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, page 186

Exploring Great Salt Lake flowers, various grasses wild barley &c. & is eminently fitted for the location of a numerous herd of cattle, to which purpose it will no doubt as the increasing wants of the community render it desir- able it will be applied. In my walk along the shore I came upon quite a little grove of cedar growing out of a loose white drift sand the gigantic roots of these trees cannot fail to strike the observer as being apparently out of proportion to the size of the tree they pro- trude out of the ground in thick seamy branches at a distance of several yards from the main trunk from which they diverge in every direction. I made a sketch of the lake with Carringtons I. the S. & part of W shore with an unusually good forground of the above mentioned trees.`39 The day has been pleasantly warm. A bough of a tree with a bright green leaf & having berrys strongly acidulous was brought into the tent at Eveng; it is called Stink wood by the Indians & from the berry they make a tea? I thought the taste very agreeable it being similar in taste to a lemon Friday June 21 Before leaving the Camping ground I made a sketch of the bold & precipitous peak of the Island, with large masses of black limestone somewhat resembling from one point of view a turreted castle.14' There are no signs of fresh water upon the western side of the Island. The weather being much warmer the midges again perse- cute us intolerably to avoid their attacks I left the brush & rambled along the shore, crossing a ridge at the n. end of the Island a little valley presented itself about a mile across covered with nutritious grasses segos wild onions &c. I ascended the hill facing me & from 139 This sketch may be the one carries the title "Carrington's Island, found opposite page 208 in the Stansbury Report and from Stansbury's Island, West Side." i40 The "Stink wood," whose fruit Hudson sampled, was probably the serviceberry (Amelanchier utahensis) which disports white, showy flowers and produces a purplish berry that is delicious fresh or dry. John Hudson might have been delighted to know that the berries are also excellent in pie or wine. Treshow, Guide to the Woody Plants, p. 139. 141 The view described here is one of the several sketches acquired with the Hudson letters and is entitled "West Side of Stansbury Island Taken from Camping ground of 21 June/SO." 186