Excited pioneers milled about at the covered wagon
encampment near Council Bluffs, Iowa on a late May morning in 1852. The prairie
schooners, bright with fresh paint and white canvas tops, sparkled in the spring
sunshine. While the menfolk pinned the yokes to the ox teams, the women snuffed
out the cook fires. Children and dogs raced about, scattering chickens, jumping
over chums and wagon tongues, and playing hide-and-seek behind the huge wheels.
All seemed confusion until a man's voice rang out above the racket, "Turn
out! Turn out!"
A great cheer burst forth. "Oregon or
bust" the men shouted. Some fired their guns skyward in sheer exuberance.
Others hastily stowed their remaining belongings in the wagons. Women climbed
onto the high seats and reached for toddlers handed up to them. Older children
scrambled up behind their parents or jostled for positions at the rear to peer
out through the puckered opening in the canvas top.
The guide waved his hat and pointed westward toward
Oregon, the Promised Land. As teams on the lead wagons laid into their yokes,
the great iron-tired wheels rolled slowly forward. One after another, the wagons
moved out onto an ocean of green prairie. The great adventure began in sunshine
and song. It ended five or more months later, as the weary travelers dragged to
a halt on the banks of the Columbia River.
Daniel and Lorena Gardner with their four
daughters, Ellen, age nine, Sophia, age seven, Amanda, age five and Sarah, age
one, had joined the train earlier that month.
They had started their journey westward on May 16,
1852, when they left their farm in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, a short distance
from Council Bluffs with two ox teams, twelve cows and a horse. Like others, all
of their worldly possessions were in the wagon and on their backs. They would
start the venture with few resources but with faith in themselves and God.
The Oregon Trail was the longest of the great
overland routes used in the westward expansion of the United States. It wound
over 2000 miles through prairies and deserts and across mountains from
Independence, Missouri to the Pacific Northwest. Even today, travelers can see
the deeply rutted road cut by wagon wheels along sections of the trail.
Explorers and fur traders first traced the course
of the Oregon Trail. In 1805, Meriweather Lewis and William Clark traveled on
the western sector of the route in the region of the Snake and Columbia rivers.
The Whitmans, Methodist missionaries, took a wagon over the trail in 1837 and
settlers began to use the trail in 1841. In 1843, the first large number of
emigrants, about 900, crossed. The primary reasons given by pioneers for
traveling west were land, fur, gold, and the conversion of Indians to
Christianity. The trail continued to be the main land crossing route to the west
until the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1867. By that time, an
estimated 350,000 emigrants had crossed.
For the children and the younger people, the
journey was a long, exciting picnic. For some of the ailing and elderly, it
meant a trailside grave. For farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and adventurers, the
exhausting labor, the suffering and the danger seemed worth the risk if, in the
end, all that survived the journey prospered.
Late April or early May was the best time to get
rolling. The departure date had to be calculated with care. If a wagon train
started too early in the spring, there would not be enough grass on the prairie
to graze the livestock. The animals would start to sicken, slowing up the train
and causing alterations of schedule that might bring trouble later. On the other
hand, a train that pushed off after other trains were already on the trail often
found campsites marked by trampled grass and fouled water holes. Worse still, an
emigrant company that dallied too long could get trapped at the far end of the
journey by early winter blizzards in the Cascade mountains. Obviously, it was
important to get to the jump-off point on the Missouri river at the right
moment, and to keep pretty close to schedule.
To reach that point, a family from the east could
either buy a steamboat passage to Missouri for themselves, their wagons and
their livestock, or, as happened more often, simply pile everything into a
wagon, hitch up a team, and begin their overland trek right in their own front
yard. The Gardners started
their travels from their farm in Pottewattamie County Iowa.
Lodisa Frizzell's diary tersely recorded her
departure in 1852 from her home near Ewington, Illinois;
"We (that is, George, Westall, Bethel, Elliot,
my husband and myself) started for California on the 14th day of April, with
five yoke of cattle, one pony with sidesaddle and were accompanied by several of
our friends and neighbors as far as the first town, where we parted and said our
last good-by."
Along the macadamized roads and turnpikes east of
the Missouri River, travel was comparatively fast, camping easy, and supplies
plentiful. Then, in one river town or another, the neophyte emigrants would
pause to lay in provisions. For
outfitting purposes, the town of Independence had been preeminent ever since
1827, but the rising momentum of pioneer emigration had produced some rival
jump-off points.
The Conestoga wagons used in the east were too
heavy for the mountain trails, and a new wagon called a prairie schooner was
designed. Typically, it had a bed ten feet long, four feet wide, and two feet
deep. It weighed about one thousand pounds and could carry from one thousand to
fifteen hundred pounds. A team of four oxen pulled the wagon, and two additional
oxen were taken to change off and relieve the pulling team. Oxen cost $50 each,
mules $90. Oxen had the advantages of endurance and strength. In addition, they
wouldn't run away and the Indians didn't want to steal them like horses. They
pulled a wagon about two miles an hour, and averaged about fifteen miles per
day. It was necessary to stop each day for several hours around noon-time to let
the oxen and other livestock graze and rest.
