A renowned explorer travels through St. Joseph.
On August 4, 1860, one of the world’s most famous men arrived in St. Joseph. Sir Richard Francis Burton was a renowned explorer (he had searched for the fabled source of the Nile), poet, soldier, swordsman, linguist (he reportedly spoke 29 languages), diplomat, spy (he entered Mecca in disguise, since the penalty if caught was death), author (he wrote a three- volume narrative of his journey to Al-Madinah and Mecca), ethnologist, and translator (he translated The Arabian Nights and the erotic The Kama Sutra, to the shock of the proper British). He’d explored widely in Asia and Africa, and now he had set his mind on experiencing the American frontier.
Burton’s appearance alone commanded attention. Strikingly handsome, he was slim and broad-shouldered and stood six feet tall with black hair, a mustache, and dark, piercing eyes. (Some of his fellow Britons suggested he bore an uncanny resemblance to Satan.) He sported a vivid scar down his left cheek, the memento of a Somali warrior’s javelin.
Beginning his overland journey in St. Joseph was the obvious choice. Originally a tiny fur trading post, St. Joseph had burgeoned into the Gateway to the West, accommodating a seemingly endless stream of westbound prospectors and emigrants. For three days, Burton stayed at the elegant Patee House, which also served as the headquarters and eastern terminus of both the Overland Stagecoach line and the newly minted Pony Express that had recently made its first spectacular round trip to California.
On his fourth day, Burton stood outside the hotel with his allotted 25 pounds of luggage. A fastidious chronicler, he kept a detailed journal of his entire trip: “Precisely at 8 A.M. appeared in front of the Patee House … the vehicle destined to be our home for the next three weeks. We scrutinized it thoroughly …” What followed was a multipage description of the construction and workings of the Concord stagecoach.
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Stopping for dinner at the first station out of St. Joe, he noted, “Squalor and misery were imprinted upon the wretched log-hut … and myriad of flies disputed with us a dinner of doughnuts, green and poisonous …, suspicious eggs in a massive greasy fritter, and rusty bacon, intolerably fat. It was our first sight of squatter life.”
The Overland Stagecoach’s strict rules prohibiting drinking, gambling, and cursing were roundly ignored. Burton wrote, “I scarcely ever saw a sober driver.” Neither the conditions nor Burton’s opinion of them would improve with the miles.
One of Burton’s main objectives of the trip was to gain firsthand knowledge of the Mormons, whose practices (especially polygamy) were a popular subject of discussion in America and abroad. After traveling 1,136 miles in 19 days, the stagecoach stopped in Salt Lake City, and Burton disembarked for a three-week stay. He was given a rare audience with Mormon leader Brigham Young, whom he found highly intelligent and charismatic.
Upon resuming his journey to San Francisco, Burton found that conditions at the stations were no better than the ones before. He described a Nevada station as “a wretched place half built and wholly unroofed … filthy and squalid.”
When he returned to England, Burton penned a record of his American sojourn. The extraordinary 700-page The City of the Saints, and Across the Rocky Mountains to California includes his finely drawn sketches and details of the flora, fauna, people, places, and customs of the country through which he’d passed.
This article was originally printed in the September 2026 issue of Missouri Life.
