Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party

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The Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party consisted of ten families who migrated from Iowa to California prior to the Mexican-American War or the California Gold Rush. The Stephens Party is significant in California history because they were the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada during the expansion of the American West. They pioneered the first route at or near Donner Pass in 1844. This was two years before the Donner Party and five years before the 1849 Gold Rush.

History

The 50-member Stephens group left near present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 22, 1844. They departed with a larger group of Oregon-bound settlers in a train of 40 wagons. Fifty travelers left Iowa; 52 arrived in Sacramento with the Stephens party, as there were two births along the way. Elisha Stephens was elected captain of the wagon train because he had spent several years as a mountain man and beaver hunter in the Pacific Northwest. He also had skills as a blacksmith. He had worked at the Potawatomi Council Bluffs US Indian Subagency before resigning to go to California.

Dr. John Townsend, his wife Elizabeth, and her younger brother Moses Schallenberger, were also going west. A man of vision, Townsend wanted a chance at grand adventure and opportunity in California. He would become the first licensed physician in California.

The largest family group in the party was headed by Martin Murphy, Sr. His family had 23 members. As Irish Catholics, the Murphy family, along with the Martin and Sullivan families, were seeking religious, economic, and political freedoms in the West.

The party was guided by mountain men Caleb Greenwood and Isaac Hitchcock. In Wyoming, Hitchcock, who had been "trapping and trading" in California in 1832, led the party west from the Big Sandy River to the Green River bypassing Fort Bridger. The cutoff was dangerous, as it crossed 40 miles (64 km) without water for livestock, but it cut 85 miles (137 km) and 7 days off the established route. The cutoff was later popularized in a guide book and used heavily by miners heading to the California Gold Rush.

Upon reaching Truckey's Lake (now Donner Lake) on November 14, 1844, the party left six of their eleven wagons because of difficulties getting the wagons over what would become Donner Pass. Eighteen year old Moses Schallenberger spent the winter there watching over the wagons, surviving the impassably deep snows only by trapping High Sierra foxes for food. The rest of the party spent the winter in the upper Yuba River valley, until most of the men were enticed to fight with Captain John Sutter for Mexican California Governor Manuel Micheltorena in exchange for promises of land grants. Instead of joining them, Dennis Martin returned to the upper Yuba with supplies for the women and children. Upon learning of the plight of Moses Schallenberger, twenty-three-year-old Martin crossed the snowbound Sierra Nevada in mid-winter (February, 1845) to rescue Schallenberger at Donner Lake.[1] Martin showed Schallenberger how to construct proper snowshoes and successfully the two recrossed the Sierras to the Central Valley.[2]

Elisha Stephens settled in the San Jose/Cupertino area, where Stevens Creek [sic] is named for him. In 1862, he left the area, heading to Kern County in central California. He was the first non-native settler in what is today the city of Bakersfield. A state historic plaque in that city marks the approximate site of his homestead. Stephens died in Bakersfield in 1887. He was buried in Union Cemetery. His gravesite was discovered in 2009 by members of the Kern County Genealogical Society. On May 1, 2010 the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) California/Nevada Chapter in cooperation with the Kern County Historical Society (KCHS) installed a historical plaque at the gravesite of Elisha Stephens.

In 1846, Martin Murphy Sr. purchased the Rancho Ojo del Agua de la Coche. Son Martin Murphy Jr. was the founder of the city of Sunnyvale. Sons John and Daniel struck gold in the Sierras, then made a fortune selling dry goods to local miners and Native Americans. The town they established in the Sierra foothills still bears the family name of Murphys. Helen Murphy, the youngest daughter of Martin Sr., married Charles Maria Weber, the founder of the city of Stockton.

Dennis Martin also struck gold in the Sierras and purchased ranch properties from the grantees of Rancho Cañada de Raymundo and Rancho Corte de Madera which include much of the modern day back lands of Stanford University, including the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, the Ladera subdivision and the Webb Ranch. After financial misfortune and land disputes typical of the era, his lands were bought by Leland Stanford in November, 1882. Dennis Martin died in June 1890 and was buried at the St. Dennis Cemetery (Martin had built his own church) on his former property (then Stanford's).[1] Woodside's Dennis Martin Creek is named for him.

  • Elisha Stephens

  • "Stephens Pass" Plaque at Donner Pass, California.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dorothy Regnery (September 1983). "Dennis Martin once owned Stanford's backlands, including SLAC, Jasper Ridge, and Webb Ranch". Stanford Historical Society Newsletter. Retrieved 2011-09-18. 
  2. ↑ Moses Schallenberger (2007). Charles H. Todd, ed. Moses Schallenberger at Truckey's Lake, 1844-1845. Winters, California: 19th Century Publications. 
  • Pages 100-108, 118, 126, 327-8, "Old Greenwood", Revised edition, by co-authors Charles Kelly and Dale L. Morgan, The Talisman Press 1965, Georgetown, California.
  • Appendix to "First And Last Consul" by author John A. Hawgood, page 113 (re: Isaac Hitchcock in CA in 1832) and page 118 (re: Joseph Walker in CA in 1833).
  • Re: Newly discovered Elisha Stephens' gravesite....Kern Gen Vol 47 No 1 March 2010, published by the Kern County Genealogical Society.
  • "The Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party", Truckee-Donner Historical Society, Inc.
  • "Emigrants and extinction: Wildlife impacted by settlement", Sierra Sun
  • "Caleb Greenwood", Sacramento Bee
  • Rose, James J. Sierra Trailblazers: First Pioneer Wagons Over the Sierra Nevada
  • [http://www.thecaliforniatrail.org/, video Forgotten Journey], California Trail, Forgotten Journey Productions, 2004.
  • "Finding the Way", USDA Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest, Big Bend Visitor Center, 1999
  • "Sublette Greenwood Cutoff", Wyoming Emigrant Trails, Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

Further reading

  • Stewart, George R. The Opening of the California Trail: The Story of the Stevens Party from the Reminiscences of Moses Schallenberger as Set down for H. H. Bancroft about 1885, Edited and Expanded by Horace S. Foote in 1888. 
  • George R. Stewart, The California Trail, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962
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