Don't Believe Everything You Hear

 Some of the myths that the early travelers believed were included the length of the trip.  Instead of the four months promised, the trip took eight months, putting settlers at their destination in November - usually deep in snow and cold. Many pioneers were always looking for a shortcut and taking advice from fellow travelers passed on the trail, were caught on an uncharted trail, among hostile Indians, no where near the course they should have been on. 


Lucy Hall Bennett was 13 when her family joined the migration to the West. 

"We came across Steve Meek at Fort Hall, told us of a better road to Willamette Valley.  Part of our team refused to take this cut off and went by the old immigrant road, but a good many of us followed Meek on what has since been called Meek's cut off.  The road we took had been traveled by the Hudson Bay Fur Traders and while it might have been alright for pack horses, it was certainly not adopted to immigrants traveling on ox train.

The water was bad, so full of alkali you could harly drink it.  There was little grass and before long our cattle all had sore feet from traveling over the hard steep rocks.  After several of our party died, the men discovered that Meek really knew nothing about the road."

 Mrs. W.W. Buck told of her family meeting a man coming from Oregon:

"Of course we were anxious to hear about the country we were bound for and our captain askws Dr. White to tell us about Oregon.  He jumped upon the wagon tongue and all of our ears were open to catch  every word.  He said, 'Friends, you are traveling to the Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey.  And just let me tell you the clever grows wild all over Oregon, and when you wade through it, it reaches your chin.'  We believed every word and for days I thought that not only our men, but our poor oxen stepped lighter for having heard Dr. White."



Next time ...The Sager Family Saga

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Today in Pioneer History:  On August 4, 1873, while protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, Custer and his 7th Cavalry clash for the first time with the Sioux Indians, who will defeat them three years later at Little Big Horn.