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| OCTA's McAuley Cutoff Marker |
On April 7, 1852, 17-year-old Eliza Ann McAuley, with her older brother, Thomas, and sister, Margaret, left Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, to travel overland to California. For a time, they were accompanied by the "Eddyville Company," led by William Buck and Ezra Meeker.
Eliza Ann left a notable diary account of the journey west and here on July 15 she wrote:
Traveled ten miles today and camped on Bear River. Just before coming to the river we had the hardest mountain to cross on the whole route. It was very steep and difficult to climb, and we had to double teams going up and at the summit we had to unhitch the teams and let the wagons down over a steep, smooth sliding rock by ropes wound around trees by the side of the road. Some trees are nearly cut through by ropes. The boys fished awhile then took a ramble around the country and discovered a pass, by which the mountain can be avoided by doing a little road building.
On July 17 the Meekers went on toward Oregon, but William Buck remained behind with the McAuleys. Here they stayed for fourteen days building a road around Big Hill.
On July 24, Eliza wrote:
We have 8 or 9 hands today to work on the road. The boys want to get it finished to save people from having to cross that dreadful mountain.
One hired hand, William H. Hampton of Galesburg, Illinois, wrote on July 24:
Still laying over and working we get $2 per day. Hot and sultry working at the foot of the mountain.
The road was completed by July 29 and the McAuleys continued west, leaving Thomas McAuley and William Buck to "remain on the road a week or two to collect Toll and pay the expenses of making it."
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| Big Hill |
On present-day maps, the cutoff begins on private ranch land on Sheep Creek about five miles east. From that point, Highway 30 follows the approximate route of the cutoff around the south base of Big Hill, some seven and a half miles to this point.
On August 7, 1852, John McAllister took the cutoff and wrote, "by going it you avoid a long ascent, a long steep & rough & dangerous descent."
On August 13 Cecelia Adams wrote, "the new road is two miles farther but saves some very high mountains."
No references can be found of use of the cutoff in subsequent years. Rising waters of the Bear River may have washed the road away or perhaps nature, unchecked, took control again with a new growth of thickets and brush.
The McAuley or "Eliza Ann" Cutoff will never rank among the great cutoffs of the Oregon-California Trail, but it does reflect the initiative and thought of a group of young Americans in the year 1852.
The McAuleys reached California on September 18. Two years later, Eliza Ann married Robert Seeley Egbert. She died in Berkeley, California, November 16, 1919, at the age of eighty-three.
Comments
The McAuley marker stands at a highway rest area between two State of Idaho historical markers that interpret "Big Hill" and the McAuley Cutoff. The OCTA marker is a predecessor to the McAuley state sign. For a time the OCTA marker was mounted in the town museum in Montpelier, but in 1993 it was retrieved and installed at its originally-intended location where it now stands. For more on the McAuley marker, see the October 1994 issue of News From the Plains.
Location
Southeast of Montpelier, Franklin County, Idaho. SW1/4, Sec. 16, T14S, R45E.
Ownership
State of Idaho
Access
Open to the public
Directions
From Montpelier drive south on U.S. 30. The rest area is about 10 miles southeast of town on the east side of the highway.
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