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

A visit from even Indians in full war dress. Eleanor aids a prospector named Comstock, who offers her an interest in his mine. A plague of bedbugs. Piutes return, and she lets them harvest wheat. Mormans and Indians leave for Utah. Preparing for another attempt to cross the Sierras.

It is now the month of April 1858 and the Mormons are all getting ready to go to Salt Lake. I think that Brigham Young called them there, and it was rumored that the Piutes were all leaving too. I had gotten over my scare and everything was quiet. The men I suppose had forgotten, too, for they soon began to go to town again and leave me alone with my children, my husband with the rest, and as usual they stayed a long time. I really liked solitude and one night I was sitting in front of the fire with only a light from a pine knot. I was thinking about my former associates and what I had been through recently. My reverie was broken by some one knocking at the door. I called out, “Who is there?” The answer was “Piute Jess, let me in.” This time I asked what he wanted and he replied, “We are going away and want food to take with us. We won’t hurt you.”

Jess had been raised by the Mormons and spoke good English and he had worked for us at one time, so I let him in. There were six Indians beside Jess and they were in full war regalia, all painted and wore buckskin suits all beaded and ringed and carrying hatchets and bows and arrows. All together they made a very good appearance. I told Jess to take what ever food he wanted and while he was getting it and grinding coffee the other Indians stood in front of the fire and conversed in their own language. I was not afraid until they bid me goodbye and mounting their ponies gave a war whoop. Then I began to shake from fear. When the men finally came home my husband said, “Ellen, you are as white as a sheet. Are you sick?” I then told him what had occurred and said I gave the Piutes all the food we had, I guess. He said, “Why did you do it?” But a moment later he said, “You were right. If we had been here we would have refused them and then there might have been trouble.” This was the last time they left me alone while we were there.

We decided to move to another house near the Carson River. A man by the name of Jameson had it from a Mormon who had seven wives. The house was large but unfinished and Jameson sold it to Mr. A. H. Mason, and he and Mr. Brittain kept their cattle there. When we moved Mr. Mason stopped with us and I did the cooking for all with what help the men could give me.

I forgot to tell you what happened just before we moved from the other house. A strange man came to the house and said he wanted to stay all night. My husband told him that he could and the men got him something to eat. The next morning he came to my door and wanted to pay me for the night with pins and needles but I of course did not take them. I gave him enough food to last him several days as he said he was going to Ragtown to prospect, that he knew where he could find a rich mine and that he would give me an interest in it. I asked him his name and he said it was Comstock and in a few days the news came that Comstock had struck it rich.

It was no time at all until the sharps knew of his find and soon poor Comstock had no mine. He was robbed of everything that he had found and I have now a newspaper clipping saying that he died a pauper in the Stockton insane asylum. At the time I wanted Mr. Brittain to go and see him and ask him for the ‘interest’ he had given me, but my husband said, “No, there have been enough people have already robed the poor fellow.” I supposed there are not many people who know that it was Mrs. E. H. Brittain who gave him food for his prospecting tour.

I will now tell something more of my new home. It was another one of those log houses partitioned off to suit the convenience of the owner’s seven wives. The men gave me the best part, it was lined overhead. Before long the men began going outside to sleep and when I asked them why one man said the Mormon plagues were too much for him. So far I had not been annoyed but when the men went outside to sleep I was the next victim. I took my children and slept on the porch that night. The men all laughed at me as I said I would try it again. I put the children to bed and although they slept they were restless. I got up and lit the lamp which was an old tin cup that had in it some lard and a plaited wick in the center and went to my children’s bed. I found it covered with bed bugs! I then knew what the men had meant by the Mormon plague. I looked about the room and then up over head and saw the lining moving. I called for one of the men to come inside and Mr. Sublet came in. I pointed to the ceiling and told him to cut a hole in the cloth and when he did a whole hat full of bed bugs fell out.

I did not try to sleep that night and in the morning I sent to town for sulphur and every thing else I thought might rid us of the plague. We tore all the lining off the walls and everything out of the cracks, sprinkled sulphur in them, scalded the house with lye and our fight was over for the time being. I once read a story about a man who said he had stayed all night in the territory and was awakened by bed bugs as large as tree frogs. I never believe that story but after this I will believe any story you can tell bout them in that territory.

