Inexperienced and Packin' Heat

Most members of wagon trains were so inexperienced they often got lost, set themselves and their wagons on fire, were kicked by mules, died from bad food or water, crushed under their wagons, or drowned in streams.  Actually drowning was the most common cause of accidental death on a wagon train.  In 20 years, 300 settlers lost their lives in streams and rivers by drowning.  As one traveler wrote, "to make an overland crossing, a man must be able to endure heat like a Salamander, mud and water like a muskrat, dust like a toad, and labor like a jackass."   Good quote!

The settler's fears about Indians were about as bad as the Indians themselves.  To protect themselves, 

they left Missouri armed with 135 rifles, 104 pistols, 1672 pounds of lead, 1100 pounds of powder - when all they really needed was a couple of knives per person.  The rifles, say historians did little to win the West, in fact a dozen or so lost their lives every year because of rifle shots.  Compare that with 34 total settlers died from Indian attacks in 7 years between 1840-47...

More deaths were due to the traveling settlers not being able to get along - they didn't listen to reason so they took out their rifles and talked later. It was even said that the Donner party's tragedy had more to do with their constant bickering and tempers than it had to do with the weather!

Next time...Missed Connections

-------------------------------------------

On this Day in History:  On October 22,  1903,  the infamous hired killer, Tom Horn, is hanged for having allegedly murdered Willie Nickell, the 14-year-old son of a southern Wyoming sheep rancher.
Some historians suggest that Horn may have murdered Willie Nickell by accident, having mistaken the boy for his father. Others, though, argue that it is more likely that Horn was deliberately convicted for a crime he did not commit by Wyoming citizens seeing an opportunity to take revenge.