Landsford Warren Hastings published the “Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California” in 1845, and the book promised a shortcut route for those traveling west.
The problem lies in the fact that the book didn’t offer any real advice in terms of the trail itself, known as the Hastings Cutoff, said Lyuba Basin, J. Willard Marriott Library Rare Books librarian in special collections, who will give a free presentation about the book and the Donner-Reed Party’s route through Echo Canyon on Aug. 24 at the Historic Echo Church.
“Hastings was an entrepreneur, and he was trying to talk up California to get people to migrate West so he could establish his land development and businesses,” she said. “It just gave a promise of opportunity.”
Unfortunately one of the groups who decided to follow Hastings’ book was the Donner-Reed Party, which, as history showed, found themselves snowbound in the High Sierras Nevadas and had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
“What I find fascinating is that it’s speculated that James Reed had a copy of Hasting’s book in his bag, but the book really didn’t offer advice,” Basin said. “And having that contrast is interesting because if I had a book like that, I would want a map, and I would want to know all the different land points we would cover.”
The Hastings Cutoff, as written about in the book, bypassed the original Oregon Trail and wound through the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake’s Western Desert, said Basin, who started working at the Marriott as a part-time student employee when I was an undergraduate about 10 years ago.
“What’s interesting is that Hastings hadn’t taken the road himself when the book was published,” she said. “By the time he did, he was one person on horseback, which is very different from being among a group of 80 individuals with wagons trailing behind them.”
Granted, the Donner-Reed Party was already late coming out of Missouri when it began its Westward haul, but the guide only solidified its fate when leaders decided to take the Hastings Cutoff, Basin said.
Basin’s knowledge and interest in what is known as the Westward Expansion during the late 19th century is what inspired Sandra Morrison, treasurer of the Echo Community and Historical Organization, which oversees the Echo Church’s care and programming, to ask Basin to give a presentation.
“Sandra and I are both Utah Westerners, a great historical society that meets once a month to talk about western history, and she actually overheard me talking about the book and the history,” Basin said. “I had mentioned to someone else that my husband and I did a bicycle trip in May around the Silver Island Mountains in the Western Desert, which were part of the Hastings Cutoff. I talked about how I’ve been interested in the history and going to the locations of the trail. So, that’s how we got to talking about the relationship of Echo Canyon and Weber Canyon to the Hastings Cutoff trail.”
Basin has always been interested in the Western Expansion, and the fate of the Donner-Reed Party.
“I live in Emigration Canyon, so I always kind of felt like I’ve been living among the ghosts of the Donner-Reed Party for some time,” she said. “The mouth of the canyon where the condos are is called Donner Hill, so as a person who is interested in history, I think about the route they would have taken through Emigration Canyon, having to kind of bushwhack through the scrub oak.”
Throughout her career, Basin studied other historical materials about Westward Expansion that were during the 19th century, and Hastings’ book captivated her because of the legendary reputation of the Donner-Reed Party.
“When I started going to the Rare Books presentations my predecessor gave and learning about the history of Hastings’ book, I wanted to focus on the book as a physical object and what it could tell us about society, culture and economics,” she said. “When I did my graduate degree, I veered toward comparative literature and cultural studies so I could talk about physicality and materiality and not just be so focused on textural evidence.”
As Basin studied and read these materials, she began imagining what her life would have been during that time period.
“I wonder if I would have survived,” she said. “I consider myself outdoorsy, but sometimes when I’m in the backcountry, I think about those kinds of things.”
That’s why she feels her spring bicycle trip was so important.
“It’s a 55-mile loop around the Silver Island Mountains out in the Salt Flats, and I tried to put myself in the perspective of these people and what they had been feeling at the time,” she said.
During her lecture, Basin will recount a bit about the trip and do a PowerPoint presentation about Hastings’ book.
“I will also pull from other materials that were printed at the same time,” she said. “I will show engravings and lithographs of the area at the time.”
Some of these items will include documentation by Captain Howard Stansbury, who came through the area in 1850, and created what Basin calls “interesting depictions” of the trail.
“There’s also a book called ‘The Route from Liverpool to the Salt Lake Valley’ that was specifically published for the Mormon pioneers,” she said.
As an added bonus, Basin plans to bring Hastings’ book, which is part of the Rare Books Collection at the J. Willard Marriott Library, to the lecture.
“So, I will piece together the history with visual entertainment,” she said.
The library began its Rare Books collection after the University of Utah received a $1 million donation from the Marriott family in 1968, according to Basin.
“One of the collections we worked on acquiring was the history of Westward Expansion,” she said. “Within the Rare Books Collection of the J. Willard Marriott Library, one of our collections strengths is the history of Westward Expansion.”
To find these historical books, the librarians referred to “The Plains and the Rockies: Bibliography of Original Narratives of Travel and Adventure 1800-1865,” according to Basin.
“This is a collection of materials focused on things printed during the 19th century,” she said. “It was compiled by Henry Wagner, and Charles Camp later revised it. Hastings is in the book, but so are other immigrant guides by William Clayton and other folks.”
Basin enjoys giving these types of presentations for various reasons.
“It’s a great way for me to continue to learn about the history and collections we have at the Marriott Library,” she said. “We have more than 80,000 books in the Rare Books Collection, and I as the librarian will never get to see all of them. But I try to do my best.”
The presentations also allow Basin to not only connect books with other books, but also give her the opportunity to meet people.
“I learn things about them, like their interest in history and topics that could become other presentations moving forward,” she said.
‘Emigrants’ Guide: The Historic and Harrowing Hastings Cutoff and the Donner Party’s Route through Echo Canyon’
- When: 4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 24
- Where: Historic Echo Church, 60 Temple Ln., Echo
- Cost: Free
- Web: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069610909388