My husband had gone to California for provisions and when he came home with them and heard my story he said, “Never mind, we will go over to California this fall and take the cattle into Yolo County for there is a fine range there.” And besides, he wanted to move the cattle before the wild parsley began coming up for he did not want them poisoned as they had been in the spring of ’58. I have seen fifteen or twenty head down at once from eating it and it is very hard to save them. I found that sweet milk mixed with gunpowder and whiskey was the best remedy.

The men always left the house early when they had cattle to round up and now they wanted to break oxen to put on the wagon so I was again alone all day. Soon after the men left that morning Capt. Winnemucca and his whole tribe of Piutes came to the house and asked me if they might glean the wheat that was growing near the fence and in the willows where a scythe could not reach it. I let him have it but told him not to let his dogs kill my chickens. He did not let them kill the chickens but he let his men and squaws take very bit of the wheat and they were not long doing it. He had his old wife and his wife Sarah about whom the papers had so much to say at the time, but she was young. The wheat was just ready to cut and when the men came home that night they asked me what had become of it and when I told them that I had let old Winnemucca have it they thought it was a joke that he had taken all of it. That was the last trouble that I had with the Indians for they all left for Utah for the winter.

The next thing that I had to do was to cook up plenty of food for the teamsters to take over the mountains. The men were all away again and I thought I would be smart and do a lot of nice cooking. An old lady from Wales, whom I had nursed when she was ill, had bought a cook stove from Jameson when he sold the house and on account of her illness had never gotten it.

When I had gotten the stove good and hot a man and woman came for the stove. I told them it was hot and they could not take it and besides I had the right to use it from the woman who had bought and paid for it and had a receipt to show that she had bought it. The woman said she was going to take it anyway and asked for cloths to lift it out with. I refused to give her any thing to lift it with and she took off her petticoat and used that and they took the stove hot as it was. I told the man he would pay for coming into my house and acting in such a manner and said, What is your name?” He said it was Goodenough. I said, “Is this woman your wife?” and he said no.

I told my husband about it when he came home. The next day when Mrs. Davy heard of it she got up out of her sick bed and walked a half mile to our house carrying her baby and cried about it. My husband told her she should be paid for her stove. Then he went to Goodenough and told him that he would either pay for the stove or he would get the worst whipping any man ever had. Goodenough did not want to pay for it for he said it was the woman who took it. My husband then told him that no woman could have taken the stove without his help and that he would give him the money or he would get the thrashing. So Goodenough gave my husband fifty dollars and said if there was any more charges bringing the new stove over the mountain he would pay them, too.

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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

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Setting Out, May 27, 2024

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

Gublet’s cutoff, quicksand, and gravesites, June 15, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies, June 20, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Anticipating attacks, Ellen arms herself and prepares to fight, June 27, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Lawson’s Meadows to the Truckee, July 4, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Snow storm forces the train to return to Nevada, July 13, 2024

“Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: After an attempted robbery, a “vigilance committee” is formed to enforce law and order,” July 22, 2024

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

Indian remedy cures Eleanor’s eyes. New Year’s ball provides something to talk about for weeks. A wedding followed by a dance. Mark Twain makes an appearance. Spring arrives with better weather. An intruder enters Eleanor’s room. The emigrants formed a vigilance committee.

The emigrants who had families were mostly poor people and their men folks out doing any odd jobs they could find, the women staying at home busy with housework and children, so I had very few callers. The Piutes often brought their squaws and babies to my house and I found much amusement in their queer language and dress. They soon found that I was not afraid of them. I often gave them food for beads and once in a while they would give me some of their pine nuts.

I showed them that I was sorry for them and they tried to show me kindness. I had had very sore eyes when I started on the trip and they were very weak. The snow shining on the mountains which were so near to us almost blinded me. A doctor from Genoah had given me something to put in them which had made them worse instead of better. One day an old Piute came to our house and told me to go every morning to the spring which was near by and bathe my eyes. “It is all the same as snow” and that he would bring me something that would cure them. I did wash my eyes at the spring as he told me and it took the fever out. In a few days he brought me some rabbits which he told me how to use. It was to take the fat from around the kidneys, fry it out and oil my eyes with it and to my great surprise this remedy cured them. I have always had a great sympathy for the poor Indians.

We are now preparing for a New Year’s ball. The emigrants all joined together to get up a supper. Butter was seventy-five cents a pound and eggs were very scarce. An old Mormon woman by the name of Hawkins was the only person we knew of that had any eggs. She knew that we were determined to have them so she charged us a dollar apiece for them. We succeeded in getting the supper ready for the ball and all enjoyed the dancing and of course the supper. We had something to talk about for weeks.

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

Twenty-one cattle disappear. Eleanor refuses to move on until her husband’s health improves. Later she is sick with the mumps. They buy a large trout from an Indian for 50 cents. Parched corn cooked on fire of “buffalo chips.” Cattle found and recovered. Snowed in trying to cross the Sierras, and return to Nevada for the winter.

The train rested all that day. The stock did the same. Next morning the men rounded up the cattle and my brother Samuel came to me and said that twenty one of Dave’s cattle were gone, but for me not to tell him as the loss of the stock might make him feel worse again. Some of the men said that the missing cattle had been left on the desert, others said that they were not, as I made a round of the cattle and was soon convinced that they had all been brought along with us. A muley cow that belonged to my brother and my pet cow both of which I had fed corn meal the night before were missing.

Dr. Wolf said, “This settles the matter. The cattle were driven off while we were all sleeping.” Most of the men agreed it was the Indians but I was sure it was the two men from whom I had bought the dog and the whiskey at Lawson’s Meadows. What I gave for these articles was not of much value but they had gotten the dog back, at least he was gone the next morning after I got him from them. Well, the next thing was to decide whether we should stay where we were until my husband and the girl were better. Some were for going on and some for staying so we took a vote on it. I said positively that I would not travel for I did not think it was safe for my husband and I told Dr. Wolf that his niece would be better for the rest also. He was the captain and he said we would all stay as there was plenty of grass and water and the stock too would get a needed rest.

After we had been there several days the Indians came to our camp with fish to sell. Mr. Brittain wanted to see the fish and an Indian who had a fine large trout went to the tent and my husband raised himself up for the first time since his illness and looked at the fish. Then he bought it for fifty cents. I said, “What are you going to do with it?” He said, “I bought it for you and I want you to eat it all.” He had heard about the small fish the doctor and I had eaten. The trout was delicious and there was enough for all of us. Just the same it did not taste as good to me as the small fish I had. You see, we had been from Saturday noon until Monday morning with very little to eat and very little water and those little fish were the first fresh meat I’d had on the plains. Speaking of eating, parched corn is a very good thing to have on a trip such as ours for if wood is scarce you can fry it with a small fire such as we made with buffalo chips as once we did when there was no wood.

After that when I was sick with the mumps. MR. MURRAY whose train was just behind ours killed a sheep and sent me a leg of mutton, when he heard I was sick. He is the Mr. Murray of whom I spoke earlier, the one that came to me when I was frightened and hid my children in the sage brush.

Mr. Brittain was much better and able to travel, but Mrs. Westfall’s little girl was not much improved. It takes a long time for burns such as hers to heal. Dr. Wolf thought it was advisable to get her across the Nevada mountains as it was now the first of November. He went over to California. After we had gotten as far as Genoah I thought it would be better for him to rest there a few days before starting across the mountains. Dr. Wolf’s brother stayed with their stock and the man whom I’d made get up on the dessert stayed with us. We were camped on the Carson River and one day this man came to me very much excited and said, “I want Mr. Brittain to go with me immediately for I have found your cattle and Wolf’s.” My husband although very weak got on his horse and left for Genoah or near there. The cattle were in the possession of two men who said they had bought them from two men they did not know. Later we found as had expected, that they had been stolen by the two men who had sold me the dog and the whiskey. Mr. Brittain got twenty of his twenty-one head back after paying some money and having a fight or two in which he came out winner.

