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Show 222 Millard County, Utah. If a l l went as planned, the White Mountain Expedition would found four settlements on the desert, although in none of them did the defense situation equal the c r i t e r i a Brigham Young had hoped for. It was determined that the only country between them and the Wasatch Front settlements the expedition had not explored was an area to the southeast. Bean had come in from the north and Dame from the south, and while their routes eventually crossed in some places, the area known today as Lake Valley had not been thoroughly explored. Colonel Dame, therefore, asked for nine men t o forge a new trail to Msadow Valley while the wagons retraced the old t r a i l back to the valley. The new t r a i l would traverse Cave Valley, cross the Schell Creek Range, and then proceed south t o Meadow Valley. Samuel Hamilton, James Cliff, Ansel Twit-chell, Joseph Nelson, John Couch, Ross R. Rogers, J. Lewis, and, of course, James H. Martineau and Nephi Johnson volunteered to break this new t r a i l. Another important event occurred at Desert Swamp Springs on May 20. At 6 P.M. Martineau took a series of observations with President Dame's surveying 9 compass and copied the diagram into the company journal. The headings from the springs to a l l the prominent landmarks in the region were carefully recorded, tetrtineau's intention was obviously to aid the future traveler of this area in finding his way, It is doubtful that these observations were ever used for that purpose, but they were of supreme importance to t h i s study. Since the appellations given to physical features of t h i s country by the White Mountain explorers have rarely survived, the problem of identifying the mountains, valleys, and springs would have been a f r u i t l e s s task, in many cases, had i t not been for these headings and the many other records, journals, and maps which Martineau meticulously prepared. One of the landmarks recorded by Martineau was Gunsight Mountain at south 12° west. This peak, known today as Gap Mountain, is not large, but i t stands apart from the Egan Range about eight miles south of the springs |
