Mary Perry Frost

Mary Perry Frost traveled in the summer of 1854 but her story is very different from the women's journals we have shared so far.  By this time, the Indians had begun to burn the grass around a campsite in an effort to starve the livestock of the travelers, forcing large wagon parties to separate so that better grazing could be found.  Parties broke into smaller and smaller parties until Mary's family was in a group of just four wagons. 

At what point did the Indians who were so peaceful in the journals of Nancy Hunt and Roxana Cheney begin to see the travelers as a threat?  They traveled the same route during the summer months as those before them...

Mary's journal tells a far different story:

"We had traveled perhaps an hour.  Then Indians came up squarely in front of our train and stopped the teams, but appeared friendly, shaking hands and asking for whiskey.  Upon being told that we had none, they began to talk of trading with the men, and while my father was talking of trading a pistol for a pony, they opened fire on us, shooting my father, my uncle and my father's teamster.  Thinking they wanted our horses, they were turned loose, and the Indians departed after catching them all.  Of those shot, my uncle was killed outright, my father's teamster was shot through the abdomen and lived until the following morning and father was shot through the lungs and lived until the evening of the 4th day.  The Indians also killed all the men in the forward party, leaving a boy of 14 with an arrow in his heart.  We stopped long enough to dig trenches and rude graves for the burial.  The women and children in the forward party presented a sickening spectacle, having be burned by the savages."

In the northern part of Oregon Territory, Mary's mother filed a widow's claim and started her new life in a log cabin.  Mary and her older brother herded sheep for money, and Mary married at age 13 to get away from such a life.  Indeed, hers was a different perspective from those of the other women.