In the Annals of the S. W. R. Jones Family, Oregon
1853-1930. by Grace Austin, Nancy Austin Gardner's grandmother, a chapter is
entitled "Crossing The Plains." Sarah Jones Clarke who is Nancy's
great-great aunt included in her diary stories her parents told of the journey
on the Oregon Trail. The Jones family crossed the plains about the same time the
Gardners undertook the journey. Sarah wrote:
"Indiana is justly proud of her statesmen,
poets, authors, artists, and of her record as a state; but in her history no
epoch is of more importance the transportation of many of her people to the
western slope, ‘Where rolls the Oregon.' It was a long trail but the pioneer
had vision and was the advance guard to Oregon's wave-washed shore, the land of
the Sundown Sea. Crossing the plains is one on the great events of American
history!.
"The fact that my parents were Pioneers, gave
zest to my interest in people migrating from the Eastern States. In 1853 many
came from Indiana, among them my father and mother and their ten children. Their
home in Indiana was one of beauty and love and gave joy of living, but they read
of and became interested in the far west. They learned of its vast area of
unfilled land, of its extensive meadows, of its grand growth of timber which
would afford shelter for grazing herds. Visions of a home in the new territory,
surrounded by broad acres and beautiful fields, led them to make plans to
emigrate to Oregon.
"To prepare the family of ten children for
months of travel was a heavy task. Clothing must be purchased and made and food
must be provided for weeks to come. The excitement of getting ready was
interesting, but after that came the serious part, that of farewells to friends
and relatives. Church ties, which were very strong, must be severed.
"A few days before starting west. Father and
Mother took Willie and made a last visit to Mother's sister, Susannah, at
Cloverdale. Only that 'tis sweet to know of love, would we dwell on this sad
parting between two sisters who had always been companions. Their love would
live, but their companionship must end. During this visit, Willie took the
measles from his cousins. Tills was lamentable as they were carried to his
brothers and sisters.
"On the fifth of March, all was in readiness.
Winter was melting into Spring, which breathed beauty in budding trees and home
surroundings. Sadly the family lingered in the last farewell to the home where
father, mother, and children had spent so many happy hours. The village of Santa
Fe, near which they lived, had never seemed so attractive. The dear old school
house had never appealed to the children in the same way. Picture this family of
ten children in the same way. Picture this family of ten children leaving home
environments for an unknown land. But Father and Mother were unusual people, and
their family never doubted their wisdom.
"The train moved westward by way of Quincy,
Illinois, where crackers were purchased from a passing vendor. The first
steamboat ever seen by the children was on the Illinois River and enlisted much
attention. At St. Louis the train halted a few days. Sister Rachel was too ill
with the measles to travel and brother Joe, who had had the misfortune to lose
one of his fingers, needed medical care."
At that time, the westernmost edge of the formally
constituted United States ended at the Missouri river. California appeared on
the map as a northern province of Mexico, and already a small but prosperous
community of Spanish speaking cattle ranchers had settled there. Until 1821, the
Oregon Country was known as the Columbia District. It was a huge tract of
wilderness that extended north from California all the way up the Pacific coast
to Alaska, then owned by Russia. A treaty in 1818 gave joint occupancy of the
northwest to England and the United States. In 1819, a treaty was signed with
Spain setting the southern boundary of the Columbia District at 42 degrees
north, and in 1824, the northern boundary was set at 54 degrees, 40 minutes with
Russia. In 1822, Congress passed a bill establishing the Oregon Territory.
Later, the 49th parallel was established. as the northern boundary.
The route from Council Bluffs took the wagon train
up the Platte River and the North Branch along the North Platte to the
Sweetwater branch, and crossed through South Pass in the Rocky Mountains. At
Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the pioneers were about half way, a distance of
approximately 1060 miles, from the start. The route turned northwest to Fort
Hall in the Snake River area, and on to Fort Boise, Idaho. Settlers crossed the
Grande Ronde Valley and the Blue Mountains to Marcus Whitman's mission at Walla
Walla, Washington. Then they traveled down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver
and the Willamette Valley of Oregon, a total distance of about 2030 miles.
The Oregon Trail, compiled and written by the
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration in 1939 gave this
account:
"Much maudlin sympathy has been wasted on the
pioneers; few of them asked for it. They were taking part in one of the great
mass movements of history and they knew it, as is shown by the diaries they kept
under difficult conditions, by letters they wrote to the hometown newspapers and
to friends, and by the efforts they made to leave their names on various rocks
along the way. To many, the journey was an exhilarating picnic, with gossip,
chatter, love-making, sightseeing and adventure providing them with something to
boast about for the rest of their lives. If the hardships were greater than they
anticipated, the majority was undismayed. Cholera epidemics along the trail in
1849, 1850 and 1852 took a heavy toll, as such epidemics did in the cities. On
the whole, the emigrants had such good health on the trail that hordes of sick
and anemic persons journeyed to the Missouri to travel at least for a time with
the parties. Had the emigrants stayed home, the average annual death rate would
have been 500 in every 20,000; probably the death rate on the trail from natural
causes was lower than at home."
