We went to the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and it was well worth our time! I'm sure we've all heard about the Oregon Trail at one time or another. I've done a little research on this during my teaching years and have always been interested. The displays in the museum were life sized and there was so much information to ready and see that we just couldn't do it all. There was a woman demonstrating weaving while we were there. We stopped to watch and chat. We enjoyed this visit! Check out the photos even if you aren't into reading some of my research.
***Note that the quotes from emigrants are written as they were found so grammar and spelling may not be correct.
The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile overland wagon route
connecting the Missouri River to the fertile Willamette Valley in Oregon. From
the 1840s to the 1880s, hundreds of thousands of pioneers utilized it to seek
new land and a fresh start, driving western expansion.
The trip typically took 4 to 6 months. Emigrants averaged
only 10 to 20 miles a day, mostly walking alongside or behind their wagons.
The trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, through
present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Idaho before descending into Oregon.
The path heavily relied on rivers for water (Platte, Snake, and Columbia) and
crossed the Continental Divide via the relatively easy South Pass in Wyoming.
The journey was incredibly grueling. Roughly 1 in 10
travelers died along the route. The majority of these casualties were not
due to conflicts, but rather outbreaks of disease, particularly cholera and
typhoid fever.
The trail was originally established by fur traders and
trappers. "Oregon Fever" truly took off in 1843 when the first large
wagon train of nearly 1,000 pioneers successfully completed the trek.
Emigration increased further after 1850 due to the Oregon Donation Land Act, which
granted land to settlers. While pioneers generally traded with Native American
tribes along the way, the massive influx of settlers devastated Indigenous
communities. Tribes were largely pushed off their ancestral lands to make way
for American expansion. The completion of
the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, which made traveling west far
faster and safer.
Who goes
and what goes:
The people who
traveled to Oregon were mostly young, white, American born men. They
outnumbered women six to one. Not many black people crossed overland to Oregon;
those that were free often lacked the money for such a long journey. Few
elderly people could survive the2000 mile journey either.
The trip
cost a lot of money, sometimes $500 or more per person for essentials such as
food, bedding, tents, tools, wagon, livestock, tack, and clothing. Anything
else was luxury.
"We had to load and unload our wagons, row the skiff
and then pay $4 per wagon and 50¢ a head for swimming cattle by the side of the
boat."
~Basil Longsworth, August 8, 1853.
July 4, 1776 was a turning point in world history. In the 19th
century it was the nation’s most important holiday. Tens of thousands of Americans
went on a patriotic spree every Fourth of July. Even though emigrants were
hundreds of miles out on the trail, they still celebrated vigorously.
Independence Rock stood tall above them, a symbol of American resistance to
tyranny and commitment to democracy. Music, firing off guns, speeches, and a
round of drinks often marked observances of the “Glorious Fourth.”
“The day was ushered in with the booming of small arms, the best we could do under the circumstances….” ~E.W. Conyers, July 4, 1852
Many emigrants couldn't swim a stroke, but even strong
swimmers risked drowning in the treacherous currents of the Snake. The river's
deep holes, surging water, and unexpected rises were perilous.
Somehow, everything and everybody had to get across, whether
by fording, floating or ferrying.
"What villainy is this!" Henry Allyn, 1853
After waiting their turn at the ford for hours or even days,
the travelers would take the wheels off the wagons, caulk the wagon beds, lash
them together, load up hired canoes with goods, pull themselves across with a
rope stretched across the river, and pray. For a small fee (perhaps "a
shirt and some caps"), Indians would swim with the livestock, coaxing them
across.
Cattle frequently caused trouble: "Often after swimming
half way over the poor things will turn and come out again." Sometimes
they wouldn't budge, delaying the crossing for hours. "And sometimes the
cattle... would start swimming down stream, towing the wagon beds with them.
This would have to be stopped or we would be in danger of
going over the falls -" ladies, goods, and all.” ~Basil Longsworth
“As far as the eye can reach either way lay handsome rolling prairies. Not a stone, a tree, not a bush even nothing but grass and flowers meet the eye until you reach the valley…which is as level as the house floor.” Lydia Rudd, May 11, 1852
After reading pioneer journal entries and walking on parts
of the Oregon Trail, we understand why our ancestors stopped in Wisconsin!
CLICK on my video below:
From the
Diary of Henry Allyn
July 25: John W. finds a human skull. Soon after we discover
a grave... that had been dug open and a number of human bones scattered around
it.
July 26: We collected all the bones we could find... and
whatever fragments of grave clothes were scattered around and the pillow which
was under the head of the corpse and put them into the grave and covered them
up as well as we could. We had nothing but a small fire shovel to work with.
There was a board at the head of the grave on which was carved, "In memory
of Ann Kiser..." After this we start on over a rocky road.
There'll be cattle on each ranch in Oregon, For there'll be
plenty of sun and rain.
"Down the Oregon Trail"
The Final Test
Emigrants camping in the Powder River Valley often met
traders from Willamette who walked through offering food and good news. They
told of the bountiful harvests, the fertile soil, and the gentle winters in
Oregon. The promised land seemed so close, but several enemies still barred the
way: weather, mountains, rivers, and lack of supplies.
Hailstorms and iced-over water buckets reminded the
travelers that winters come early in the mountains. Axing their way through
thick timber and hauling wagons up seemingly vertical inclines drained their
small stores of energy, patience and supplies.
Beyond the Blues, travelers heading for Willamette had to
decide between two unappealing routes: the Columbia River or the Barlow Road.
