[ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL KEPT BY JOEL GROVER DURING AN OVERLAND JOURNEY WITH THREE OTHERS ALONG THE PLATTE RIVER ROAD FROM CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA TOWARD CALIFORNIA IN THE SUMMER OF 1851].
[Overland Journal]: Grover, Joel:
Cedar Rapids, Iowa; various points along the Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming; Fort Laramie, and other places. May [8]pp. manuscript on ruled folio sheets bound into original pink printed wrappers, about 3,300 words total. Also included in the collection are manuscripts describing Grover's activities as a scout in Kansas in 1844, a contract for an overland journey from Cedar Rapids to Oregon in 1853, a manuscript map of the area around Fort Leavenworth, and manuscript lists of supplies and men. Journal leaves a bit wrinkled, but generally neat and quite legible. Other manuscripts a bit edgeworn, but on the whole the collection is in very good condition. In a cloth clamshell case, leather label. A detailed and apparently unrecorded Platte River Road narrative, describing the journey of Joel Grover and three companions from Cedar Rapids, Iowa west toward California in the summer of 1851. Grover kept his journal over a period of more than two months, recording his travels and impressions of the route along the Platte to western Wyoming. He gives descriptions of the prairie and the land they crossed, discusses the other emigrants they encountered, describes several difficult river crossings, gives the location of good and poor areas for making camp, and gives a lively account of the arduous journey. This journal is not recorded by Merrill Mattes in his PLATTE RIVER ROAD NARRATIVES, nor does Mattes note an account by any of Grover's three travelling companions. Grover, along with his companions, John Coleman, Lewis Sisley, and Abner Geddings (and a number of livestock), departed from Cedar Rapids on May 9, 1851 and travelled fifteen miles before camping for the night. In the first days of their journey they met up with some travellers from Wisconsin and encountered a man who had just been accidentally shot by a woman mishandling a pistol. On their fifth day out they passed through Newton, Iowa, and they crossed the Snake River the following day. On May 15 the party passed a herd of cattle being driven from Ohio to California, and Grover's companions visited a saloon where they "got some whisky, felt well when they came back." The next day they reached "Fort Demoine" and crossed the Des Moines River and weathered a violent storm that passed through as they camped. The group generally struck their tents at 7 a.m. (but at times began their day as early as 5 or 6 a.m.), travelling between fifteen and twenty miles each day. Grover reached Council Bluffs on May 26, which he observes as a "great business place," and where he saw a large number of other people bound for California. On May 31 they crossed the Missouri River on a flatboat and weathered a tremendous storm later that night. Two days later Grover and his party had just built a bridge to cross a creek when "a Mormon train of 24 wagons of emigres from Europe came up & took possession of the bridge, crossed over & camped on the height of land 1/2 mile from the creek." A few days later they reached the Platte River in Nebraska, where they met a widow with a large family who had started for California but who decided to turn back when her wagon broke. For much of the next forty days they travelled along the Platte River, encountering wagon trains and other emigrants along the popular route. Grover recounts an exceptionally difficult crossing at Wood River, which he describes as forty feet wide with muddy banks. He goes on to give details of their travels, including going for a swim in the Platte and burning buffalo chips for fire on the barren prairie. By late June, Grover reached Chimney Rock in western Nebraska, which he identifies as a "sand rock with a large no. of names carved thereon." The journal entry for July 2 describes their early days in Wyoming: "Struck tent at 7am. Travelled along Platte River. Good road. Passed a trader's hut in A.M. passed Rawhide Creek in P.M. Camped near Platte River about 10 miles below Fort Laramie. Not very good grass but wood & water plenty." On the Fourth of July, Grover visited Fort Laramie and offers the following description: "Fort Laramie is situated at the junction of Laramie & Platte rivers. It contains a number of respectable buildings, one store, & some government buildings. The teams travelled 8 miles & camped on the bank Platte River. Good camping, plenty of wood & grass." The next day Grover and his companions remained in camp, where they "killed a buffalo, cut it up & dried it." On July 13, Grover relates a mishap in which a member of his party lost his boots while swimming in the Platte, and the men had trouble getting their cattle across the river. By the next day, somewhere in western Wyoming, Grover estimates that he and his companions had travelled about 650 miles along the Platte River Road. On July 15, the date of the final entry in the journal, Grover writes that he and his party have left the Platte road and crossed to the "old road," which is described as a "good road to Clear Creek." It is not known how much further Grover and his group travelled. The other material in the collection includes a manuscript contract drawn up between Grover, Sisley, and Coleman in Cedar Rapids on May 9, 1853 for an overland journey to Oregon, explaining that the costs and expenses of the trip are to be divided in three equal portions; a brief manuscript order dated Oct. 15, 1844 instructing Grover to scout the country south and east of Lawrence, Kansas; a brief note dated Feb. 11, 1852 from Grover to James Kelsey in Cedar Rapids regarding Grover's plans to make improvements on some of his own land; two manuscript lists of provisions and their costs; and a three-page manuscript list of names and places from the mid-1850s. The verso of one of the lists of provisions contains a manuscript map in pencil showing the area around Leavenworth, Kansas, with rivers identified. A valuable, previously unknown account of a journey along one of the most important routes to the West.
(Item ID: WRCAM38244) $7,500.00