Zenas Leonard is best known for his eye-witness account of the Walker expedition (which was the first westward pass) over the Sierras. The account was serialized in his home town paper in PA the Clearfield Republican when he got back and published in book form in 1839. Despite dying before his 50th birthday, Zenas did alright for himself. His account has been republished several times since and is readable online in several places. His writing is concise, frank, and gives a richly detailed account of a pivotal moment in American History. In fact, the original printed first edition sold last year at auction in San Francisco for a cool 125,000.
Yesterday I had the very fun fortune to come across this: First some context, the troop of 58 men is starving at the Nevada foot of the Sierras trying to find a way over in very deep snow, and sent a hunting party to look for anything they could find to eat. (Although not cactus, because unlike the natives, mountain men were strictly Paleo in their diet). The narrative writes that the unsuccessful hunters came back only with a “colt and a CAMEL“.
The footnotes are from a later reprinting explaining that the great California Camel experiment didn’t occur until some 20 years later, so Leonard must have gotten it wrong since camels are in Africa and not California.
Which leaves a bit of a mystery with something like three possible solutions.
- Zenas was wrong and it was some other animal that he didn’t recognize.
- Zenas was right but his manuscript was illegible in places and the word is some related other word that makes more sense – like ‘cattle’ or ‘ram’
- There really was a camel in Nevada in 1832 because it got left behind or lost from some forgotten expedition.
Robin of Napa and I had a fun chat about what it might have been and she suggested maybe a llama that had straggled behind. And, honestly if the potato could make it here from Peru, why not a llama?
Rickipedia’s more serious answer thinks its explanation #1. He believes the animal was a pronghorn.
I would wager the “camel” was our pronghorn Antilocapra americana. They had nothing like it in Europe or the eastern US. They knew deer and they knew elk (which they call red deer in Europe) but not pronghorn. It is commonly called antelope, although incorrectly, because of pronghorn’s vague resemblance to African antelopes.
Well, I am almost always prepared to trust Rick’s instinct but a camel with horns? Even female pronghorn have horns so it must have had them. Of course not every 19th century illustration of a species actually looks like the animal in question. We all know that right?
Here’s some personal history that migt be relevant: Jon and I had the odd fortune of actually riding camels to a monastery in Egypt many years ago, I can testify that they are fairly LARGE and unmistakable – intimidating even without the horns. I can’t imagine there was ever one lost in Nevada. But then, we’ve never ridden pronghorn.
