Mormon Battalion November 17, 1846 Traditional Geocache
Mormon Battalion November 17, 1846
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(regular)
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In 1846 at the request of the United States government, 500 men, 33 women, and 51 children from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as part of the Mexican-American War. The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history. They marched on foot from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to Los Angeles, California.
This cache is found by exiting the Deming-to-Hatch highway five miles northeast of Deming on County Road AO 16. Travel about 9 miles to a large detention dam on the right. The cache is found by crossing the dam on County Road AO 18 for about two miles by the next detention dam. Hiking or fourwheel drive is needed for travel on AO 18.
This cache is found near where the Mormon Battalion camped on November 17, 1846. Many of the features they described are still here. Daniel Tyler, a member of the Battalion, wrote, “After leaving Cooke’s Spring, we passed through the gap in the mountains, and came to a place where mining, for precious metals, had evidently been carried on at sometime in the distant past. There were at least thirty holes cut in the solid rock, from ten to fourteen inches deep, and from six to ten inches in diameter, evidently for the purpose of catching and retaining water when showers occurred. Here we also found, for the first time, California partridges or quail. These bird do not differ much in size from those of the Eastern and Middle States, but are of a bluish color, and oblong bodies, and beautiful top-knots. They are swift runners. A new variety of oak was also found here, which has since received the name of Emory Oak (Quercus emoryi); also a new and very beautiful variety of oose, or Spanish bayonet, some of the leaves which are a yard long, with edges resembling saw-teeth and stalks running up the center for fifteen to eighteen feet high. One of our guides here killed two goats which must have strayed from some passing herd or been stolen and then lost by some Indians, as both were ear marked.”
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ebpx bhgpebccvat oruvaq qnz