James Mason Diary INDEPENDENCE ROCK WYOMING JUNE 25, 1850

James Mason DiaryINDEPENDENCE ROCK WYOMING

JUNE 25, 1850

June 25 – Passed Indipendence Rock & cross Sweet watter this Rock is Sittuated near the first of the river it covers an eara of 5 acres & is said to be 40 feet high it is

covered with names of the trappers & emigrants who pass this way the first Party which noticed this Singular Rock, in this manner, was a party of American trappers who chanced

to pass that way upon the 5th of July when wishing to be americans even in that Secluded region of Aboriginal

barbarism they proceeded to celebrate that great day which gave birth to human liberty this they did by a Succession of mountain revelings festivities & liberities which having been concluded they all inscribed their names together with the

word Independence upon the most prominent & conspicuous portion of the Rock

Diary of James Mason June 25, 1850

Independence Rock, Wy

Independence Rock

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Diary of James Mason

Continued from previous page for the completion on June 25

From Glenrock, WY to Independence Rock, WY

hence its name & notoriety which are as firmly established by that act as the rock of ages itself traveled 15 M & En near the Devils Gate this is a long chain of rocks some 450 feet high & the Sweet

watter bursts through them the passage for the watter is Some 50 to 60 feet

Diary of James Mason Independence Rock, WY


As the emigrants approached the mid-point of their transcontinental journey following the Oregon-California Trail, they necessarily abandoned a "companion" of many, many days. In central Wyoming, the North Platte River makes a big bend, then heads south towards its headwaters in the Colorado Rockies. At Red Buttes, outside present-day Casper, Wyoming, wagon trains cut across some rather barren terrain to pick up the next river which they would then follow all the way to the Continental Divide at South Pass-the Sweetwater River.Perhaps sixty miles into the valley, emigrants encountered the first of its two most famous landmarks, Independence Rock, so named in 1830 by William Sublette when a party he was leading celebrated the Fourth of July, Independence Day, on the site. 700 feet wide, 1900 feet long and a maximum 128 feet above the Sweetwater valley floor, oriented N.W. by S.E., the granite outcrop is one of the most noted landmarks on the overland trail being mentioned in almost every emigrant's diary.








Carved May 9, 1850, just

six weeks before James

Mason visited this site on June

25, 1850


Carved July 4, 1850, just two weeks after James

Mason visited this site on June

25, 1850






June 25 – Passed Indipendence Rock & cross Sweet watter


Sweet Water River, Wy

End ofIndependence Rock,

Wy

Documents

James Mason Diary INDEPENDENCE ROCK WYOMING JUNE 25, 1850