About this blog
This blog commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Whitney Survey. Over the next four years we’ll be posting excerpts from the journals of William H. Brewer, field leader of the Survey, in real time plus 150 years.
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If you would like any images or scans for this blog from our archives please get in touch.
Thanks, Andrew. I will definitely be in touch.
I received your post through a Google alert about San Juan Bautista. Can I subscribe to your blog? This is very interesting!
~Wanda
Thanks for the kind comment, Wanda! I looked around some and it appears that if you register with WordPress (free), then you can subscribe to any WordPress blog (the Subscribe option will be at the top of the screen when you visit here). Subscribing doesn’t appear to be an option if you aren’t registered with WordPress.
I’m working on a project that this blog specifically addresses. I’m very interested in it. I am trying to find maps to tell me if these trails or paths or roads were actually there around the turn of the century. Were these surveyors following a compass, or a road, trail, etc., or a combination of those? This is an old post, so I’m not sure you’re still checking for communication, but I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!
Carol
Hi Carol,
I’m not sure I have much information for you, but I’m happy to give it a try. The general answer is, it depends; their early travels were mostly along wagon roads (although the stretch from Ventura to Santa Barbara sounds like more of a trail), while later on they got into areas (in the Sierra, e.g, in 1863-64) they got into areas that had no established trails. If you’re asking specifically about the Panoche road, this was definitely an established wagon road as of 1861, serving the New Idria mines (I don’t know if there was a road continuing east from the New Idria junction at that time).
Feel free to e-mail me at tvhilton [at] gmail [dot] com if you have specific questions about the route they traveled. And thanks for reading!
Tom Hilton
This is so great. Imma huge California and Brewer enthusiast. Might I suggest that you also publish this on a Facebook page so that more people might follow this amazing journey?