Still, death on the trail was in the minds of the
Gardners and all the others who left Council Bluffs that day. Illnesses of
cholera, smallpox, measles, camp fever, and dysentery were common. Accidents at
river crossings (not many people knew how to swim in those days,) children
falling under wagon wheels, gun shot wounds, child birth, lightning, stampeding
buffalo, poisoned water, heart attacks, heat stroke, and appendicitis were all
feared. It is estimated that 34,000 pioneers died, 10% of the total emigrants.
That amounts to 17 deaths per mile. Of the deaths, it is estimated that only 362
were killed by Indians.
Sarah continued in her diary:
"In a few days the train crossed the Missouri
River. Wagons were made so that they could be used as boats and, when a stream
was to be forded, a rope was attached to the wagon and it was drawn across the
river. After crossing the Missouri they saw their first tribe of Indians.
"While we slept the Indians drove away our
cattle. The next day Father followed them on his pony and coming in sight of
them, waved his hat and ordered them to bring the cattle back. They obeyed. This
was one of the very remarkable incidents of the Western trip. Father was a man
of strong character and his power to control was manifested at this time.
"When we arrived at the Platte River, very
heavy winds were encountered and the top of the family wagon was blown off.
Wagons were carried away if they were not staked to the ground. Sue and Rachel
took Silas and held his hands to see if the wind would lift him. The Platte was
crossed and re-crossed many times.
"Sometimes Willie and Sue drove Bundle and
Whiteface hitched to the small wagon. When tired of riding they walked on the
burning sands. Once, while driving, they encountered a hail storm and were
pelted by trail stones as large as walnuts."
Perhaps one of the families who left Council Bluffs
with the Gardners was the family of Henry Laffer Caples, who later settled on
the Lewis River. On May 15, 1852, he, his wife and two sons as well as his uncle
Philip Laffer and his wife, joined a 16- wagon train which started from Sidney,
Ohio, for the Pacific Northwest. Caples was elected captain of the train. They
made 16 miles the first day. Preparations for the trip included laying in a
"good supply of staples such as flour, corn meal, bacon, rice, dried fruits,
sugar, coffee, tea, and seasonings of all kinds, a barrel of soda crackers, a
ten gallon keg of homemade cucumber pickles, highly seasoned with pepper
sauce," according to Margaret Caples' diary.
Another account lists 200 Ibs. of flour per person
and 100 lbs. of flour per child, so Mrs. Caples record must have been per
person. Wood was scarce on the trail and there wasn't room in the wagons to
carry a supply; so the children collected dried buffalo chips, "dung"
for the camp fires.
Out of Fort Kearney, the train, enlarged then by
combining with another, was besieged by war-painted Indians who were fed, and,
the diary calmly asserts, "persuaded to leave." The following day they
learned from other travelers that there had been a bloody battle fought between
the Cheyenne and Pawnee tribes. The Indians who had invaded the camp were
defeated Pawnee seeking, not scalps, but protection.
Another account of an encounter with Indians on the
trail was written by Rachel Bennett and her daughter Ella Schurman. They
recorded the story of George Backman Jr., Rachel's grandfather who in 1864
bought the donation land claim owned by Jacob Johns in the Lewis River area. He
and his family started their journey on the Oregon Trail about April 1, 1852,
just a month before the Gardners began their migration. Rachel and Ella wrote:
"He (George Backman Sr.) had several wagons of
his own with two yoke of oxen to the wagon and several spare oxen for
replacements. His extra wagons were used to convey other emigrants to
California, they paying their passage. Having made a previous trip and being a
man of energy and ability, he was elected captain for the trip. Though the train
was a large one there were but nine women and one baby, who was George Backman
Jr., then two years old.
"The train was too large to be an easy prey to
the Indians, but they suffered several attacks, losing three oxen, among them
the best one he had, from Indian arrows. Several others were lost on account of
alkali. Knowing the Indian method of approach, George Backman always formed a
round corral, running each wagon tongue under the wagon ahead of it in ample
time to let the stock feed before turning them into the corral for the night. He
required his guards to lie down while doing their turns at guard duty. This was
due to the fact that the Indian always crawled up on the ground and a man
standing would show against the sky line. With the guards lying down the case
was reversed and the Indian scouts appeared against the sky line as they slowly
and cautiously rose to peer about. Thus the Indians were at the disadvantage.