Whether they chose the river or the road, they risked losing
everything. Fortunately, moments of joy and relief flickered brightly as they
neared their goal; friendly Indians still provided fresh foods, and the land
itself more than fulfilled their hopes.
John Burch McClane, 1843
Elizabeth Dixon Smith, 1847.
The Dalles Decision
Arriving at The Dalles during the rainy fall season with
jaded livestock and crippled wagons did litle to raise the emigrants' spirits.
They were weary, hungry, footsore and sorely reduced financially. Ahead lay the
final challenges of the way west: should they take the river or the road or
just stay put?
Joel Palmer had this experience in 1845: "This day we
intended to make arrangements for our passage down the river, but we found...
that the two boats ...were engaged for at least ten days, and their charges
were exorbitant, and would probably absorb what little we had left to pay our
way to Oregon City. We then determined to make a trip over the mountains
..."
The Columbia River swirled ominously, hinting at the rapids
in the Gorge. The Barlow Road meant forests, snow, cold nights, and mud on Mt.
Hood.
Some emigrants decided to "winter over" at The
Dalles, but had to live with the nagging thought of others getting the best
lands west of the mountains.
All the options were costly - physically, emotionally, and
financially.
For those who had risked all - life, limb, health, and wealth - the banks of the Willamette symbolized the completion of a dream. They had not truly arrived at the end of the trail; they still had lands to claim and homes to build. But the river and the fragrant smell of cottonwoods confirmed that the transit of the American West was complete. It was the greatest mass migration in North American history.
The pioneers crossed nearly 2,000 miles of wilderness to
chart a new destiny on the Pacific Slope. The experience marked their lives
forever. Their journey became a badge they wore until death. They knew they had
made history.
Saturday, October 28: Went to work." ~James Nesmith, 1843
"Four miles brought us to the city of Oregon....
Its population is about fourteen hundred, nine stores, two
churches, two saw-mills, two grist mills, two groceries, and two boarding
houses."
William J. Watson, September 13, 1849
From the Diary of CECELIA MCMILLEN ADAMS, 1852
Twin sisters
Cecelia and Parthenia McMillen were born in New York in 1829. Cecelia married a
doctor, William Adams in Illinois in 1849, and her sister Parthenia married
Stephen Blank, a carpenter, in Illinois in 1850.
In 1852,
when the sisters were 23 years old, they traveled with their husbands and
father Joseph McMillen to Oregon, where their older brother James had already
established himself.
excerpted
from:
"Twin
Sisters on the Oregon Trail"
in Best of
Covered Wagon Women, ed. Kenneth Holmes (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press, 2008), 149-194.
July 2
Friday
Had a very
hard wind last night The sick man is dead this morning We stop to see him
burried They wraped him in bed clothes and layed him in the ground without any
coffin We sung a hymn a had prayer O! it is so hard to leave friends in this
wilderness
Some of the
bluffs look like old castles.
Are in sight
of chimney rock, can see it fifty miles off. Passed 8 graves. Follow on the
Platte, very poor grass, quite warm, travel slowly. Made 16 miles.
In 1856 the
twins' father Joseph returned to Illinois via Panama to retrieve his wife Ruth
and three other children, crossing the Oregon Trail a second time with them.
Cecelia and
her husband settled in Hillsboro, Oregon while Parthenia and Stephen settled in
neighboring Forest Grove.
Neither
sister bore any children, but Parthenia and her husband adopted and raised ten
orphans. Cecelia passed away at her sister's home in 1867, at age 38. Parthenia
lived on to age 86, passing away in 1915.
“I do not
think I ever shall forget the sight of so many dead animals see along the
trail. It is like something out of Dante’s Inferno, this barren waste of lava
peopled with the skeletons of animals.” ~Esther McMillan Hanna, August 6, 1852
“Traveled
fifteen miles today over the most treacherous road I ever could have imagined!
Nothing but rock after rock…. nothing but sage…” ~Esther McMillan Hanna, 1852
The
emigrants traded primarily with the Shoshone and Bannock tribes, “we could hear
nothing in camp but the Indians in broken English say, “How swap! How swap!
Salmon! Shirt!” noted Loren Hastings in 1847. The emigrants wanted fresh fish;
the Indians wanted needles, thread, tools and clothing. “We bought enough salmon
for a fish hook to make us wish never to see any more.” ~Harriet Talcott
Buckingham, 1851.
Rough roads
and wagons without springs made for a very bumpy ride, and wagons were filled
with supplies which left little room for passengers. Travelers only rode in the
wagons when they were too ill or tired to walk, and slept most nights in tents or bedrolls outside the
wagon.
“People from
the Deep South had deep roots and took little interest in trading their established
lives for the great Western unknown. By 1850, only 37 people in Oregon claimed
a Gulf state as their home.”
“When John
and Cordelia Sharp gave up their farm in Ohio, they couldn’t even afford
steamboat fare. They built a flatboat and traveled 900 miles down the Ohio
Rover with seven children. They made it to Independence, but had to work four
years there before they had enough money to travel to Oregon.”
“Yesterday a
number of our cattle and one wagon loaded with provisions and several women aboard
escaped going over the falls just by the skin of their teeth.” ~E.W. Conyers,
August 10, 1852.
"We arrived at Grand Ronde. We had a feast from the Cayuse Indians. We had some nice elk meat and boiled wit with huckleberries and plenty of flour. We had a royal meal as we thought." ~John Burch McClane, 1843
