Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, Number 1-4, 1951

THE JOURNAL OF EDWIN BRYANT July 1 7 - A u g u s t 8, 1846 INTRODUCTION J_ o FOLLOW in detail the movements of Lansford W . Hastings during the three weeks after his arrival at Fort Bridger with Clyman is not possible on the basis of the documents that have so far come to light. At the time he left California in April it had been his intention, as we have seen, to await the oncoming immigration in the vicinity of Fort Bridger. The absence of Bridger from his fort, however, made it highly inadvisable to linger there.

In these circumstances, Clyman tells us, " M r Hastings his man and Indian servant wished to go some 50 or 60 miles N . stop and await the arrival of the company from Oregon" (that is, go directly north up the Green River Valley to where the Greenwood [Sublette] Cutoff crossed it and there wait for parties eastbound along the trail), while on the other hand "A men of us one woman and one boy ware detirmined to go back to Bear River there being two trails from green river to bear rever it was uncertain which the Oregon company might take if allready not passed." It was agreed to part. But they did not separate then and there, for Clyman adds, "so wa all started togather once more and after comeing to the separating place we all continued on for the day. . . . "1 The "separating place," one may suppose, was the point 2 miles below Fort Bridger where the trail northwest to the Bear left Blacks Fork. Clyman does not again mention Hastings, and it is impossible to say which of three things Hastings may have done: (1) On reaching the "separating place," continued north and west with the others to the Bear River Valley, as Clyman's reiteration "we all" might indicate (though in this case Clyman's words "separating place" are meaningless); (2) accompanied the others as far north as the Cumberland Gap, and 'Charles Camp, ed., James Clyman, American Frontiersman, 1792-1881, p. 224, being Clyman's journal entry for June 8, 1846.