A man by the name of WILLIAM BOYD was starting over the mountains with his cattle so we joined him the last of November. The weather was clear and nice when we left Carson Valley but before we reached the top of the Sierras we were snowed in. All but a few head of our cattle and Boyd’s went back to the valley. We killed a beef and had plenty to eat but the thing was to keep from freezing to death. The snow was falling in great flakes and looking around for shelter we found an old log house close to the trail. The women went in there and the men built a fire in the fire place, and built log fires outside. We had not been there very long until the snow was so deep the doorway was snowed in. The men shoveled it away and then came inside. There was no more dry wood so the only thing to do was to tear the house down from the top and burn it to keep warm. The men stood away from the fire so that the children and I could feel its warmth but my feet were frozen and I had to poultice them with oak bark. My husband kept up the fire the best he could and the men kept up a-stamping and swinging their arms all night long. I tell you that there was not much left of that house in the morning. I could hardly wear my shoes all that winter.

The day we left for Carson Valley and made very slow progress as the snow had drifted so deep in many places the men had to get out and clear the road for the wagons to pass. I have said that the loose cattle had all gone back to the valley when the snow began and we finally got there too but we were pretty well frozen. We were glad to make Nevada our headquarters for the winter, along with many other emigrants. We rented an old Mormon house, about a mile from Genoah. It was now the month of December. We had no more trouble during the winter but I was alone much of the time for the men were busy attending the stock.

Previous

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

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

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Setting Out, May 27, 2024

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

“
Gublet’s cutoff, quicksand, and gravesites, June 15, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies, June 20, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Anticipating attacks, Ellen arms herself and prepares to fight, June 27, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Lawson’s Meadows to the Truckee, July 4, 2024

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

Crossing the desert. Almost out of water. Child burned by fall into hot springs. Eleanor fears her husband is dying. Uses whiskey to treat the sick. Ellen pushes others not to give up. Finally reach the Truckee River.

We have now reached Lawson’s Meadows and will stay here until noon tomorrow as the grass and water are good. The day was Saturday some time in October. We never kept much track of the days of the week or month, but this time we were just going to cross the desert where so many emigrants had perished in the year ’49. We cut grass, filled our water kegs, made coffee to drink cold and prepared other cooked foods.

We started across the desert at one o’clock Saturday and traveled until Twelve o’clock that night. Then we stopped and watered the work cattle and ate what we had, thinking that we would be over that morning. We would have been, too, as we were at the sink in the Humboldt River, but Dr. Wolf was detained by some of his fine cattle, also a fine jack. My husband was very sick with mountain fever and the rest of the train did not pay any attention to where they were going, in fact, none of us knew where we were going or which way to go. On Sunday morning we arrived at the hot springs and stopped to see them as we had heard how the emigrants had thrown their guns, long chains, and cooking utensils in it and it kept right on boiling. Some of the women had made tea and coffee out of the water and were made sick with bloody flux.

When we were camped at Lawson’s Meadows there were two men came to our camp and I gave them dinner. They had a fine dog and I wanted him so I bought him with an old rifle. They had whiskey and my little girl had diarrhea so they gave me the whiskey for her and it helped her. I took what was left of that whiskey to doctor the women and men who had drunk from the hot spring. My husband was very sick the morning we got there and I was standing by the spring with Mr. and Mrs. Westfall. Their little girl came up at the same time and took hold of her father’s arm; he turned around quickly and that poor child slipped and fell into the boiling spring. He got her out immediately but she was badly burned and every one was frantic. I tore up a quilt which was very thick with cotton, put all the oil I could on it and wrapped it around the little girl.

I then asked who would take water and go back for Dr. Wolf for I thought my husband was dying and I did not know what to do for him. There was only one man offered. He was a big Dutchman called Dutch Ed. We never knew any other name for him. Mr. Brittain had picked him up on the plains. He said to me, “I will go for you and will bring the doctor back dead or alive.” He got on my husband’s riding mule and led a horse for the doctor. I gave him tow or three canteens of water and told him not to lose any time. He found the doctor stretched full length on the sand completely given out. His stock were almost past traveling. Ed told the doctor about my husband and the child. He got on the horse I had sent him telling Ed to do the best he could with the stock. Ed divided the water with the doctor. Luckily I had hidden it away in my wago

The doctor was not so far behind us as we had expected him to be and got to camp just before nightfall. He took my husband out of the wagon and stretched a tent and put him in it. He had a very high fever and the doctor said that a sponge bath was all he could do for him. The doctor held my husband in his arms and I sponged him off the best I could with the little water there was left. Then we put him back in the wagon and I was told to watch him closely and report any change in his condition at once. Then the doctor took a look at the little girl. He said that I had done all that could be done for her and for us to keep her well oiled. That night my husband broke out in large red splotches. The doctor said that was all for the best.

