A Forty-niner in Utah with the Stansbury Exploration of Great Salt Lake: Letters and Jounral of John Hudson, 1848-50

Forty-niner in Utah, preface xi

Preface 0ne of the pleasures of collecting manuscripts for re- search collections in a library is the opportunity to associate with interesting and gracious people. Of course, another great pleasure and satisfaction is the acquisition of valuable research material-especially if it per- tains to one's particular interest. Both of these elements prevailed in my contact with Mr. C. A. Norris and his wife of Malvern, England. In May of 1980 these charming people came to my office with a bundle of papers they wished to sell to the University of Utah. At first, somewhat appre- hensive abou t the matter, I examined the mild interest, for the name John Hudson, manuscript with only author of many of the holograph letters, held no meaning for me. But then within the letters, I recognized some names which seized my interest- Howard Stansbury, Albert Carrington, W. W. Major, Fort Utah, Great Salt Lake-to name but a few. It soon became obvious that John Hudson was intimately asso- ciated with Captain Howard Stansbury and his survey of Great Salt Lake. Since there were fourteen pencil sketches attributed to Hudson with the letters, I became curious about these sketches and their relationship to Stansbury's published Report of the Great Salt Lake. Quickly referring to the Wagner-Camp bibliography on The Plains and Rockies, I came across the following information fur- nished by Dale L. Morgan, an authority I never dispute. "F. R. Grist . . . drew less than half of the views [in the Stans- bury Report]. . . . the rest were done by John Hudson another ob- scure artist whose MS journal, along with [Howard] S tansbury's [John1 G unnison's and Albert Carrington's journals is preserved in the National Archives. Hudson was on the payroll as a draughts- man." This Wagner-Camp note was sufficient to cause my acquisitive interest to quicken. It fairly raced when further examination of the collection revealed a twelve-page pamphlet in original wrappers of a Preamble and Constitution of the Colony Guard, 1849, a forty-