The Latter-Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide

Clayton's Guide,[1] Clayton's Emigrant Guide,[2] or as when published, The Latter-Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide,[2] published by Missouri Republican Steam Power Press, Chambers & Knapp, 1848[2] and written by William Clayton, was one of a number of very popular guidebooks written to support the westward expansion of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century when organized emigrant wagon trains began to form in large numbers at various river ports on the Missouri River.

Description

Clayton's guide covered landmarks and distances starting from Council Bluffs and going to the Great Salt Lake along the Mormon Trail.[3] The guide recorded the distance between landmarks like Chimney Rock and Devil's Gate and gave suggestions for camp locations and where to find water and forage. He collaborated with Orson Pratt and Appleton Harmon to create a wagon-wheel odometer, or roadometer, to record distances more accurately.[4]: 229–231, 243  They were the first pioneers to scientifically measure the distances on the overland trail.[3]

Writing and sales

Hoping to use the profits from the guide to finance his family's migration, Clayton got Brigham Young's approval of the project. On Brigham Young's behalf, Willard Richards wrote to Nathaniel H. Felt in St. Louis and William Pickett, asking them to help publish the guide. Clayton had 5,000 copies published. The guides were sold for five dollars each, but were in high demand. Joseph E. Ware's The Emigrants' Guide to California copied information from Clayton's guide for the section between Fort Laramie and the Bear River. Many pioneers used Clayton's guide; first editions are rare, presumably because they were well-used.[4]: 245  In 1852, Fisher and Bennett started to sell unauthorized copies of the guide for fifty cents each. Clayton offered to sell them the copyright, but the press refused on the grounds that "the considered themselves perfectly safe without it."[4]: 246  He considered selling guides to emigrants in England to circumvent Fisher and Bennett's plan, but he wasn't in England long enough to enact it.[4]: 246 

Footnotes and references

References
  1. "Pacific Springs (on the Oregon Trail)". Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  2. Archived online by Brigham Young University. "Clayton's Emigrant Guide". Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  3. Kroll, Helen B. (June 1944). "The Books That Enlightened the Emigrants". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 45 (2): 103–123. JSTOR 20611541.
  4. Allen, James B. (2002). No Toil Nor Labor Fear: The Story of William Clayton. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press. ISBN 0842525033.
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