Misspelled Memorial to Pioneer Stephens

The Donner Party is famous for the problems they had crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains at what is now called Donner Pass. 

But the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party had made that crossing first and successfully reached California from Iowa in 1844, two years earlier than the remnants of the Donner Party. 

Leading the company of 28 wagons with 10 families, consisting of 50 men, women and children, was Elijah Stephens. 

The route he followed through the mountains isn't named after him, but the street he eventually lived on is—although it's been misspelled (Stevens Creek, not Stephens Creek) for more than 100 years.

A 44-year-old South Carolina native, Stephens had worked as a blacksmith and had been a fur trapper in the Northwest.

In The Martin Murphy Family Saga, Marjorie Pierce describes Stephens as a "homely man with narrow eyes placed too close together, a hawk nose and large ears ... a loner lacking in communications skills."

He may not have been much to look at, but he did get them here, arriving at Sutter's Fort with two more than began the journey: During the seven-month trail, two women gave birth.

Dr. John Townsend, leader of the second family in the group guided by Stephens, became San Francisco's first doctor. Fans riding Caltrain to watch the San Francisco Giants games at AT&T ball park exit the train at Fourth and Townsend, the street named for him.

Many of the Murphy family settled locally—Sunnyvale's popular downtown street bears their family name, correctly spelled. San Martin and Murphys in the Sierra are only two of many places named for the pioneer family.

In 1848, Stephens chose 160 acres acres along , which eventually took his name in its current form. He later added another 156 acres.

He named his property Blackberry Farm, and so it is today as a recreation area and nine-hole, par 29, golf course. 

Pierce credits Stephens with being the first settler in Cupertino, but in the early 1860s, he sold his property to George McCauley and William McClellan, claiming, "It's gittin' jist too crowded, too durn civilized." 

He moved to Bakersfield in Kern County and lived to the age of 84.

And while Bakersfield does have a Stephens Drive tucked in a residential neighborhood, off Highway 99, Pierce reports that in 1994, through the efforts of California historian, James J. Rose, a peak in the Sierra near Donner Lake was named—correctly—Mount Stephens for the man who successfully lead the first wagon train on what became known as the California Trail.

Finally, they got it right.