From an old photograph, loaned by Horace B. Hudson, of Minneapolis.]
Beckwith, who started his forty-second parallel survey from Salt Lake City, had reached that point as one of the officers in Gunnison's unfortunate party. Captain J. W. Gunnison had followed Governor Stevens into St. Louis in 1853. His field of exploration, the route of 38°-39°, was by no means new to him since he had been to Utah with Stansbury in 1849 and 1850, and had already written one of the best books upon the Mormon settlement. He carried his party up the Missouri to a fitting-out camp just below the mouth of the Kansas River, five miles from Westport. Like other commanders he spent much time at the start in "breaking in wild mules," with which he advanced in rain and mud on June 23. For more than two weeks his party moved in parallel columns along the Santa Fé road and the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas. Near Walnut creek on the Santa Fé road they united, and soon were following the Arkansas River towards the mountains. At Fort Atkinson they found a horde of the plains Indians waiting for Major Fitzpatrick to make a treaty with them. Always their observations were taken with regularity. One day Captain Gunnison spent in vain efforts to secure specimens of the elusive prairie dog. On August 1, when they were ready to leave the Arkansas and plunge southwest into the Sangre de Cristo range, they were gratified "by a clear and beautiful view of the Spanish Peaks."
This thirty-ninth parallel route, which had been a favorite with Frémont, crossed the divide near the head of the Rio Grande. Its grades, which were difficult and steep at best, followed the Huerfano Valley and Cochetopa Pass. Across the pass, Gunnison began his descent of the arid alkali valley of the Uncompahgre,--a valley to-day about to blossom as the rose because of the irrigation canal and tunnel bringing to it the waters of the neighboring Gunnison River. With heavy labor, intense heat, and weakening teams, Gunnison struggled on through September and October towards Salt Lake in Utah territory. Near Sevier Lake he lost his life. Before daybreak, on October 26, he and a small detachment of men were surprised by a band of young Paiute. When the rest of his party hurried up to the rescue, they found his body "pierced with fifteen arrows," and seven of his men lying dead around him. Beckwith, who succeeded to the command, led the remainder of the party to Salt Lake City, where public opinion was ready to charge the Mormons with the murder. Beckwith believed this to be entirely false, and made use of the friendly assistance of Brigham Young, who persuaded the chiefs of the tribe to return the instruments and records which had been stolen from the party.
