William P. Huff epub The William P. Huff 1849 Gold Rush Wagon Train Journal: Including Henry Smith's "The Stormy Days of 1836"

William P. Huff was a participant and leader in a wagon train of gold seekers traveling from Texas to California in 1849 and 1850. His detailed journal of his travels forms one of the best known descriptions of the route taken through Texas to the Yuma River in Arizona, along the Southern Emigrant Trail. Huff included vivid descriptions of the hardships of the journey, the Native American and other local people he encountered, and the geology, geography, flora and fauna encountered along the route. The route taken by Huff’s wagon train across Texas was along a series of trails that were at that time only a year or so from first being defined by Americans across the previously unknown expanses from San Antonio to El Paso. Huff’s route to El Paso was largely along the trail defined by Robert Neighbors and John “Rip” Ford in mid-1849. Neighbors and Ford returned to Fredericksburg just as Huff and his companions were there readying to depart for California. The portion of this trail from the Concho River to El Paso was later utilized by the Butterfield Mail Route. From El Paso to Tucson, Huff’s train went nearly the whole way across northern Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico, known later as the Southern Emigrant Route, including portions known as Cooke’s and Graham’s Routes. Few journals exist describing this road; the details left by Huff are an important source of historical information on this route. Also of note are Huff’s extensive descriptions of geological and archaeological features, and of fossils encountered along the way. Huff’s long-standing fascination with fossils, geology and evolution are evident in his journal entries. The journal also includes an extensive description of the events that transpired during the Texas Revolution and Republic of Texas period, told through the person of Henry Smith, the first provisional governor of the Republic. Smith was a participant in the Huff wagon train, and is depicted in the journal as relating his memoirs to his companions around an evening campfire on several occasions during the journey, which Huff recorded. Included in Smith’s recollections is a copy of a letter written in 1844 by Huff in which he described his experiences in the 1836 Runaway Scrape. Ironically, James W. Robinson, the other man who served as provisional governor in 1836 after Henry Smith was impeached by the General Council, was also a participant in this wagon train. Huff titled Smith's campfire stories "The Stormy Days of 1836".