Oregon-California Trails Association | Sawyer, Lorenzo

Sawyer, Lorenzo – 1850 Missouri to California

Merrill J. Mattes Collection·

Printed pages from a book

Sawyer, Lorenzo. Way Sketches Containing Incidents of Travel Across the Plains from St. Joseph to California in 1850. New York: Edward Eberstadt, 1926

Diary entries dated 6 May 1850 to 8 June 1850

The collection was begun in 1991 by the late Merrill J. Mattes, a co-founder of the Oregon-California Trails Association. That original nucleus was a result of a generous donation from Merrill and reflected his many years as an award-winning National Park Service historian and also included works of his own authorship. The collection is housed at the national Frontier Trails Museum in Independence, Missouri. Here, you have access to many of the original trail diaries he collected in digital form.