"Captain Backman ingeniously met a great
buffalo stampede. Instead of the usual corral he ordered the wagons into a
formation with one wagon at the head facing the oncoming thousands and the others
placed in a "V" formation behind it so that the herd divided and sheared off on
each side. In this way they got out in good shape."
One of the most detailed accounts of the eastern
section of the Oregon Trail was written by Francis Parkman who with a friend,
Quincy Adams Shaw undertook the trip as a vacation journey after graduating from
college. Parkman wrote for the Knickerbocker Magazine. Their adventure started
in the spring of 1846. He wrote:
"I pass by the following day or two of our
journey, for nothing occurred worthy of record. Should any one of my readers
ever be impelled to visit the prairies, and should he choose the route of the
Platte (the best, perhaps, that can be adopted), I can assure him that he need
not think to enter at once upon the paradise of his imagination. A dreary
preliminary, a protracted crossing of the threshold, awaits him before he finds
himself finally upon the verge of the Great American Desert, those barren
wastes, the haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where the very shadow of
civilization lies a hundred leagues behind him.
"The intervening country, the wide and fertile
belt that extends for several hundred miles beyond the extreme frontier, will
probably answer tolerably well to his preconceived ideas of the prairie: for
this it is from which picturesque tourists, painters, poets, and novelists, who
have seldom penetrated farther, have derived their conceptions of the whole
region. If he has a painter's eye, he may find his period of probation not
wholly void of interest. The scenery, though tame, is graceful and pleasing.
Here are level plains too wide for the eye to measure; green undulations like
motionless swells of the ocean; abundance of streams followed through all their
windings by lines of woods and scattered groves.
"But let him, be as enthusiastic as he may, he
will find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons will stick in the mud; his horses
will break loose; harnesses will give away; and axle-trees prove unsound. His
bed will be a soft one, consisting often of black mud of the richest
consistency. As for food, he must content himself with biscuit and salt
provisions; for strange as it may seem, this tract of country produces very
little game. As he advances indeed he will see, moldering in the grass by his
path, vast antlers of the elk, and farther on, the whitened skulls of the
buffalo, once swarming over this now deserted region. Perhaps like us he may
journey for a fortnight, and see not so much as the hoof print of a deer; in the
spring not even a prairie hen is to be had.
"Yet, to compensate him for the unlooked-for
deficiency of game, he will find himself beset with "varmints"
innumerable. The wolves will entertain him with a concert at night, skulk around
him by day just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into a badger hole; from
every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and trilling of
legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape, and dimensions. A
profusion of snakes will glide away from under his horse's feet, or quietly
visit him in his tent at night; while the pertinacious humming of unnumbered
mosquitoes will banish sleep from his eyelids. When thirsty from a long ride in
the scorching sun over some boundless reach of prairie, he comes at length to a
pool of water and alights to drink. He discovers a troop of young tadpoles
sporting in the bottom of his cup. Add to this that all the morning the sun
beats upon him with a sultry, penetrating heat, and that with provoking
regularity, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, a thunderstorm rises and
drenches him to the skin."
Amanda Gardner Colvin, the third daughter of Daniel
and Lorena, was five years old at the time of the emigration. She gave this
account of one incident on the crossing:
"I was in the back of the prairie schooner and
crawled up to mother for protection, being afraid of the Indians. Of course,
mother refused giving up the cow. Father soon rode up and, learning what was the
matter, told the men to take the steers by the horns and told them to go when he
told them to do so. Then he told
the Indians to 'Clatawa.' They shook their blankets to stampede the steers.
Father cracked his whip at the Indians, who, seeing that they were up against a
man that was determined to win, yelled 'puck chee' and away they went."
(The first part of this story is lost but apparently the Indians had stopped the
train and tried to take a cow.)
The daily routine started at four a.m. when the
night guards fired a gun shot. Fires were rekindled, emigrants ate a breakfast
of sowbelly (bacon) and slam-Johns, (pancakes), the livestock was rounded up and
the oxen yoked to the wagons. By seven a.m. the train was formed and ready to
move out. Often the wagon leader would shout, "Wagons Ho!"
Travel at a slow pace was boring. Women used the
time to knit and do other family chores. Children played games, the older ones
walked and sometimes sailed buffalo chips like Frisbees. After four hours
covering about eight miles, the wagons stopped for "nooning." While
the cattle grazed, clothing was washed and lunch was prepared. Axles were
greased, leather harnesses checked and repaired, and scouts reported on the
trail ahead. By two p.m., the train was on the trail again and didn't stop until
six p.m. and sometimes later if the moon was out. Wagons were drawn into a
circle and evening fires started. Dinner was prepared, usually the heaviest meal
of the day. When the hunters were lucky, fresh buffalo steak or stewed prairie
chicken was cooked. After
dinner, there might be fiddle or harmonica music, a dance, or just a quiet time
to read the Bible.
