It is not clear to what land Pratt was referring with his “notion of settling.” His description of following the Platte River through the mountains refers to the South Pass, but the Oregon and California trails actually split several hundred miles farther west in present-day south-central Idaho along the Snake River. Alternatively, Pratt may have been referring to the recently described Hastings Cutoff, which called for wagon trains to break from the Oregon Trail “about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; thence bearing west southwest, to the Salt lake” before rejoining the California Trail to San Francisco Bay. (See Meldahl, Hard Road West, 20–21; and Hastings, Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California, 137–138.)

Meldahl, Keith Heyer. Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Hastings, Lansford W. The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California, Containing Scenes and Incidents of a Party of Oregon Emigrants; a Description of Oregon; Scenes and Incidents of a Party of California Emigrants; and a Description of California; with a Description of the Different Routes to Those Countries; and All Necessary Information relative to the Equipment, Supplies, and the Method of Traveling. Cincinnati: George Conclin, 1845.