SETTLING THE STATES BY CORA LELAND

Settling the States by Cora Leland

"Cooking over campfires takes practice." (Cora Leland's earliest Nebraska settler) 

Baking kettles, like the one above, were essential to households stretching across the eastern seaboard (1700-1800) for cooking in ahses or hanging in fireplaces. Many of the colonists lived near streams and rivers in wooded areas, where a wealth of creatures continued to live as they had before the colonists had arrived.

Woodchuck, Western New York area

Living in the freedom and prosperity of the new world, America, became so important that people were willing to accept lengthy periods of indentured servitude in exchange for passage money.  (1600-1800). 

But the costs for transporting people decreased as newcomers -- an important source of labor -- clamored for tickets.  (This time was known as the age of mass migration from Europe(1850-1900).)

One nation, among many, was Ireland, where people fled famines and unemployment.  An earlier wave of Irish people had come from northern Ireland: they were English-speakers who were skilled and quickly adapted.  Many, like my great aunts, cheerfully adapted and prospered.

But the next waves of people arrived with no skills and spoke no English. (My family's earliest Irish relatives came from impoverished Galway and they'd suffered from all the changes.).Most Irish people in this group spoke only Gaelic, though a few were trained to work as blacksmiths and other jobs needed for establishing a nation. 

A baby tender (1820)

A baby tender was used by families as the women went about their daily chores, just as Native American women wore a cradle board for their baby. 

Native American Cradleboard

While some parts of the continent were excellent farming country and millions vied for these places, while others, like the beautiful lands of Dakota Territory, were not easily turned into breadbaskets, like the plains were.

In 1862, farms and ranches were offered, almost for nothing, as homesteads from the government and later from railroad companies.  When the nation filled up, eventually the government carved away more of its acres.

As one man expressed it,  living with his wife and family in a one room leaky cabin with no land to farm was a life he'd gladly exchange for a good plot in Oklahoma territory.  He, along with 100,000 others, joined the Oklahoma Land Rush on Sept. 16, 1893.  

The world was being gripped by a terrible economic recession, and a chance like this seemed wonderful. (My older sister married a man whose family 'rushed' to 160 free acres of rich land, and generations have been full-time farmers on what became their two sections of farm land.) 

This was the first of Oklahoma's four 'land runs'. (Plots between Kansas and northern Oklahoma were offered separately). They also used closed bid auctions. Altogether, Oklahoma gave away two million acres of land.

One minute before the start: Oklahoma Land Rush

Other places in the country offered their land to encourage settlers. Georgia, for example, held seven lotteries for farm land and one lottery for 'gold rush' land.  The gold rush in Georgia (by 1832, when the land was offered) had almost ended, and there was no guarantee that these plots would hold gold.

Settlers, as you'd imagine, wore clothes their mothers and sisters had sewn by hand; men's work pants could be bought in town, but not always their shirts, so the ladies made them, too. Fashionable dresses with bustles and trains were probably not necessary among those generations.

*****

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Covered Wagon Women I

I have discovered that the era of Western Expansion interesting, especially the trials and tribulations of those on the western trails. I've purchased several books that recount true stories of women who travel West in covered wagons. One book, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 by Kenneth L. Holmes is an excellent resource book. He reprints actual diaries written while on the trail and letters written either on the trail or after they reach their destination. Holmes also gives a bit of a biography on each woman. One of the women whose letters he reprints is Tabitha Brown (right), who made the trip starting in April 1846.

Mrs. Brown was a widow and sixty-six years old when she decided to travel from her home in St. Charles, Missouri to Oregon with her seventy-seven year old brother-in-law, retired sea captain John Brown, and two of her children and thirteen of her grandchildren.

While most journeys of this type were dangerous, The Brown family's was particularly hazardous. Mrs. Brown expresses in a letter to her sister and brother, penned after her arrival in Oregon, that the first part of their trip was “pleasing and prosperous.” But all that changed in August when they still had 800 miles to go to Oregon City. Instead of keeping to the tried and true route, “three of four trains of emigrants were decoyed off by a rascally fellow...[who] assured us that he had found a NEAR CUT-OFF; that if we would follow him we would be in the settlement long before those who had gone down the Columbia.” The decision to follow this man was tragic for many of the families.

Mrs. Brown relays that the man took their money and ran, leaving the train “to the depredations of Indians, wild beasts and starvation...we had sixty miles desert without grass or water, mountains to climb, cattle giving out, wagons breaking, emigrants sick and dying…hostile Indians to guard against.”

The men had to hack and clear a trail for them, as there was none. The way behind them was “strewn with dead cattle, broken wagons, beds, clothing and everything but provisions of which we were nearly destitute.” People were caught in the Canyon for two or three weeks, their food running out, they themselves dying of fatigue or starvation. She does not give detail of how she came to lose everything, but writes that her daughter and son-in-law insisted that she and Captain Brown go on ahead by horseback to meet up with wagons that would have food (they stayed behind to give their cattle rest). Her brother-in-law was so weak that he fell off his horse and she had to struggle to get him back up on it. They failed to meet up with the next wagon train before dark and had to spend the night alone in Indian territory, only to discover the next morning that 1) they were only half a mile from the train and 2) the Indians had killed a man just a short distance from where they'd camped.

They were found the next morning and taken to the next train, where fresh venison was available. However, they were far from safe. They still had two mountains to climb and winter was setting in. They were able to travel only two or three miles a day. They finally decided that it would impossible to reach a settlement before spring and decided to settle in for the winter. Mrs. Brown's son-in-law set off on his own to find a settlement, in the hopes of bringing back provisions.

Now as it turned out, her other son had left for Oregon six days ahead of her party and had already reached their destination. He heard rumors of the “wayward” train and he set out with six pack-horses to find the “suffering emigrants at the south.” Shortly after her son-in-law left, the two met up and they returned to the train with the provisions.

Five miles down the road from where they'd camped, they meet up with mixed-blood French-Indians and hired several of them to guide the train to a settlement. On December 24th, four months after they made their dreadful decision to take the 'short-cut,' those who survived the journey arrived at the first settlers' house, a Methodist minister, who offered Mrs. Brown and Captain Brown a place to stay until spring. In exchange for room and board, Mrs. Brown ran the house, because the minister's wife “was as ignorant and useless as a Heathan Goddess.” She also discovered that in her glove was not a button, as she'd assumed, but a “six and one-fourth cent piece” or as the footnote says “one-eighth of a Spanish dollar coin” and not worth a lot of money. But she used it to purchase three needles and traded some of her old clothe for buckskin. She then made gloves out of the buckskin, sold them and made herself $30.00.

As far as I can tell, all of Mrs. Brown's family made it to Oregon as well and Mrs. Brown, even at her advanced age, went on to establish herself as a pillar of the community in the new territory. She established a school for the local children, including orphans, with the help of friends and neighbors. The school was “the forerunner” for Pacific University.

So, this is just one of the fascinating stories to be found out there, one of the 'facts' that we can base our stories on...the question is, will anyone believe us?

What is a strange fact or story that you've come across in your research?

This blog first appeared at Chatting with Anna Kathryn, April 17, 2009.