Trials on the Trail

From prosperous New Englanders and Midwestern families with sturdy well-provisioned wagons and ample livestock, to penniless frontiersmen who joined wagon trains as hired hands, to the young and restless who could not resist the lure of a far away adventure - the early Oregon trail blazers had much in common.  They were touchy and quarrelsome for one thing, had little knowledge  of wilderness survival or the hardships that lay before them.  They did have a sturdy determination to survive the brutal tests of the Oregon Trail.

They shared a common enemy - time.  Their traveling season was short and one week difference could be the death of them.  Before the prairie grasses were up in early May, it was time to leave Missouri where they had waited all the winter through.  Their livestock would not survive if they left later in the Spring.  The westernmost mountains had be to crossed before mid-October when the snows came.  They had five months to cover 2,000 miles at an average of 15-20 miles a day if the skies were sunny and clear and the rivers were not swollen from rains. 

The opening stretch to the Platte River through present day Kansas to Nebraska was usually an "easy" journey.  Following that, they went through what pioneers called "the mile wide and an inch deep" section along the Platte River.  The land got gradually higher, more broken and more arid. 

They marked their journey with landmarks like Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff on the way to Laramie where fresh supplies awaited them.  Independence Rock was the marker where the route left the Platte River and traveled across the Rockies at the South Pass.  Following the main route to Fort Bridger and then northwest to Fort Hall brought them to the Snake River Canyon at Farewell Bend.  Before crossing the Blue Mountains, the Grand Valley was a welcome respite before the mighty Columbia River awaited them.  Through the Willamette Valley the route diverged.  Here cautious travelers took jolting trails over the Cascades, or if they were risk takers, they built makeshift rafts and plunged down the Columbia.  Which would you have been?

Next time - Hazards Galore
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On February 19, 1792, George Washington signs the United States Postal Act creating the United State Post Office.

Who Owns Oregon?

Way back in 1791, Yankee "sea peddler" Robert Gray, master of the merchant vessel Columbia, sailed into Nootka Sound in Oregon Territory while pursuing the rich fur trade with China.  Gray was looking for a mighty river of which the Indians had spoken.  On May 11, 1792, Gray crossed the estuary and traveled 30 miles upstream on the river he named for his ship, the Columbia River.  He was the first white man to explore Oregon's interior and claim the entire region for America.

British claims date back to Captain Cook's 1778 voyage along the northwest coast.  He too, sailed into Nootka Sound.  The Nootka Sound Treaty of 1790 recognized Britain's claim to Oregon by Spain.  The British representative, John McLoughlin served from 1824 to 1846 as the chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company in the region stretching from the Alaska border to California and east to the Rockies.  McLoughlin's actual responsibility to the Crown was to discourage American competition and settlement in the region. 

The problem was McLoughlin knew the Americans had as much right to Oregon as anyone else.  In 1818, the entire region was to be jointly occupied by both the Americans and British.  McLoughlin's hospitality allowed travelers seeking help to use Fort Vancouver.  By 1864 the British were ready to concede American ownership of the region between the Columbia River and the Californian border but not above the 49th parallel.  That, they stated could be claimed only by war.  Washington Territory was not for sale!

Next time - Closer look at the men who opened up the Pacific Northwest
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Today in Pioneer History:  On December 8, 1894, humorist James Thurber is born in Columbus, Ohio.  His works include The Owl in the Attic (1931), The Seal in the Bedroom (1932), and My Life and Hard Times (1933). His short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” published in The New Yorker in 1939, became one of his best-known works.

Meanwhile on the Way to Oregon

Those bound for Oregon found the trail ran along the steep ledges of the Snake River.  Reaching Fort Boise, they followed the edge of the desert until they came face to face with the Blue Mountains.

Raising wagons by ropes as their California counterparts did, blocking the wheels with rocks as they
inched their up and over the mountains was a time-consuming task with the winter weather closing in fast.

Helen Marnie Stewart wrote that "the hills were dreadfully steep, locking both wheels and coming down was slow.  Got down safe, oh dear me, the desert is very hard on the poor animals, going without grass or water for 1 1/2 days.

The train reached the "Dalles" (an 'evil branch of the Columbia River' as on journal put it), in the next 200 miles where the cliff walls were too high to cross, so most pioneers ferried the last 100 miles down the Columbia River into the Willamette Valley.  For those who couldn't afford the cost of the ferry, they loaded their possessions into canoes and hired Indians to paddle them across.  For others they simply tied their possessions on pack mules or just left everything behind and walked the last miles into Oregon territory.  One journal said, "The Oregon Trail was not a trip for the fainthearted, perhaps only for the foolhardy."

Next time...time out for some interesting statistics!

Today in Pioneer History:  On June 22, 1876, the once mighty Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna dies in Mexico City embittered and impoverished

Until We Meet Again...

When Captain Walker and Benjamin Bonneville met up again on Bear River in the summer of 1834 supplies from St. Louis were waiting for them.  The two planned their operations for the next year amid a good feeling of plenty.

Bonneville would make his fall hunt on the Columbia River with 50 men, while Captain Walker would go across the Rockies to the Missouri River with 55 men.  Unknown to them was the next time they met would be along the Big Horn exactly a year later in July 1835.

Walker's men trapped successfully across the Rockies along the Yellowstone and Big Horn River (the region was called Absaroka, the home of the Crow Indians).  For the winter Walker divided up his men and took most of them to Wind River to camp and set up a trading post 60-70 miles east of the Continental Divide. 

Next time...A Good Winter

Salmon Wheels Keep on Turning?

Long before Salmon canning was an industry, early settlers along the Columbia River set up wheels which caught the salmon, and deposited them in handy tanks to await packaging.

Eventually the salmon wheels were outlawed along the Northwest rivers, but you can still find the rusted out ruins of some of them in places, the remains of a way of life for early pioneers along the Northwest rivers.


Next time...Wyoming