Fosters Hole

Fosters Hole or La Tinaja,[1]:168, n.2 was a waterhole on the original route of Cooke's Wagon Road in what is now Sierra County, New Mexico. It is located in narrow crevasse at the foot of a cliff in Jug Canyon that is difficult to spot, except from a few vantage points.[2]

Lt. Colonel Philip St. George Cooke described Fosters Hole in his 1849 official journal of the expedition of his Mormon Battalion, from Santa Fe to San Diego:

"November 9.—Leroux came back last evening; he went down about fifty miles, struck off where the river turns east at San Diego, and in fifteen miles found some water holes; then he saw from a high hill a creek running out of the mountain at an estimated distance of thirty miles; the next water, over a rather level plain."[3]:14
"November 13.— After following the river this morning a mile or more, we found a pole and note from Mr. Leroux, but met at the same time two of the guides, who directed us to leave the river short to the right, stating it was fifteen miles to water. I followed a smooth inclined plane (between two bluffs,) three miles, and then had a steep ascent; then following ridges and making ascents occasionally, we reached another inclined bed of a rainy-weather stream. From this we wound up a long valley to a ridge which bound it, following that over a very rocky prairie. Charboneaux had gone to the head of the inclined plane, and found, he thought, an outlet. The water is at its head; but he did not return in time to direct all the wagons, and it is doubtful with me if it would have been better. The wagons arrived at this ground about an hour by sun, having come fifteen or sixteen miles, and all up-hill; the prairie being usually gravelly, and not rough. The water is about 100 feet lower than the camp, in a rocky chasm, difficult of descent for animals. The chief supply is a natural rock-bound well, thirty feet in diameter, and twenty four feet deep. It contains about 55,000 gallons. Many feet below it are two smaller holes, which the animals can get at two or three at a time. There is no fuel, save a few bushes and Spanish bayonets. The country is well covered to-day with gamma grass, and, also, I saw buffalo grass. We came over a high point, and had a fine view of the Organos and "El Paso" mountains, and the mound called "San Diego," where the river turns to the east. For a road coming up the river, there is a very fine valley, gradually ascending to this point. The course to-day, allowing for a variation of the needle of 12° E., was S. W. Some antelopes were seen."[3]:16-17

St. George Cooke described Fosters Hole in his later book:

"November 9th.— ... Mr. Leroux returned; he had left the river where it turned eastward opposite San Diego, and had found a water hole fifteen miles on our course, and seen a prairie stream about thirty miles beyond."[4]:104–105
"November 13th.— A mile or two from camp a note from Leroux was found on a pole, but also two return guides were met, who directed the march short to the right ; and a march of fifteen miles was made in a south-west course, always ascending over gravelly prairie, uneven but not very difficult ; and then, in a rocky chasm a hundred feet deep, a natural well or reservoir of pure water was found. There was no fuel, save a few bushes and Spanish bayonet, but the country was well covered with grama and buffalo grass."[4]:109
"The Mormon battalion was left fifteen miles west of the Rio Grande, in camp near a deep ravine in which was a natural well of rock, which the sagacity of the guides had discovered, to make their first venture in the desert a success. This was November the 13th, 1846."[4]:125

This natural well was later named Fosters Hole, for Stephen Clark Foster, the translator for the expeditions officers, who found it.[2]:278 Its name and location appear in a sketch map adjunct to W.H. Emory's main map of the route of the Army of the West under Kearny across the southwest to California.[5]

Subsequent to Cooke's expedition, Forty-niners and later travelers used the route proposed by him, from the Jornada del Muerto across San Diego Crossing then 17 miles to a camp on the river with a cutoff to his route near the future site of Fort Thorn. From there it was then 8 miles up a dry arroyo then 4 miles on rolling hills to "the water" (Fosters Hole). From Fosters Hole it was 10 miles onward to Mule Spring or Mule Creek, and 12 miles more to Cooke's Spring on what had become known as Cooke's Wagon Road.[1]:167–170, n.1–4 In 1853, Fort Thorn was built near where the roads left the Rio Grande for Fosters Hole, and the town of Santa Barbara was built nearby.

When a shortcut was built between the crossing of the Rio Grande at Mesilla and Cooke's Spring, as part of a military road construction project in 1856, wagon traffic soon diminished on the longer route by way of San Diego Crossing. In Marcy's, The Prairie Traveler (1858), his ITINERARY XXIII, From Fort Thorne, New Mexico, to Fort Yuma, California; gives the distance to "Water Holes" from Fort Thorn as 14.3 miles, "One mile west of hole in rock. Water uncertain; no wood."[6]

Fort Thorn had been abandoned in 1859 and by 1861 at the beginning of the American Civil War Santa Barbara, and other settlements in the area had been driven away by the start of the Chiricahua Wars removing locals (except the Chiricahua) with knowledge of the Fosters Hole. In 1862 the California Column account of the route to Fort Thorn from Cooke's Spring, omit mention of Fosters Hole or any water source after Mule Spring on the 22 mile route between Mule Spring and the head of Cooke's Wagon Road on the Rio Grande.[7] The location of Forsters Hole, was lost until it was rediscovered in 1988, in Jug Canyon, on a ranch west of Hatch, New Mexico. The owner of the ranch was unaware of its existence.[2]:277–286

References

  1. 1 2 Robert Eccleston, Overland to California on the Southwestern Trail 1849, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1950
  2. 1 2 3 Utah Historical Quarterly Volume 57, Number 3, (Summer 1989).pdf Carmen Smith and Omer Smith, "The Lost Well of the Mormon Battalion Rediscovered," Utah Historical Quarterly 57. No.3 (Summer 1989): 277-286]
  3. 1 2 Report from the Secretary of War, Communicating a Copy of the Official Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DURING A SPECIAL SESSION BEGUN AND HELD AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1849, Congressional Edition, Volume 547, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1849.
  4. 1 2 3 Philip St. George Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1878
  5. ↑ Sketch of part of the march & wagon road of Lt. Colonel Cooke, Map, ca. 1847 accessed December 17, 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas.
  6. ↑ Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U. S. Army, The Prairie Traveler. A Hand-Book For Overland Expeditions. With maps, illustrations, and itineraries of the Principal Routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific, Published by Authority of the War Department, New York, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square, 1859. List of Itineraries, XXIII.—From Fort Thorne, New Mexico, to Fort Yuma, California.
  7. ↑ WAR OF THE REBELLION, SERIES I, VOLUME L, IN TWO PARTS. PART I, pp,124-125 E.E. EYRE,Lieutenant- Colonel First California Volunteer Cavalry, Comdg. July 6.

External links

Coordinates: 32°41′45″N 107°24′56″W / 32.69583°N 107.41556°W / 32.69583; -107.41556

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