A Trip Across The Plains In The Spring Of 1850 by James Abbey

"Tuesday May 14th - Cooked our breakfast this morning with grass and was ready to start by six o'clock - met a mule team from Fort Laramie with the mail, bound for Fort Leavenworth. They report upwards of three thousand wagons ahead of us. We nooned today on the banks of the Platte. From our camp I counted some thirty islands, varying in size, some a mile in length, covered with green trees and shrubbery, and assuming many singular shapes, representing at a distance steamboats, flatboats, skiffs, camels, elephants, and etc. About the middle of the afternoon, we met six ox teams from Scott's Bluffs. They had been out on a trading expedition since August last and were just on their return to the States. At four o'clock we stopped and pitched our tents for the night on the bank of the Platte. Our route for the entire day has been up the valley of the Platte, frequently near its banks. The river here still maintains its expansive breadth, presenting itself four miles wide, but very shallow. In several places I saw men fording it, the water not being more than eighteen inches deep. The bed of the river is com[osed of quicksand and is constantly changing by the action of the current. The banks of the Platte are low, not being more than five feet above the present stage of water. Traveled today fourteen miles."

CCTO: California Trail Heritage Alliance

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