Despite its name, the western explorer John C. Frémont was the first to traverse the trail that came to be known as Hastings Cutoff. The route was named after Lansford Warren Hastings in the following summer of 1846 when Hastings made it famous in his Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, encouraging those headed westward to take it and save three hundred miles. He also promised that he would meet emigrants at Fort Bridger and guide them the rest of the way. That promise further convinced the Donner brothers and James Reed of the wisdom of taking the cutoff, though several in the party decided to stick with the proven trail. Unfortunately, Hastings had already left Fort Bridger to guide emigrants already on the trail by the time the Donner-Reed Party arrived at the fort. He promised to leave letters with directions for them. Edwin Bryant, a fellow expeditioner, advised in a letter to Reed that the plans to take the cutoff be abandoned. There was a forty-mile stretch devoid of water and the trail was simply not fit for wagons. Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez withheld Bryant’s letter, however, since they had a financial interest in seeing Hastings Cutoff traveled. Partly because they did not receive that letter, the Donner-Reed Party pressed on. Almost nothing that the Donner-Reed Party understood about the cutoff was accurate, from the easiness of the way to the length of the trail and the available supplies of water and provisions. In her diary, Virginia Reed Murphy recorded that “at times it was hard to find any trace of the cutoff.” Hastings left extremely vague directions along the way and refused to guide the Donner-Reed Party when Reed, C. T. Stanton, and William Pike went and asked for his help. It was too dangerous to continue through Weber Canyon, so they took their chances in uncharted territory, where there were no roads or clear paths through the trees and underbrush. Virginia noted that “It took the men six days to clear a trail only thirteen miles in length.” They finally got through the Wasatch Mountains and by the time they reached the Great Salt Lake, the cutoff had taken a month (as opposed to the promised week) “and our cattle were so exhausted that they were not fit to cross the desert.” It truly is no wonder that once Virginia was settled in California, she wrote the following to friends back in the East who were planning to travel West: “Bring nothing but provisions and just enough clothing to last until you get here…and don’t take any cutoffs.” Much of the scholarship about Hastings Cutoff is about Hastings himself, if he were just as much a victim of the hard trail as the others or a scheming charlatan. Most people choose to believe the latter, especially as he received several death threats for his advice.
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