I was still walking. The oxen were almost given out and the drivers as well. I passed one team and the driver was riding on the tongue of the wagon and the poor oxen had their tongues hanging out. I told the driver to get off and walk. He was just as able to walk as I was carrying my baby. I soon came to another driver whose name was Steers. His team had stopped and he was lying in the road completely given out. He was a large man. I thought he was dead as he never moved when I spoke to him. I gave him a kick and he groaned and then I told him to get up and drive on and never give up the ship. He afterwards said that if I had not passed by and roused him he would never have gotten up. Soon after that my brother Samuel Thomas came riding by me and said “Goodbye, I am riding after Berilla , don’t you hear her bell? She is going after water and if she finds any I will bring you some sure enough.” Berilla had gone to the river but my brother found the cattle all scattered and he did not come back, as he said he knew we too soon would get there.

We arrived at the Truckee River at about daylight on Monday. I must say that it was one of the prettiest streams of water I ever looked at. The water was crystal clear and numerous little fish that were swimming in it made it more attractive. Most of the folk in our train are asleep but Mrs. Westfall and myself are compelled to be up, she to take care of her little girl and I to attend to my husband. They were both of them resting better than we expected. Dr. had a sleep, got up and went fishing and came back with lots of those little fish from the river. He wanted one of the women from his train to cook them for him but they refused. Said they were too small to dress and he said that they did not need anything but washing and then asked me if I would prepare them. I put the fish in a pan as large as a milk pan with the grease piping hot, then sprinkled corn meal over them, let them get good and brown and then Dr. and I ate them all as none of the rest would eat them. I’ll never forget how good they were.

To be continued….

Footnotes

Note: A guide published by the National Park Service mentions Lawson’s Meadows.
“West of present-day Imlay, about 210 miles downstream from the Humboldt headwaters at Wells, the river swung south in a great bend and then fingered out across a wide plain. Today the area is drowned by Rye Patch Reservoir, but then it was the welcome grazing-ground, thick with wild rye, that became known as Lassen’s (now Lassens) or Lawson’s Meadows. John Bidwell saw Northern Paiute people encamped here when his party passed through in 1841.”

Note: …However, as cholera decreased as the immigrants moved west, another mysterious illness took its place. An illness termed “mountain fever” was reported as having been encountered by various immigrant groups in the area from the Platte region to the Sacramento River. The illness was characterized by nausea, severe headaches, and a form of dysentery. The Mormon pioneers first encountered it when they reached South Pass in 1847. The disease was seldom fatal and usually was limited to a couple of days in duration. It has often been speculated that the disease was Rocky Mountain spotted fever, transmitted by the bite of ticks infected with the rickettsia spirochete. However, it is more likely that the “mountain fever” encountered by the Mormons was Colorado tick fever, which is also transmitted by the bite of a tick infected by a virus. Symptoms are similar with severe headaches, muscle and joint pains, and fever. The acute febrile stage of the diseases starts suddenly, with a brief remission of the fever followed by a second period of relapse, each of which lasts two to three days.41 The victim usually recovers completely without any lasting side effects. … (Source: Shane Baker, “Illness and Mortality in Mormon Migration,” posted at www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org

Note: See the Wikepedia entry describing the route taken by the wagon trains, “California Trail.”
“At the end of the Humboldt River, where it disappeared into the alkaline Humboldt Sink, travelers had to cross the deadly Forty Mile Desert before finding either the Truckee River or Carson River in the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada that were the last major obstacles before entering Northern California.”

Previous

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

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

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Setting Out, May 27, 2024

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

“Gublet’s cutoff, quicksand, and gravesites, June 15, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies, June 20, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Anticipating attacks, Ellen arms herself and prepares to fight, June 27, 2024