The trail passed by a many-tiered, four hundred
foot high heap of clay and volcanic ash which bore a certain resemblance to a
municipal building in St. Louis. It was inevitable dubbed the "Court
House" (off to its side stood a smaller satellite rock, the "Jail
House"), the "Court House" inspired many a simile like, "a
cathedral in ruins," "the Tower of Babel," "the Capital at
Washington," and many a side trip.
"I clim over 200 feet high and rote my name
there," said one man, who also recorded a scare on the rock: "I had
like to fall down."
COURTHOUSE ROCK WITH JAIL ROCKS
IN THE BACKGROUND
Another recorded account of the Gardners' journey:
"At Court House Rock, due to the sickness of
their daughter Ellen, the Gardners dropped out of the train in which they had
been traveling. Daniel and Lorena had lost two sons before leaving on the
journey, Sidney, age six in 1849 and Elijah at birth in 1850. After a three
week delay to restore Ellen to health, they joined another family of four
persons and a teamster so continued traveling. This small group continued on
unattached to any special company and camped as fortune willed, occasionally
with large bands and sometimes with small. "
The account of the Gardners traveling with a
teamster and another family "occasionally" with other groups possibly
should say "often" with other groups. By 1852, the Indians had become
more resentful of the white man's intrusion of their lands, and other accounts
indicate that small, unprotected groups of emigrants were attacked for robbery
and murder. There is no record of a large group of wagons coming under armed
attack by the Indians.
Besides Court House Rock, landmarks along the trail
included Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. The trail then passed Fort Laramie, a
trading post established by the American Fur Company. It monopolized the Indian
trade of the area. The Fort was a distance of 640 miles from Independence. The
merchants charged exorbitant prices; sugar was two dollars a cup.
From there, the trail followed the North Platte and
Sweetwater rivers. Later emigrants found Independence Rock, where many pioneers
scratched their names in the soft sandstone. At South Pass, the wagons crossed
the Continental Divide, the point where rivers flow either to the eastern or
western United States. Then came Fort Bridger unless a short cut was taken. At
Fort Hall, the pioneers had traveled about two thirds of the journey. They
followed the Snake River for about 250 miles. It was necessary to cross the
Snake at a place about 600 feet wide. Different methods were used to get the
wagons and livestock across, depending on the water level. When it was deep, the
wagons were disassembled and taken across on rafts. When it was shallow, the
wagons could be driven across with guide ropes. It was another 100 miles from
the river crossing to Fort Boise. After that , the Blue Mountains, the Whitman
Mission, Fort Walla Walla, and the Columbia River.
Jesse Berryman Jones, Nancy Austin Gardner's
great-grandfather, was six years old when he crossed the plains. He wrote:
"Those childhood memories! As one's link to
life's chain circles to its close, how near, how precious they are.
"Then our elders concluded that we must go to
Oregon. The Jones family was growing faster than the country , and White River
Bottom would not be able to hold much longer. The first incident of the journey
that I can recall was stopping for a railroad train to go by. The cars sounded
like a lot of tin pans tied together. The crossing of the Mississippi River on a
double decked ferry boat was more to my notion.
"In St. Joe, Missouri, I had the measles.
There was an old Negro woman who came around with her herb tea, well sweetened.
Have since learned that it was saffron. I have been unable to decide whether the
measles got me or I got them. Be that as it may, I got rid of them.
"Never since I saw it -- Independence Rock, I
mean -- have I forgotten our camp there. I can give but a faint idea of the impression that is so lasting, but it is a red rock eighty or a hundred feet
high. Joe got a scolding for climbing up to cut his name over all, I wonder if
the rain and frost have left the marks of those early pioneers.
"Fort Kearney was next, where it appeared that
the soldiers wore gold buttons on their coats. Nearly every man in our train
bought a hat at the army post but in a short time the wind got the better of
them. " (About farms near Fort Kearney there are peculiar fences, built of
wooden frames used by the pioneers in crossing the many divisions of the
wide-spread, windy and altogether treacherous Platte River. In my childhood I
heard so many stories on the Platte that to me it and quicksand are
synonymous.-Grace Jones Austin)
Another Oregon Trail account stated:
"It is worth noticing that for many years on
the Platte one could sometimes see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed
tables, well waxed and rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved oak. These, some of
them no doubt the relics of ancestral prosperity in the colonial times, must
have encountered strange vicissitudes. Brought perhaps originally from across
the Alleghenies to the wilderness of Ohio or Kentucky; then to Illinois or
Missouri; and now at last fondly stowed away in the family wagon for the
interminable journey to Oregon. But the stem privations of the way are little
anticipated. The cherished relic is soon flung out to scorch and crack upon the
hot prairie.
Along the trail, most pioneers summoned up
reserves of indomitable courage. They endured everything from heat prostration
to a mule kick on the shins. If they went hungry for a time because so many
things could go wrong at the trail-side cook fire, they simply waited and made
do. One woman, suspending her soup kettle on a makeshift tripod, saw it upset
five times as the fragile legs of the tripod kept giving away. She hung the
kettle up time and again. "I intend having that soup," she vowed, and
finally sat down to her dinner, or what was left of it.
