Buenaventura River

[1] In 1776, two Franciscan missionaries Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante sought to find a land route between Santa Fe in Nuevo México to Monterey in Alta California.

[b] On September 13, they encountered what is now called the Green River in modern day Utah, a southward-flowing tributary of the Colorado and named it San Buenaventura after the catholic saint Bonaventure.

The Sevier Lake has no outlet, so the indigenes may have been referring to the west-flowing Humboldt River, which originates over 150 miles northwest, and were misinterpreted by the explorers.

[15] So, when, in 1841, John Bidwell embarked over the Rocky Mountains to California, he was advised to take carpenters tools with them, to build canoes and sail from the GSL to the Pacific.

[16] There had long been a hope that a river flowing west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean would provide an easy route for travel and trade.

Then, when Manuel Augustin Mascaro and Miguel Constanso made the first map of the whole Viceroyalty of New Spain (1784), they extended the "San Felipe" almost to the Sevier Lake.

[18] A similar map was published in 1820 by Sidney E. Morse showing the Rio de San Buenaventura flowing into a lake, the western limits of which are unknown.

[citation needed] Other cartographers began to boldly assert that rivers flowed from Lake Timpanogos and "Lac Salado" to the Pacific Ocean.

Henry S. Tanner's influential map of 1822 shows the Buenaventura River flowing from the north central Rockies through the Sevier Lake to the Pacific Ocean south of Monterey Bay.

The Great Salt Lake (GSL) was first seen and reported as very saline by white North Americans in 1824, apparently independently by Jim Bridger and Etienne Provost.

Despite not having gotten close to the Colorado River, he concluded that the Green did empty into it, and continued his exploration by engaging Provost to lead him on an overland excursion to observe the GSL.

[29] A map by Albert Gallatin (1836), based on information from Smith's travels, labels the Sacramento River as the Buenaventura and equated Lake Timpanogos with the GSL, but did not try to connect the two.

[35][36][i] After Frémont established that no rivers flowed across the Great Basin region to the Pacific, President Polk was reluctant to accept his conclusion.

Map by Barnardo de Miera, 1778, depicting the Buenaventura River as a faulty combination of Green River and Sevier River . The depiction of "Lake Timpanogos" with a narrow strait in the middle is probably a misunderstanding of the indigenes' description of the large lake to the north (the Great Salt Lake ) as directly connected to Utah Lake rather than connected by the 50 mile long Jordan River . "Laguna de Miera" is the Sevier Lake , again drawn from descriptions by the indigenes.
Map of the Watershed of the Sevier and Beaver Rivers, showing the Sevier's correct placement relative to the Green River . The lake to the north, just west of the city of Provo , is Utah Lake . The south tip of the Great Salt Lake can be seen at the top of the map.
Watershed map of the San Joaquin River, depicting its head in the Sierra Nevada
Tanner, Henry Schnek (1822). "Map of North America" . University of Tulsa, McFarling Library Department of Special Collections and University Archives . Archived from the original on March 9, 2016 . Retrieved December 26, 2015 . Section depicting the Pacific Coast with fictive Rivers from the Wasatch Range to the Pacific Ocean.
A German map from 1829 , very similar to the Tanner maps, showing the Buenaventura River running from Sierra Verde (part of the Rocky Mountains) though the Sevier lake (Teguayo) . The route between the Sevier Lake and the Pacific Ocean is represented as uncertain