#437 - First Landing Place of Sailing Launch Comet
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Touchstone
N 37° 47.239 W 121° 18.310
10S E 649236 N 4183570
There are actually two Historic Markers at this site, so you two for the price of one on this visit.
Waymark Code: WMWF2
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 10/25/2006
Views: 66
The official plaque reads:
First known sail launch to ascend San Joaquin River from San Francisco
landed here autumn, 1846. It carried 20 Mormon pioneers who founded New Hope
Agricultural Project on Stanislaus. A yoke of oxen and span of mules were driven
from Marsh's Landing (Antioch) by two men who followed a crude map drawn by
Merritt the trapper. Two years later Doak and Bonsell operated here the first
ferry on San Joaquin River.
Mormon Sam Brannan brought settlers to a spot 1 1/2 miles north of the
junction of the Stanislaus and San Joaquin rivers River, near present day Salida.
On the south bank had been Estanislao's camp, and on the north bank (in today's
San Joaquin County), Brannan established the settlement of New Hope or
Stanislaus City. But, settlers of New Hope lived on both sides of the river,
which meant they lived in the future Stanislaus County. Mormon President Brigham
Young could not agree with Brannan to settle the Mormon people at New Hope
instead of in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Many of the Mormon settlers
went to the gold mines or to Utah abandoning the settlement.
A more complete account of the Mormon Migration of the 1800's can be found at
the National Parks Webpage: Mormon
Pioneer
References: MID
History Page,