More than heroics, what got the pioneers through
was the kind of unyielding determination shown by that soup maker. Another woman
whose patience proved more than a match for the trials of the trail was Amelia
Knight She, her husband Joel, and their seven children, left Iowa in 1853 bound
for Oregon. Their trip turned out to be an odyssey of minor disasters.
On one day or another, Amelia added these notes to
her diary:
"Made our beds down in the tent in the wet and
mud...Cold and cloudy this morning and everybody out of humor. Daughter Seneca
is half sick. Son Plutarch had broke his saddle girth. Husband is scolding and
hurrying all hands (and cook), and daughter Almira says she wishes she was at
home, and I say ditto...Have to eat cold supper...We are creeping along slowly,
one wagon after another, same old gait; and the same thing over, out of one hole
and into another all day. Them that eat the most breakfast eat the most
sand...It has been raining all day long. The men and boys are all soaking wet
and look sad and comfortless. The little ones and myself are shut up in the
wagons from the rain. Take us all together, we are a poor looking set, and all
this for Oregon."
Jesse Jones' story continued:
"On one of the plodding days far out on the
plains, we had stopped for our noon meal when there came riding about a hundred
painted warriors. Joe got out his pistol but father made him put it back. When
they rode up with long gleaming spears and bows and arrows. Father gave the
chief some bread and milk. He tasted the milk and handed it back, grunting,
'Ugh, papoose,' but the 'Hiyu muck-a-muck' he passed to his followers. A war
party of Crows going to fight the Black-feet, I was told.
"I cannot tell when it was that we came to a
place where the water stank. All about the rest of if was so strong with alkali
that they hitched up and we traveled all night. Next day we came to a beautiful
clear stream where the cattle would not drink. Dave Bowles put his hand down to
the water but jerked if up, yelling, 'Boiling hot!' Cold water was found at a
spring close by.
"Whether it was before or after this place I
cannot say, but at Green River we buried West Jean's son, Lige Junior. They made
a box of poplar we had along and covered if with brush, then rocks, then dirt of
sand.
"Much is left out. I can't place where Father
got the black mule and shot the buffalo. Nor the antelopes either. But I can
remember of his riding into a stream and killing fish as long as Joe. (The last
I saw him he said the stream was Zig Zag, Oregon.) Neither can I place where it
was that West Jeans wouldn't let Junior shoot the robbers that tried to steal
our horses, nor where Junior said 'Bow-wow, stop,' to the wolf that was after
our grub. But I can remember that the Indians were very sassy and that it was in
Snake River Bottom that we saw the bones of the emigrants and the feather beds
by the wayside."
Sarah continued her story:
"A system was used in selecting camping spots
by sending some one ahead for that purpose, as they desired to camp near water.
This was often hard to find. Sometimes the guide would come to a small stream
that would prove to be hot, or perhaps a sulfur spring. As the train passed
through Alkali regions some of the oxen drank the poisonous water and a number
of them died. Bacon was used as an antidote but out of fourteen oxen, only two
were saved. On the Snake River, when the train camped, some Indians appeared
and, using their method of dropping onto the sides of their ponies and giving
war whoops, caused a stampede of the horses. Two were lost.
"In 1852 cholera was disastrous to the
travelers and many were buried on the Pioneer Way only to be dug up by ravenous
wolves or coyotes. The bones of the unfortunate victims were found scattered
along the plains and, so common did the skulls become, people used them for
drinking cups.
"Days of weary travel lengthened into weeks
and months, and the family varied the monotony as they could. Finally Oregon's
great Cascade Range was in sight. In imagination one can picture the emigrant
train of way-worn travelers, ascending and descending these mountains, making
their way through vast groves of pine trees, fording swift mountain stream,
their faces glowing with hopes almost realized. On the western mountain slopes
the beautiful laurel with its wonderful clusters of delicate pink/lowers was
much in evidence, but Laurel Hill was so steep as to be almost impassable.
Undoubtedly the slogan of the faithful Pioneers was, "There shall be no
Alps.' They mastered Nature's impediments and hope of reward made them brave.
After almost five months of continuous travel the Jones family arrived at its
destination.
"In
my childhood, when the evening meal was over, sometimes accompanied by Mother, I
would seek the campfire of Pioneers who, weary with travel, camped near a home
where water was available. I enjoyed listening to their description of the long
trip on the plains and their impressions of Oregon. I still picture the twilight
scene of the covered wagon, the campfire surrounded with the immigrant family.
The setting was a green sward near an oak grove, and in the dim distance the
Cascade Range, its snows tinged with shadowy blue. and beyond, outlined against
the horizon, Mt. Hood with its silvered crest, crowning Oregon, Pride of the
West."
