my brother heard him and said “That’s Dave’s voice!” and he and another of the men came to us and brought us to camp.

Then we heard someone holler, “Run, boy, Indians!”. Mr. Brittain said “That is Bacon’s voice and he is in distress and we must go to him.” The men refused and said that they would not go to the coward. Mr. Brittain finally got on his horse but could not find Bacon so again he began hollering. Finally Bacon came back to camp. He was nearly dead from exhaustion. He just lay down on the floor and begged for one of the men to bring him some water. They refused.

Quicksand And Gravesites

I was sorry for him and went and brought him water from the spring a few yards away from the camp. I had been through those hills and knew how he felt except that I was not afraid of the Indians. We sent for the wagon the next morning. I forgot to tell you that a few days before we had taken the cutoff on the trail and the last day we were on the Platt River I was determined to walk on ahead of the wagon and get some pretty rocks. My brother always looked after the children and anyway it was his day to drive the wagon, so when I started on ahead he said, “Ellen, you had better not go too far as you do not know the trouble you may get into.” I was so glad to get out of that old wagon for the oxen went so slow and being the only woman in our train, things grew very monotonous. I was a fast walker and never thought of danger.

Walking on ahead as fast as I could and gathering my agates as I went I came to the bank of the river which was partially dry. I saw a lot of pretty agates lying there and jumped off the bank thinking I would land of firm ground, but to my surprise it was quick sand and I immediately sank in up to my waist. Fortunately there was a willow root within my reach and I grasped this with both hands not making any effort to move or call. My brother came looking for me and got me out with only the loss of one shoe and alas all my agates. If that willow root had broken they would never have known what had become of me and would have blamed the poor Indians.

I always had sympathy for the poor starved red men and their squaws and thin babies. When set stop a moment to consider that the whites had run their game off and left them to starve, one should sympathize. Once in a while we would see a drove of buffalo or antelope or some prairie dogs. I do not remember of seeing any other living thing not even a bird of any kind. Game was plentiful before the emigrant trains began their trek to California. The Indians have been driven from one place to another in search of food and I do not think they committed half the crimes that the Mormon traders did on the plains.

I did not stop walking nor did I jump into any more quick sand but some of our cattle did and got into it up to their necks. They had to have ropes thrown over their horns and a chain hitched to a yoke of oxen to pull them out. You would have thought that their necks would have been broken.

One day when I was walking I saw some trees just off the trail and thought I would rest under them until the wagons came in sight. There was quite a nice grass plot as there had been a stream of water near the trees. I was rested and began to walk through the grass when my foot struck against some round object which when I examined it I found to be a human skull. I knew that there was a little valley further along the road that the emigrants called Death Valley because so many of them had died there of cholera. They were buried in very shallow graves. That was in the year of 1850. I made tracks immediately for the road for I did not want to stumble over any more skulls. A few days after we came to the place called Death Valley and found that there had been a great many persons buried there.

We walked through the cemetery to see if we could find the grave of a neighbor’s son. She told us that he was buried there and that his grave had been marked. His brother had taken a piece of wagon head and carved the boy’s name in it. The marker was of hard wood and so had not decayed and we found the grave. We filled the grave and took a piece of board out of one of our wagons and made a foot board. When we got through to Genoah, Nevada, we wrote the boy’s mother and told her about it . The boy’s name was ANDREW GARRISON.

A few days after that we found the grave of MRS. JOHN JONES by the roadside. We were acquainted with the Jones’. He had gone back to Missouri but crossed the plains again in 1857. I had a cousin by the name of GRAVES who came with him. They were ahead of us and we could see that he had renewed his wife’s grave. CALVIN and JOHN JONES were rich men and later settled in the San Joaquin Valley. I also found my cousin MARY KERBY’S grave.

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Crossing the Plains from Missouri to Nevada in 1857, May 21, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: On to Missouri, May 25, 2024

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Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Nebraska to Wyoming, June 5, 2024