Bennett-Arcane Long Camp

Bennett-Arcane Long Camp was a 1849er camp set up in December 1849 in Death Valley as they traveled to the California Gold Rush. They were emigrants crossing the harsh desert to get to California. The camp was located just west of valley's Badwater Basin in present-day Death Valley National Park. Badwater Basin is lowest point in North America and the United States, at a depth of 282 ft below sea level. The Bennett-Arcane party became known as the Death Valley '49ers. The Death Valley '49ers were pioneers from the Eastern United States travelling west to prospect in the Sutter's Fort area of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada in California. The wagon train crossed Utah across the Great Basin Desert in Nevada. They made a wrong turn on got trapped in Death Valley. After exiting they crossed the Mojave Desert into Southern California. Still wanting to go to the California Gold Country, the group used the southern Desert part of the Old Spanish Trail, after hearing about the death of the Donner Party. Allegedly, the Bennett-Arcane group coined the name Death Valley.

The group was suffering from poor health and low provisions, and they were unable to continue over the Panamint Range. John Haney Rogers and William Lewis Manly walked 250 miles across the Mojave Desert to Rancho San Fernando near Los Angeles, California. They found a route out of the valley for those trapped in Death Valley. At Rancho San Fernando they received food and horses from Mexican villagers to take back to the party. The group then traveled to Rancho San Francisco.

The group had split up in the valley; the other group was the Jayhawkers, who stayed with their original plan of traveling west out of the valley. Both groups were stuck in the valley for a month and both were saved from dying of thirst by a snow storm.

California Historical Landmark
California Historical Marker 444 was erected in 1949 by the California Centennials Commission and Death Valley ‘49ers. The marker is located at coordinates 36°09'48.3"N 116°51'48.1"W on West Side Road, west of Badwater, in Death Valley National Park.

The California Historical Landmark reads:
 * NO. 444 BENNETT-ARCANE LONG CAMP - Near this spot the Bennett-Arcane contingent of the Death Valley '49ers, emigrants from the Midwest, seeking a shortcut to California gold fields, were stranded for a month and almost perished from starvation. William Lewis Manley and John Rogers, young members of the party, made a heroic journey on foot to San Fernando and, returning with supplies, led the party to the safety of San Francisquito Rancho near Newhall.