Again from Jesse:
"When you go over the Cascades and cross
Boulder Creek, look up in the left and see the emigrant trail where they had to
tie chains to the trees to get the wagons down. And you, who by their sacrifices
have your plenty, go over to the old Daugherty Place and see the log cabin that
sheltered the Jones in the winter of 1853- 4, Lizzie being the youngest often.
And besides them, the Skene family, numbering five.
"Fifty years have passed since then, but never
shall I forget that winter, nor that Mother saw to it that we had plenty to eat
and clothing enough to keep us warm. For children recollect more than they are
credited with. Another fifty years and we older ones shall be a part of that past
so dimly recalled by J. B. Jones.
"By the time the wagon trains readied the
western slope of the Rockies, the oxen moved so slowly that the burning Valley
of the Snake River seemed to have but one end, the one they had entered. The
drivers trudged along under the blazing sun and with weary voices, muffled by
suffocating dust, and the loud cracking of the long rawhides, urged along file
patient beasts that, with lowered heads swinging beneath the cumbersome yokes,
plodded the ups and downs of a roughhewn, unknown way. Though most of the food
supply was gone, the loads were far too heavy for the exhausted cattle.
"A young descendant said thoughtlessly, 'They
used boiled wheat for cereal, I suppose.' They did. Wheat, boiled for twelve
hours, took the place of mush and bread and cake. They did have milk. There were
no crops for almost a year after their arrival in the fall, and sometimes even
wheat was so scarce that it was rationed with care. No wonder Grandmother use to
say, 'You children eat what's set before you.'"
The 1849 gold rush brought thousands of people over
the eastern section of the Oregon Trail to California. One was Jonathan Gerow,
who later married the Gardner's oldest daughter, Ellen. In 1850, two thousand
wrecked wagons were counted in a six-mile stretch of the Carson Valley section
of the route. In 1852, forty thousand emigrants traveled the trail. In 1853 and
1854 the gold fever was about over and those emigrating at that time were
largely settlers with families. But on August 18,1854, the rosy situation on the
trail erupted in a costly massacre.
Some Brule Sioux Indians camped near Fort Laramie
stole a cow from a Mormon who reported the theft to the fort. An arrogant young
officer of the Sixth Infantry, Lt. John Grattan, marched out with twenty-eight
soldiers, two cannon, and a drunken interpreter to arrest the thief. Bitter
words flared into a fight and the entire military force was wiped out. The
Indians then pillaged two other trading posts before fleeing from the region.
The other tribes abstained from violence so there was no further trouble that
year or for most of 1855.
Meanwhile, Army authorities, well supplied with
emigrants' exaggerated tales, decided the Bruie Sioux must be punished. General
W. S. Harney marched from Fort Leavenworth with six hundred men. At Ash Hollow,
one hundred and fifty miles below Fort Laramie, they attacked Little Thunder's
village, killing eighty-six Indians and capturing as many women and children.
From that time on, the emigrants paid with their lives as the Sioux, and later
other tribes sought revenge until all were finally penned on reservations.
A mission under the superintendency of Jason Lee
had been established by Daniel Lee and H. K. W. Perkins at The Dalles in 1838.
Owing to their failure to interest the Indians, the Methodists sold the property
in 1846 to the Whitman mission, but it was abandoned after the Whitman massacre
in 1847. From the time of the mission's establishment the settlement that grew
around it became an intermediate goal to transcontinental travelers as the
single place of white habitation in the area. Many travelers and would-be
settlers found their supplies completely exhausted by the time they reached this
point, and the unfriendly Indians learned to exploit the emigrants' needs,
making exorbitant demands for goods in return for pounded fish and other
foodstuffs.
The Indians' values were peculiar, however. Father
DeSmet, when passing The Dalles in the early 1840's, found the Indians proudly
parading in odds and ends of clothing obtained from the whites. The envied dandy
of the party wore a lady's nightcap with wide flapping white frills.
In 1847 Fort Dalles was established to protect
emigrants. The first store was established in 1850. The plight of the average
newcomer reaching The Dalles is shown in George A. Waggoner's account of his
family's migration experience:
"We left our wagon on the Umatilla ...
We packed
our bedding on Old Nig, the last ox left us, and started on afoot ... My father
sold him (Old Nig) at The Dalles for $20 to buy food. We stopped there two
weeks. Father found an old stove and rigged up a table of some old end gates and
sideboards of an abandoned wagon and ran a lunch counter for the soldiers and
civilians who were building the military post."
Barbara Caples related this story:
"Later, at the Umatilla Agency, an Indian
chief was fascinated by the Caples' blue-eyed blond baby, Hal, and offered fifty
ponies for him. Rebuffed, he countered with 'How many ponies will you take? I'll
give all you want.' Briskly, Margaret Caples wrote in her diary: 'Needless to
say, no bartering was done.'"
