Wagons Ho! as Trekkers Trace Path of 1851 Trip

Just three days from the commemorative journey’s end, Boyd Gardner sat atop Boballen, the sturdy steed that carried him 800 miles across the deserts of the Southwest.

Somewhere outside Hesperia, the 69-year-old cowboy stopped his horse to explain why this Mormon wagon train from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, a reenactment of the original one 150 years ago, was so trying.

First off, he explained, the heat during the two-month journey was darned awful, climbing into the 100s some days, making the 60 or so trekkers--including toddlers and senior citizens--thirsty, sunburned and miserable. Don’t get him started on the wind.

Even more vexing, he said, was the deep desert sand. It quickly sapped the energy of the horses and mules that pulled the seven covered wagons, which included a two-seater “potty wagon.”

Gardner suggested that he and his fellow travelers had it almost as rough as his great-great-grandparents, who were among the 437 pioneers who made the Mormon faith’s first journey to Southern California in 1851.

“There’s not a whole lot they went through that we didn’t,” said Gardner, a resident of Rupert, Idaho.

The wagon train, which is scheduled to pull into San Bernardino this afternoon, was designed to bring attention to the Mormons’ role in Southern California history, in addition to giving Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints members and others a realistic taste of life in the 1850s.

For the modern-day pioneers, about 25% of whom said they had ancestors on the original trek, baths were infrequent. Clothes were hand-washed in tubs or over rocks, and squabbles were settled in group meetings before the day’s ride.

Life on the Trail Is Tough and Boring

On the trail, boredom and discomfort became their main companions. They sat on the hard, narrow plank benches of the wagons. They felt each rock hit by the wooden wheels and looked out at the unchanging desert landscape.

The reenactment--similar to a 1997 trek when Mormons rode from Nebraska to Salt Lake City to celebrate Brigham Young’s pilgrimage to Utah--marks the original journey of Mormon pioneers to Southern California to set up a trading post and way station for missionaries.

Church members and other history buffs from throughout Southern California will greet the wagon train about 4 p.m. today at Glen Helen Regional Park. The arrival will kick off a three-day Heritage Trails festival, where visitors can see the covered wagons, pan for gold and watch a blacksmith work.

Wagon master Paul Bliss led the team, which included a few non-Mormons, over the dirt trails, dried creek beds and some paved roads that roughly paralleled Interstate 15. It was the same job that Bliss’ great-great-grandfather, Mormon apostle Amasa Lyman, had during the 1851 trip.

“I ride a lot of rough country, and this is the toughest trail in the history of America,” said Bliss, 44. “It’s been special for me because I’m sure I’ve had the same emotions as my great-great-grandfather did,” especially when trying to keep the party’s morale together.

Earlier this week, Linda Ralphs, 54, joined the trek on horseback to travel the same dirt trails that her great-great-grandparents, Richard and May Ralphs, did. They came to Southern California with their young son, George Alpert, who would found Ralphs Grocery Co. in 1873.

“I get kind of teary just thinking about it,” said Ralphs, a Rancho Santa Fe resident. “I’m doing this to honor them, to really know the hardship they experienced.”

Stella Cirella, 51, of Hesperia read about the wagon train in the local newspaper and greeted the modern pioneers last weekend as they made camp near Hesperia Lake.

“I brought popcorn for the young ‘uns,” she said. When organizers encouraged her to come along, she raced home, stayed up until 2:30 a.m. sewing a pioneer dress and bonnet, and joined the wagon train in time for 5 a.m. reveille.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” she said. “I couldn’t miss it.”

Most of the participants joined the wagon train for short stints. Among those making the entire 800-mile ride was Sharon Bogh, a self-described 54-year-old “greenhorn” who rode the distance by horseback with her husband and said she learned, “I could do more than I ever thought possible.”

Picking up the trail about halfway along was 9-year-old Derek Flake of Snowflake, Ariz., who rode alongside his grandpa, 68-year-old Sanford Flake.

Lisa Boscom and other parents faced an age-old problem: How do you entertain kids on long, tedious trips? Boscom, 45, traveled in a covered wagon with her 17-month-old daughter, Juliette.

“It takes a lot of work, but I’ve enjoyed it,” she said as her daughter took a midday nap in the wagon. “Everyone here has become a team.”

Learning Experience Without Electricity

The children on the 50-day trip were schooled informally by parents and others on the history of the American West, and they learned firsthand the value of patience, hard work and teamwork.

“I’m doing this for my kids,” said Kimberly Herterich of Hemet, who brought her three children on the journey. “This is a learning experience you can’t get in the TV, computer, electronic world.”

The conditions got bad enough that one mother, who brought her four daughters, nearly gave up on the outskirts of Las Vegas--until Bliss had a talk with her.

“I told her I didn’t care if she quit,” the wagon master said. “But her daughters will see her as a quitter. And when anything gets tough, they’ll quit too.”

The woman stayed.

In 1851, Brigham Young, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sent colonists to establish a western outpost that would serve as a major link in the church’s supply line between San Pedro’s harbor and Salt Lake City. The community would also be a way station for missionaries and converts from the Pacific islands.

The Mormons are credited with founding San Bernardino. The boom town included freed slaves, former slaveholders, Jewish merchants, trappers, prospectors, Spanish landowners and Native Americans, according to Edward Leo Lyman’s book “San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community.”

Within six years of the Mormons’ arrival in Southern California, San Bernardino’s population had swelled to 3,000. Roads, houses and businesses had been built. Arid cattle land had been successfully farmed. Mail and freight routes had been started.

But in 1857, Young called the Mormons back to Salt Lake City. He needed manpower in case the church’s deteriorating relationship with the federal government erupted into war. He also worried about reports of disloyalty in the San Bernardino ranks.

Two-thirds of the church members obeyed, heading back across the desert. Settlers who refused to budge were excommunicated or drifted away from the church. The Mormons wouldn’t establish another official church in San Bernardino for more than 60 years.

A Few Comforts of the Modern World

The organizers of the 2001 wagon train tried to make the pioneer experience as true as possible, though the modern world did creep in. The wagon master holstered a cell phone. A small convoy of vehicles supported the operation. And a 5,000-gallon water truck made the search for desert water holes less critical.

Around nightly campfires, local history was recounted, cowboy poetry recited and Western songs sung.

The journey was romantic enough for one Mormon couple, Marion and Violet Manwell, to get married along the trail in Utah.

“He didn’t want to keep traveling and not be married,” Bliss said of his 71-year-old friend whose first wife had died. “So he asked me, ‘What do you think about me getting married on the trail?’ And I said, ‘You can use a wife in your old age.’

“We didn’t have rice, so we threw rocks.”

The newlyweds spent one night at a nearby hotel before joining the wagon train the next day.