Edwin Bryant

Edwin Bryant was born in Massachusetts in 1805. He moved with his family to Kentucky in 1816 and became a newspaper editor with the Louisville Courier-Journal. He decided to travel west for health reasons and set out with two friends, Richard Jacob and Robert Ewing, in 1846. Bryant initially joined a large wagon train company, but later he and his friends sold their wagons and continued by mule train. He arrived at Fort Bridger in Wyoming on July 16 where he actually met Lansford W. Hastings who was trying to convince pioneers to settle in California.

Part of the purpose of Bryant's journey was to write a book on his adventures. In 1847 he completed What I Saw in California. When it was published in 1848, it caught the enormous public interest in the gold rush and became very popular both in America and in Europe...