The Daniel Gardner story continued:
"On November 30, 1852, they arrived at The
Dalles, and there being no houses except those of the Government Post and
Craig's store, they pitched their tents. The winter was so severe, three feet of
snow, that they lost all their cows, but saved the two yoke of oxen and the
horse. There was little feed to be had, and the river was frozen over. Mr.
Gardner contracted with the government to burn wood to make charcoal for 50
cents per bushel, and found it no child's play because the wood had to be hauled
to the pit by hand on a sled.
"As soon as the Columbia River opened its ice
bound bonds, Mr. Gardner sent his family down to Portland on the steamer. Sea
Serpent, where in the latter part of April he joined them. On the way they
passed a night at Dick Ouglis' place in Clark County. Mr. Gardner then sought a
site for their future home. He went overland to the North Fork of the Lewis
River, thence to the Cowlitz Region, and on to Rainier, Oregon. He returned to
the Lewis River and about the first day in May, 1853, staked out a Donation Land
Claim in Hayes, four and a half miles from the present town of Woodland. "
TIRED PIONEERS NEAR THE END OF THEIR JOURNEY
And from Amanda Gardner Colvins' story:
"The wagon train arrived at The Dalles Oregon the
last day of November, 1852. Here they lost all their cows, though they saved
their horse and the oxen. In January of 1853, they came to Portland, Oregon.
From there they went on up to Martins Bluff, Washington and then worked back
past Burk's, Stong's. and Bozorth's farms to Hayes where Mr. Gardner took his
claim on May 9th, 1853. There, a Hayes Post Office was established and operated
as such for several years."
It is not known how the Gardner family traveled to the
lower reaches of the Cascade Rapids where they boarded the steamer. Sea Serpent.
The steamer James P. Flint started service from The Dalles to the Cascade Rapids
in 1851 and a mule powered railway was available for portage. Steamers had been
in operation on the lower Columbia for over 10 years. The first was the Beaver,
built in London in 1835. When the ship arrived at Fort Vancouver, John
McLoughlin considered the ship "esthetically unpleasant and economically
unsound." God's free wind appealed to his thrifty Scottish soul.
In Narcissa Whitman's book, MY JOURNAL, she
described the portage down the Chutes, some rapids a short distance upriver from
The Dalles as follows:
"Sept. 8th, (1836) Came last night quite to
the Chutes, a fall in the river not navigable where we slept & this morning
before breakfast made the portage. All were obliged to land, unload carry our
baggage & even the boat for a half mile. I had frequently seen the picture
representing the Indians carrying their canoes, but now I saw the reality. We
found plenty of Indians here to assist in making the portage. After loading
several with our baggage & sending them on, the boat was capsized &
placed upon the heads of about twenty Indians, who marched off with it with
perfect ease. Below the main fall of water are rocks, deep narrow channels, many
frightful precipices, all this distance. We walked deliberately among the rocks
viewing the scene with astonishment, for this once beautiful river seems to be
cut up and destroyed, by these huge masses of rocks."
The next day, September 9th, Narcissa wrote:
" We came to the Dalles yesterday just before
noon. Here our way was stopped by two rocks, of immense size, height, all the
waters of the river passing between them, in a very narrow channel, & with
great rapidity. Here we were obliged to land make a portage of two & half
miles carrying the boat also."
After traveling by wagon and horseback overland
through undeveloped land, it is surprising to find steamers on the Columbia.
Steam powered boats had been in operation on eastern rivers since the 1830s. The
date of the first steam powered boasts on the Columbia is not known, but A Guide
To The Oregon Trail, by J. M. Shively, written in 1846 states: "Fifty miles
below The Dalles is the Cascade Falls on the Columbia, you here make a portage,
and find a schooner ready to take you to the Wilhamet (Willamette). Fort
Vancouver is forty miles below the Cascades. It is a pleasant sight, after
months of toil through the wilderness, to see the ships in the harbor, carts,
drays, and hammers, and a general stir of business throughout the vicinity of
the place."
Asked why people made the great adventure, Mr.
Colvin, Amanda's husband, said:
"Going to Oregon was quite a sort of mania,
that possessed many persons who picked-up and came. Thus it was that Mr. Gardner
in common with thousands of others passed by agricultural opportunities in
territories to hew out a home in the woods, and it was a literal hewing the
first year when they planted their potatoes in amongst the logs."
References:
World Book, 1994
The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman, 1943
The Pioneers, Time-Life Books, 1976
Annals of the S. W. R. Jones Family, Grace Austin,
1853-1930
Western Wagon Trains, Crestwood House, 1993
The Oregon Trail, Federal Writer's Project, W. P. A. 1939
The Oregon Trail, Hastings House, 1939
Westward On The Oregon Trail, American Heritage, 1962
Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose, Simon & Schuster,
1996.
My Journal, Narcissa Whitman, 1993
Click
here to continue on to the next part -- Daniel and Lorena Gardner, Clark County
Pioneers
