Grave Counting - A Perculiar Hobby

There is a peculiar group of journals which give detailed tabulations of the number of graves passed on the trail.  Traveling during the cholera years mainly, the women kept accounts like bookkeepers.  Graves passed where listed as either "old" or "new" perhaps to realize how close death really was to them.

Francis Sawyer wrote "today we have passed a great many new made graves, and we hear of many
"Dr. Baekwell informed us that his younger child died on the plains...the trials and troubles of this long wearisome trip were enough to bear without having our hearts torn by the loss of dear ones."
cases of cholera.  We are becoming fearful of our own safety."  Two weeks later she wrote

Cholera does appear in the journals of men, but they tend to treat the epidemic in aggregate figures.  Dr. T McCollum put the numbers of burials in 1849 between 1500 and 2000.  Franklin Langworthy estimated cholera victims in 1850 over 1000.  Ezra Meeker put the numbers at 5000 for the same year, saying that the "dead lay sometimes in rows of 15 or more."  Abraham Sontore wrote he was "scarcely out of sight of grave diggings." 

Next time ...some actual journal entries of the grave records. 

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Today in Pioneer History:  One of the ragged legions of gold and silver prospectors who combed the Rocky Mountains searching for fortune in the 1860s, Alfred Packer also supplemented his meager income from mining by serving as a guide in the Utah and Colorado wilderness where he was resorted to eating his clients.  On January 7, 1901, the cannibalist, Alfred Packer is released from prison on parole after serving 18 years.

Cholera!

Many dangers threathen even our reaching the new west. Wild Animals like grizzly and black bear, coyotes and wolves are a constant fear. But the silent killer these days that threaten the entire wagon train is cholera.

Cholera killed more settlers on the westward trail that all other diseases combined. The symptoms were dysentary, vomiting, fever, convulsions, and death. Cholera could only be stopped by the Rocky Mountains higher elevations, or in the death of an entire wagon train.

At some places entire cementarys were created to bury the victims of one outbreak. Death was so certain as the end that graves were actually built before the victim had actually died.

With no lumber to build coffins on the trail, bodies were wrapped as in Biblical times in cloth and then buried in shallow graves even under large rocks that could be moved. Some victims were buried in the deep wagon ruts in an effort to conceal their graves from Indians, but the numerous wolves were next in line.

Cholera came west with the pioneers from the East Coast were it had been brought over by Asians in the 1830s.

Here a some period remedies for Cholera circulated among the pioneers:

1. Laundanum Mixture
A tablespoon with 60 drops of Laudanum in half a wine glassful of cold water. If this fails to relieve, repeat two spoonfuls with 30 drops of Laudanum every 1/2 hour. Half dose for children under 14 and 1/4 for children under 7. Do not exceed doses prescribed and stop when vomiting and cramp cease.

2. Cholera Pills
To be used if the first mixture is vomited. Two pills first, and then one every half-hour, if the first fails to relieve. Half doses for children under 14, 1/4 for children under 7.

3. Cholera Cysters (Enemas)
Injext three teaspoonfuls in a wine glassful of thin warm gruel and retain as long as possible by pressure below with a warm cloth. If not, repeat immediately by not otherwise. Half dose for children under 14, 1/4 for children under 7.

4. Mustard Poultices
A fourth part is enough for one person. Dust it thickly over porridge poutices, of which apply a large one on the belly, and others on the soles and calves. Remove when patient complains much from the pain.

That sheet is a copy of the actual sheet circulated in the plains during the 1840-1850s by the "Edinburgh Board of Health and approved by the Faculty of New York"
It was "carefully prepared" it states by Jefferson B Nones, Apothecary and Alchemist, No 644 1/2 Broadway, New York.

Until Next Time...happy trails!