On the Trail with Fremont and Carson

John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson led an expedition in 1842 to map out the Oregon Trail.  They traveled the familiar route along the Platte River, crossed South Pass and explored the West River Range where they climbed the peak later named Mount Fremont.  These side trips were not part of Fremont's instructions but they were good promotion.  On the return trip Fremont rashly insisted on shooting the rapids on the Platte River in a rubber boat.  The boat overturned, records were lost along with costly scientific equipment and specimens.

Fremont did compile an accurate report of the expedition of the Oregon Trail with route maps and campsites for each day's journey.  It was also a colorful adventure story - starring Fremont and superscout Carson.  It was an immediate bestseller.  Was Fremont's purpose to write a great adventure or map out territory for the government?

A second expedition a year later attempted in vain to find a passage through the Central Rockies and explore the Great Salt Lake region ending at Marcus Whitman's Oregon mission.  Fremont and Carson picked up supplies at Fort Vancouver, followed the eastern foothills of the Cascades down to Nevada.  They then made a foolhardy crossing of the Sierra Nevada in midwinter barely making it through alive.  The final report, although it corrected some of the mistakes of earlier maps, contained many errors.  Nevertheless it was a immediate hit with the public...

Fremont and Carson were only half finished...

Next time...Expedition #3 and #4
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On March 27, 1911, In one of the darkest moments of America's industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns down, killing 145 workers. The tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of factory workers.

Disease and Monotony on the Trail

Cholera plagued the wagon trains and many hundred of victims died quickly in a day's time.  They woke up feeling fine but by nightfall were gone.  Other diseases like scurvy, dysentery, and trachoma (caused by a dust-borne, eye irritating virus) also struck the pioneers.   Elsewhere in this blog we have discussed the burying of travelers on the journey with no headstone for fear of grave robbers and animals disturbing the body.  The families would never return to claim loved ones buried on the trail.

One of the things that prevented more serious diseases was the women boiling the water to make coffee and tea for drinking.  It not only masked the taste of the brackish water, but also killed bacteria that would have no doubt claimed more lives.  Water was not a pleasant choice for drinking.

Another hardship wasn't physical but nevertheless just as oppressive - a result of the endless prairies themselves.  Those travelers used to towns and domesticated life suddenly felt small and insignificant.  As Bernard DeVoto wrote, "The little line of wagons was pygmy motion in immensity, the mind becomes a speck...always quivering with a unidentified dread."  Days and days with no change in scenery was a difficult trial  in itself.

Indians, for the most part, did not directly attack any well-disciplined wagon train, as western lore told.  They would steal horses and cattle at night, and the hunters would start buffalo stampedes, however, which were deadly for wagon trains.

In spite of all this, most settlers made it to the banks of the Columbia and most conquered the mountains as well and found new adventure and a new life in the western wilderness.  Kudos to them!  It was quite an act of survival.

Next time...The California Trail
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Today in Pioneer History:  On February 27, 1897, Britain recognizes US authority over Western Hemisphere. 

More Trials on the Trail

Discipline on the trail was difficult to enforce but constantly needed - individuals quarreled over leadership, choice of routes, place in line and guard duty to name a few. 

The covered wagons were in constant need of repair.  Heavily laden, cumbersome and difficult to maneuver, they met all kinds of accidents of nature.  Windstorms blew over the canvas covers, wooden wheels splintered in the alkali deserts or got stuck in the mud.  Wagons often just fell apart all together coming down the steep grades because most early models had no brakes.  Yikes!

Livestock, vital to the pioneers were another problem.  Food and water were ample enough through the grasslands except during the dry years.  Once on the High Prairie (photo left minus the fence), food became scarce and poisonous alkali springs took a heavy toll on the livestock.  Cattle, mule, oxen and horses often drowned in the river crossings, were run off by Indians or terrified into stampedes by sudden thunderstorms.  The loss of a milk cow was food lost, but the lost of a mule or an ox team could leave a wagon stranded.

The search for water, firewood and fresh meat was endless.  Alonzo Delano noted after two days on the trail "the bacon brought in St. Louis has begun to exhibit more signs of life that we had bargained for, having a tendency to walk in insect form."  The lack of water, or the glut of it,  ruled the travelers lives on the trail.  Crossing the Kansas prairie in a wet spring caused serious delays when the wagons sank into the boggy grasses.  Sudden thunderstorms in open country were dangerous with lighting striking the tallest objects - man and wagon. But those weren't the worst of the trip...

Next time...Disease and Monotony on the Journey
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On February 23, 1868, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois is born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A brilliant scholar, DuBois was an influential proponent of civil rights.

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.

Settling Oregon

Once in Oregon Country, Marcus Whitman and Rev. Spaulding settled deep in the interior on the advice of John McLaughlin, from Hudson Bay Company.  In 1840, Oregon's American population amounted to fewer that 200 people, all of them in Willamette Valley.  Their right to settle there came from the Anglo-American agreement of 1818, but there was no governing body.  There seemed little need for courts or legislature until 1841.

In 1842 a situation arose that changed the need for a legal course of action.  A young, successful cattle rancher named Ewing Young had become the wealthiest American in Willamette Valley.  He also died suddenly without a will.  The question became - who got his property? 

Jason Lee called upon American settlers to meet and create a court to devise a constitution and a legal code.  They were to meet again in 1843.  These first meetings would give Oregon settlers a political structure from which to seek United States annexation.

Back East, missionary reports got wide publicity.  Letters from settlers told of rich land, giving Midwest farmers hope that economic conditions could be better for them and their families.  The Rockies were no longer the barrier to the limit of migration west.  The concept of Manifest Destiny was born - that the republic had a divine mission to spread from coast to coast.

In the spring of 1841, the first wagon train of 69 pioneers set out.  Half arrived in Oregon, the other half in California, but neither arrived with wagons in tow.  The next year, 1842, a group of 100 pioneers traveled from Missouri to Oregon also abandoning their wagons and possessions.  Finally in 1843, Whitman was returning from a trip east and helped guide the first wagon train of almost 1000 pioneers to the Pacific Coast. They arrived with all their wagons and supplies. 
The Great Emigration was in full swing.  By 1850, over 44,000 pioneers had traveled the Oregon Trail.

Next time...Jesuits Among the Native Tribes
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On January 24, 1848, Aamillwright named James Marshall discovers gold along the banks of Sutter’s Creek in California, forever changing the course of history in the American West.

Pioneer Holidays

It's Holiday Season so let's look at the most important holidays in a pioneer's life...

Independence Day - pioneers dedicated Independence Rock a huge piece of granite rock in Wyoming.  128 feet tall, 700 feet wide and 1900 feet long.  Pioneers would carve their names and dates on the rock as they passed through to the Pacific Coast.  Independence Rock became the point on the trail of "keeping on schedule".  If the party arrived at Independence Rock by a certain date, it was certain that they would make it through the mountains before winter set in.

For Independence Day, special food was purchased along the trail at Fort Laramie including pies,  lemonade and fresh bread. Flags were sewn from scraps of fabric, dances were held and the name carvings all marked the 4th of July on the pioneer trail.

Fort Laramie was 1/3 of the distance on the Oregon Trail.  A US Army post since 1849, it was the main stop on the way west where pioneers purchased fresh animals (horses, oxen and mules), supplies, and had repairs done.  It was quite expensive and many had to turn back east when they got this far.  Most heavy items were left at Fort Laramie - like stoves and furniture because going over the mountains was difficult enough without extra weight to carry. 

One of the landmarks that told the pioneers they were near Fort Laramie was Chimney Rock which measured 325 feet high from the base.

Weddings - Weddings on the frontier were quite different than ours are today.   Shot guns went off, kettles and pans were banging and the couple's wagon was shaken until late into the night.  This celebration was called a chivaree with fiddles and banjos providing the music. Weddings were anything but quiet, subdued affairs!!

Of course we can see where we get the tying of cans and streamers to the "Just Married" cars today, as well as the music for the reception.  However, today we don't usually shoot off shot guns to announce our weddings :)

Next time we will finish up the Wagon Train and then share some recipes for a Thanksgiving Dinner. 

The Oregon Trail

One of the greatest emigrant trails to the Northwest was the Oregon Trail which ran from Independence, Missouri to the Columbia River in Oregon. It crossed 2000 miles of rugged terrain, including some of the fiercest Indian territory in the West.

The trail was first used by fur trappers, traders and missionaries, but in the 1840s the trail became jammed with emigrants moving west - wagon trains of 12,000 settlers in 10 years during the early settlement of the West.

The first overland settlers started on the Oregon Trail in 1841 with 70 emigrants from Independence, MO, following the route west along the Platte River, through the Rocky Mountains via the South Pass in Wyoming and then northwest to the Columbia River.  From then on, it was called the Oregon Trail.


In 1842 a larger group of 100 pioneers made the 2000 mile journey and the next year the number soared to 1000. The wagon train which left from Elm Grove, MO, included 100 wagons and a herd of 5000 oxen and cattle.  Dr. Elijah White, a Presbyterian missionary who had made the trip the year before served as the guide. During that year, 1843, a severe depression was hitting the Midwest and farmers in Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee hoped to find better lives in the reported paradise of Oregon.

The Oregon Trail was used the longest, even after railroads replaced much of the wagon routes in 1884, cattle and sheep drives found the trail a good path. Today there are still places that you can visit the deep ruts in the trail where wagon carried settlers west to a better life.

Next time...the Great Oregon Flood

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