Possibly the most difficult leg of their journey, through the arid lands of the Basin and Range Province of the American Southwest, the road from Salt Lake City to Carson City. The Clemens brothers took one week, from August 7th to the 14th. Richard Burton took nearly a month to complete the journey, from September 20 to October 19th of 1860. Their routes were essentially the same until the last portion. Burton took the southern route from Fairview to Carson. By the next year this route was closed due to problems with Indians. The Clemens brothers took what is referred to as the Stillwater Dogleg.
August 7 Wednesday – From Orion’s journal:
August 8 Thursday – Orion’s journal shows the Clemens brothers moved on early from Salt Lake City.
“Arrived at Fort Crittenden—(Camp Floyd) 8 A.M., 45 miles from Salt Lake City. Arrived at the edge of the desert, 95 miles from Salt Lake City, at 4 P.M.” [Orion RI 1993, 772].
August 9 Friday – 15 th day out – Orion’s journal [Orion RI 1993, 772].:
Sunrise. Across the desert, 45 miles, and at the commencement of the “little Desert.” 2 o’clock, across the little desert, 23 miles, and 163 miles from Salt Lake, being 68 miles across the two deserts, with only a spring at Fish Creek Station to separate them. They are called deserts because there is no water in them. They are barren, but so is the balance of the route.
August 10 Saturday – 16 th day out – Sam encountered the Goshute Indians, “at the entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake.” Sam never cared much for Indians (Roughing It Ch.19). Orion’s journal reported that this night was “very cold.”
August 11 Sunday – 17 th day out – Orion wrote that the driver informed them that the mountain peaks they passed this day were the highest they’d yet seen. The night was “very cold” though the days were “very warm.”
“…we passed the highest mountain peaks we had yet seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to useless” [RI ch. 20].
August 12 Monday – 18 th day out –
“…we encountered the eastward-bound telegraph constructors at Reese River station and sent a message to His Excellency Governor Nye at Carson City (distant one hundred and fifty-six miles)” [RI ch. 20].
August 13 Tuesday – 19 th day out –
“…we crossed the great american desert – forty memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which the coach wheels sunk from six inches to a foot. We worked our passage most of the way across. that is to say, we got out and walked” [RI ch. 20].
August 14 Wednesday – the pair arrived in Carson City, Nevada. The 20-day trip is recounted in Roughing It. The Clemens brothers boarded with Mrs. Margret Murphy, a “genial Irish-woman…a New York retainer of Governor Nye” [MTB 176]. Note: Murphy was “Bridget O’Flannagan” in RI [RI 1993, 613]. In 1860 the population of Carson City was a mere 701 souls and Virginia City 2,437; in 1861 Carson had doubled to 1,466; Virginia City had exploded to 12,704 [Mack’s Nevada: a History of the State, 1936].
Antonucci writes: