PREPARING FOR WILLA'S OVERLAND TRIP by Marisa Masterson

 

My heroine is making a journey across the country. Fine, but how to bring the reader into the setting so they feel like that trip is real?

Research, of course! That's me, always researching.

First, I decided to use oxen rather than horses or mules to pull her wagon. Why oxen? They did not require grain or oats like horses. The oxen (trained and castrated bulls) were willing to forage for grass. They also tolerated the long miles and hard work better.

Hard work? Definitely! The oxen typically started out from Missouri pulling 2500 pounds of supplies.

How many oxen? Two as I have read in other novels? No, usually, three sets of two pulled the wagon. 

How else could I add reality to my sweet romance? I added some of the early landmarks that overlanders would see. First, the crossing of the South Platte River. The travelers would then begin to climb the incredibly steep California Hill. 

Why go that route? After the climb, they would stop at Ash Hollow, where people would enjoy sweet, sweet water after weeks of drinking boiled river water.

Next, I included details about the significant rock formations. First, Courthouse Rock. But my travelers don't stop there. They push on to get to Chimney Rock. It's a significant spot. There, they know that one quarter of the journey is over. I'd celebrate if I was there like so many real travelers did who climbed that rock and chisled their names into it.

From Wagon Train Willa:

The company passed Courthouse Rock without much fanfare. To the travelers, it simply became one of the landmarks many knew of on the trail. Only a few days after that, they came to Chimney Rock. That was much more exciting.

The train stopped there, spending a free day at the spot. The people felt encouraged as they knew that now they had covered one quarter of the trail, over five hundred miles already walked. Most made this a celebration. The group even had a potluck dinner planned, and hunters went out to search for fresh game to add to it.

Like others in the company, Cade and Willa took the boys to the top of Chimney Rock. He carried the chisel. With a flourish, he carved their names and the date into the rock. Willy and Billy stood with their eyes wide as they watched small chips of rock fly.

“See, boys. In years to come, people will know that we made the trip across the country. A family who traveled together.” Cade grinned as he stretched a hand toward the carving.

What else happens to this family? I hope you are curious to find out. The novel is now on pre-order and will release soon from Amazon.

The Treacherous Bitter Roots! Cora Leland

The Bryan Stage 1872

As the years of development in the West rolled on, even remote places like Wyoming Territory experienced change.  While railroad travel wasn't that well established yet, the Upper Plains were influenced by the expanded travel.  Wyoming built new roads to connect all the new towns springing up.

Some of these new towns were simply posts for storing government rations for Native tribes  and the expanding Army. Raids on these posts were thrillingly depicted in fiction, especially the raids that took place during the desperate times at the end of the Indian Wars. The government seemed to be sitting on a fence, pulled between opening every inch of land to prospectors, and agreements they'd signed before gold was discovered.  Much of that land was already staked out and under contract. But there were new obligations to meet and people to house.

Mining and railroads

These little towns and posts did get connected, and lower elevation was accessed through the South Pass route. 

All this time, the railroads continued to expand this undeveloped territory, working faster than would last into the future.  The difficulties were understandable, looking back at them.  The original plans were laid out on a straight line, but contractors insisted on a more twisting route.  

While the obligation to get these railroads finished was sometimes postponed, the tracks were laid.  Difficulties came because of the difficult terrain and the huge sums that had to be raised -- "hastily laid track...and congressional corruption."

Back in 1868, when  trains came to Laramie (close to what would be the capitol city of Wyoming, Cheyenne) the town springing up was nick-named "hell on wheels."  It had taken thousands of people working and then living in tents all along the line.  In fact, Laramie, Wyoming was made up entirely of tents.

Keystone Dance Hall and surrounding tents, Laramie 1868 

"End of the tracks" towns dotted the territory.  A surprising number of businesses moved along with the railroad construction crews, but some stayed. Even some of the citizens moved when the railroads started being constructed elsewhere.

But South Pass was not forgotten.  Twenty miles from that spot, a city was built that marks the beginning of women's rights.

South Pass City, 1870

Hundreds of thousands of new settlers had used the trails that traveled over the continent and went through South Pass to reach the far West.  In Wyoming's new legislature in 1869, a saloon-keeper named William Blake introduced legislation to give voting rights to women.  And Wyoming had the first woman to serve in public office, Esther Hobart Morris. She became Justice of the Peace in Feb. 1870.

South Pass, itself, enabled those thousands of emigrants to avoid frost-bite and even death as they traveled over the mountains.  Unlike the treacherous earlier route, Bitter Roots, South Pass offered a direct road Westward. 

Pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson based this sketch of wagons and the transcontinental telegraph line near South Pass, with the Oregon Buttes in the distance

*****

Enjoy my latest historical romance novel!

In 1875, a blizzard wrecked the train Star Bird's family was riding.  She was sent from Minneapolis to Laramie, Wyoming. Unfortunately, her orphanage had overlooked the Great Lakota War that was raging. It peaked in 1876 just as she was fired from her first job.

In Minnesota, a Lakota woman wasn't considered dangerous, like she soon was, in Laramie...

Read about Star and Purcell, the settler who loves her! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT5124ZN

MOVING WEST

The popularity of DNA tests through Ancestry.com, National Geography, and others has created a plethora of talk concerning from where our ancestors came. Their travels explain why we ended up we are. As a person who loves genealogy, history, anthropology, ethnicity, and other subjects involved, this is fascinating. My family took the Ancestry DNA test. 

At the time, I didn’t realize we would also learn migration routes. How interesting. I knew some of that, of course, through my own genealogical research over the past few decades. Still, there were surprises. We have more of some countries and less of others than I expected.

If your ancestors were from Western Europe and/or Britain/Ireland, then they likely entered the U.S.A. through the East coast. Many reasons sent them moving further West. Even before the American Revolution, the quest for land drove families. After living as a tenant/crofter paying large shares to the owner, the chance to own one’s own land must have been irresistible.

On the right, where my ancestors started.
On the left, where they came.
(On the report, a legend is available for colors.)

Other newcomers were displaced from their lands, such as the Scots who were cleared from their homes in 1715 and 1745 and the Irish who were forced to make way for them in Belfast. Then, the terrible potato famine in 1843-45 forced those who could to head for America to avoid starvation. The point is that people were moving westward and willing to tolerate danger and sacrifice to achieve a better life.

For instance, one group of my ancestors migrated after the men in the extended family blew up an English munitions warehouse in the American Revolution. As wanted men, they escaped to Georgia with their families. I suspect they were migrating at a very fast pace, don’t you? Even these gradually inched west until one group came to Texas in the 1870s.

Exciting reading is about wagon trains—starting their trek at St. Louis, Missouri.  Many of us love the stories of romances involving a wagon train across the country. I can’t name them all, but those who have written about the Oregon or Santa Fe Trail include Linda Ford, Rachel Wesson, Patricia Pacjac Carroll, Kay P. Dawson, Kit Morgan, Kathleen Ball, Linda Bridey, and many more. Uh oh, I'll probably be in trouble for those I neglected to mention.

Another route west was by ship and train and took months. That route was used to reach the Pacific Coast via the Isthmus of Panama. I can’t decide which I would have chosen—being confined to ship in a tiny cabin (shared) for months or traveling overland. 

Asa Mercer
Considering this hairstyle, it's probably
just as well he went bald later.

With all the men moving west, women were needed so the men could establish homes and families. One of the past Sweethearts of the West articles was about Asa Mercer, who attempted to bring women west to Seattle via ship but was only moderately successful. He was successful for himself as he married one of the women he recruited. I remember a popular television show from 1968-70 based on this, “Here Come the Brides”. I loved that show.

Front, Joan Blondell and Bridget Hanley
Back, David Soul, Robert Brown
and Bobby Sherman.

Here is my challenge for you, gentle readers. Write down all you know about your ancestors to save for future generations. Don’t just write names—add in family stories, anecdotes, and collect photos. In ink that won't smear through or in pencil, list the names on the back of the photos. Even if you or your children are not interested, get these facts down for future generations so the details won’t be lost! Get your DNA test and you’ll be amazed. 

This is history coming alive!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caroline Clemmons is the bestselling and award winning author of over fifty titles. Her latest is DEBORAH’S DILEMMA, book 3 of the Pearson Grove Series.

What can Deborah do to protect herself from the devil plaguing her hometown?

Can a young man who’s been away for six years fit into the community he left?

What madman is responsible for the murder and mayhem plaguing Pearson Grove?

Deborah Taber has been concerned by her inability to choose her life’s occupation. That worry was pushed aside when someone shot her brother and fire bombed her family’s newspaper, The Pearson Grove Gazette. She believes Trey Pearson is innocent of attacking her brother—isn’t he? She’s had a crush on Trey since second grade and desperately wants to trust him.

Wade Pearson III, called Trey, is happy to be home on Pearson Ranch after six years in New England. He trained to manage his family’s far-reaching investments. Nothing prepared him to be accused of murder or targeted by a killer. If not for quick action by the sheriff, Trey would have been lynched by vigilantes. He wants to help trap the real villain while protecting Deborah, her family, and his.

Can Deborah and Trey survive the threats against them? Will this clever murderer be caught before he delivers his terrible revenge against those he believes slighted him? 

Here’s the Universal Amazon buy link: http://mybook.to/Deborah DEBORAH'S DILEMMA is also in KU.

Until next month, take care.

The Covered Wagon, Packing, & Hitting the Trail

by Anna Kathryn Lanier

Conestoga wagons were the well-known wagons of the east, used by traders of the west for their large size and ability to carry up to five tons of cargo.  The immigrant family soon learned, however, that the Conestoga wagon was too large and heavy for their needs.  Animals would die from exhaustion before they reached the end of the long trail.  Instead, pioneers turned to the Prairie Schooner, a wagon half the size of the Conestoga.  At 10-12 feet long, 4 feet wide and about 3 feet deep, it would hold 2,000 pounds of goods, half of that food.  It could also be pulled by fewer animals than the Conestoga required.  A bonnet treated with linseed oil for waterproofing topped the wagon base and made the wagon 10 feet tall. At about $100, it is one of the more expensive items needed for the trip.

 Hardwood was used for the wagon bed because it resisted shrinking in the dry desert air and painting it with tar would render it watertight for floating across rivers. The side boards of the wagon were bowed outward to keep the rain from dripping into the wagon from the bonnet.  The front wheels were smaller (44-inch diameter) than the back wheels (50-inch diameter) to help with handling the wagon and to allow the wagon to take sharper turns.

Although the wagon wheels were also made of hardwood and rimmed with iron (heated until they expanded and then slipped into place), it was not uncommon for them to break. When this happened, the family furniture often became a wagon wheel.

The space inside the wagon, about 40 square feet, didn’t give much room for family heirlooms or large pieces of furniture.  Families had to decide what to bring, and of course, food was at the top of the list. An 1845 emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California suggests that the pioneers take along: 200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of bacon, 30 pounds of hardtack, 10 pounds of coffee, 20 pounds of sugar, and 10 pounds of salt.  Additionally, families would pack rice, beans, tea, vinegar, chipped beef, smoked meat, dried fruit, and canned vegetables. Other common items taken by the pioneers, aside from clothing were: a medicine chest, seeds and seedlings, beds, tents and tent poles, tools, horseshoes, guns, plows, shovels, axes, animal feed and a water barrel.  Butter churns were strapped to the side or back of the wagon. Fresh milk would be put into the churns in the morning and the natural movement of the wagon as it crossed the uneven and rutted trail would churn the milk into butter by evening.

Also on the outside of the wagon was a “jockey box.”  This would hold the tools and parts needed to repair the wagon: iron bolts, lynch pins, skeins, nails, iron hoops and a jack. In addition, a feed box for the animals could be found fastened to the side of the schooner.

The family packed carefully, heavier items and those that would not be used on the trip were packed first. Bolts of cloth, linen and good clothing not used on the journey, along with family treasures were packed into the trunks and stowed away. The box with the pots, pans and cooking utensils would be placed near the back of the wagon for easy access.  The family bible was given a special place, most likely with easy access for daily and nightly reading. Daily clothing would be hung on hooks inside the wagon.

The choice of animals to pull the prairie schooner was oxen or mules.  The farmers who went usually preferred oxen, mainly because they had worked with them on the farms. Oxen were stronger, more tolerable of the prairie grass and easier to work with than mules.  Oxen were also cheaper to buy, $60 dollars or so per team compared to over $100 per mule.  And one needed fewer oxen to pull the wagons, than mules. However, mules were faster than oxen and those in a hurry to get west would buy mules. Horses could also be used, but they did not fare as well on the long haul.

St. Louis is called “The Gateway to the West” because it was the last trace of civilization before entering the vast unknown of the west. St. Louis started as a trading post for fur trappers, traders and mountain men. It was the jumping off point for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Along with Independence, St. Louis was a major ‘met up point’ for the wagon trains of pioneers going west. They were the places to trade horses, buy fresh oxen, purchase last minute supplies and gather up-to-date information about the journey and route that lay ahead of them.

Mrs. Francis Sawyer gives an account of her journey, along with her husband, from Louisville, KY to St. Louis, Missouri in her journal. On April 25^th, 1852, they left on the Pike No. 9 steamer bound for St. Louis.  They took with them their wagon, two mules and supplies bought in Louisville.  The riverboat stopped at Mr. Sawyer’s father’s farm in Hancock County so they could collect mules purchased from the father. In St. Louis, they changed to “a small Missouri-river steamboat” bound for St. Joseph.

Once there, they finished purchasing their supplies, as well as a horse for Frances’s use and an additional mule.  With themselves and their supplies ready, they travelled six miles outside of town to ‘officially’ start the journey.

By the late 1850’s, 55,000 people per year were making the journey west.

Now it's time to share your thoughts. If you were leaving home for a 2,000 mile journey, what one item in your home would be a ‘must take’ and why?  Think about it, these men and women were leaving everything and everyone behind   and wagons could only hold so much.  What would you take?

Works Cited

Bartley, Paula, and Loxton, Cathry. Plains Women: Women of the American West. New

York, NY: Cambridge  University Press, 1991.

Erickson, Paul. Daily Life in a Covered Wagon. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1994.

“Great Gateway to The American Western Expansion: Wagon Trains, Fur Traders,

Mountain Man.”  Linecamp Online. http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/hubs/great_gateway_west/great_gateway_west.html 

Holmes, Kenneth L.  Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western

Trails, 1852. Lincoln, NE: The University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Kalman, Bobbie. Life of the Old West: Wagon Train . New York, NY: Crabtree

Publishing Company, 1999

Spartacus Education. 2011. July 9, 2011.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWwagontrain.htm

“Wagons.” Historical City Oregon Online. 2011.  July 7, 2011.

http://www.historicoregoncity.org/end-of- the-oregon-trail-history/70-oregon-trail-history/156-wagons

“The Wyker Prairie Schooner at Space Farms Museum: Went West and Back ‘Agin’.’

Space Farms Zoo and Museum Online. 2011, July 7, 2011. http://www.spacefarms.com/2003.htm

Pictures are from royalty-sites (most likely Dreamstime.com) and should not be used without purchasing them.

Frontier Medicine

by Anna Kathryn Lanier

In my novella SALVATION BRIDE, the heroine Laura Slade, is a trained doctor.  Set in the 1870’s, this was not common, but possible.  By the end of the Civil War, several medical schools admitted women.  Laura, however, didn’t.  Instead, she apprenticed under her Uncle John, who had been to medical school and served as a doctor in the Civil War.

More common in the 19^th Century, women were home-trained healers and midwives, who learned the art of healing from their mothers and grandmothers.  My current work in progress takes place in the 1860’s shortly after the Civil War.  The hero, Garrison and the heroine, Sammie, are on a wagon train heading West.  Sammie has been trained as a healer by her mother.  She takes with her on the trip her medicine chest.

The chest would contain such items as those listed in BLEED, BLISTER, AND PURGE by Volney Steele, M.D.  Common household remedies would be “feverfew, fleabane, boneset, rhubarb, oak of Jerusalem, thyme [and] marjoram,” (page 138). A few store-bought items would also be included:  Opium tincture or laudanum and whiskey for pain and surgeon’s plaster to bind broken limbs.

Sammie would know how to make poultices to relieve pain, help heal burns and possibly, even, to prevent pregnancy.  She’d make plaster of mustard to “ease the ache of bruises, arthritis, and pleurisy.” She might even apply sugar to wounds, once commonly known to dry out a fresh wound and inhibit the growth of bacteria. (page 143).

Cholera was the most common and the deadliest disease to sweep through a wagon train or settlement.  It wasn't understood at the time that cholera was caused by contaminated drinking water.  The best way to fight the disease was to replace fluids "volume to volume” as the patient suffered from severe diarrhea. However, this treatment was not well known.  Opium, if available, was also given to “relieve the pain and slow down the increased bowel action and cramps,” (page 80).

Diphtheria, measles, small pox and scarlet fever were all deadly diseases, especially among children, with no cures but to wait it out.  Diphtheria, in particular, was the most dreaded.  Highly contagious, a single case could start an epidemic, resulting in a high number of children dying when a “pseudo-membrane in the throat and pharynx…obstructed the windpipe and shut off air to the lungs.”  If the child survived this, she might still die from heart failure, caused when a potent toxin was secreted that effected the heart, (page 264).

One often overlooked disease on the frontier was scurvy, which was almost as deadly to the immigrants as cholera. With a common diet of corn meal, flour, beans and boiled or salted beef and few fresh vegetables and fruit, scurvy ran rampant in the West. Scurvy affects the overall health of the patient, causing extreme fatigue, nausea, pain in the muscles and joints of the body, bleeding of the gums (oftentimes resulting in the loss of teeth) and hair and skin become dry.  The simple cure for scurvy is the intake of Vitamin C, but the correlation between diet and scurvy was not discovered until the late 1800’s. Ironically, a common native plant along the trail, watercress, was full of Vitamin C and would have been a simple cure to this disease, if the immigrants had only known.

Many an immigrant’s diary is filled with entries of sickness and death on the journey.  In COVERED WAGON WOMEN by Kenneth Holmes, two journalists note such occurrences.  Anna King, on page 42, relates, “I wrote to you at Fort Larim that the whooping cough and measles went through our camp, and after we took the new route a slow, lingering fever prevailed….Eight of our two families have gone to their long home. Upwards to fifty died on the new route.”

Sallie Hester reports “We had two deaths in our train within the past week of cholera – young men going West to seek their fortune.  We buried them on the banks of the Blue River, far from home and friends,” (page 237).

By today’s standards, medicine in the 19^th Century was crude in the best of hospitals. On the frontier, it was downright rudimentary.  As much as I’d love to give my heroines insight to the knowledge we have now, I shall have to resist and let them heal their patients with the remedies tired and true at the times, no matter how wrong we see them to be today. 

_______

I’ll give away a copy of SALVATION BRIDE, a best-seller from The Wild Rose Press to one lucky commenter.  So, just leave a comment by Tuesday, April 17th....I'll draw a winner on Wednesday, April 18th (or there abouts, as I usually forget to do the drawing for a few days!)

This post first appeared at the Seduced by History Blog on April 19, 2010.

Anna Kathryn Lanier

www.annakathrynlanier.com

http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/

Moving to Oregon in 1850

I spent the last month in a very informative online class about Pioneer Women, which was given by our own Anna Kathryn Lanier. One of the subjects pertained to wagon train travel, so when I saw this information I thought it would be fun to share. Anna Kathryn asked everyone what were the important things they would have to pack as momentoes. The answers were varied and maybe not all of them realistic.

What you need and how much it costs:
Remember, your wagon is all you have to carry your equipment and food for 2,000 miles. You have to walk because there is no room in the wagon!
So what do I need to make the trip west?

Must Haves
A strong wagon, fit for the journey - A Wagon can carry 2,000 lbs.
Oxen (4 head, but 6 is better)
Tack and Harness - To attach the oxen to the wagon
Food - See list below for amount and type of food
Clothing (2 sets per person - a set includes 1 shirt, 1 pair of pants and 1 pair of boots)
Tent - a tent will hold 4 people
Pots
Pans
Cups, Plates and Utensils
Matches

Optional Items
Milk Cow
Mule or Riding Horses - If you do not want to walk
Please include Saddle and Saddle Bags, Bridles and Blinders for the horse
Mule or Pack Horse Please include a Pack Saddle
Tools - See below for examples
Nails
Candles
Tubs
Buckets
Rope
Axe
Whetstone
Hand Tools
Shotgun or Rifle with Gunpowder and Shot

DRAFT ANIMALS
ox $35.00 At least 4-6 for each wagon
milk cow $75.00
cattle $20.00 For meat
mule $15.00 Can be ridden or to carry stuff
mule collar $1.25 To attach to the mule
pack horse $25.00
pack saddle $2.50 Needed for Pack Horse
riding horse $75.00
bridle & blinders $3.00 Needed for Riding Horse
saddle & saddle bags $5.00 Needed for Riding Horse
tack & harness $5.00 1 per 6 oxen
horse blanket $2.00
whip $1.00

WAGONS
covered wagon $70.00
There's no evidence that wagons made for the emigrant trade held up any
better than ordinary farm wagons
wagon bows $3.00/set To repair your wagon - 1 set per wagon
cloth cover $1.00/yard 10 Yards per Wagon

CAMP EQUIPMENT
woolen blanket $2.50
tent $15.00 1 Tent will hold 4 people
nails $0.07 per pound
soap $0.15 per pound
sheet iron stove $20.00
coffee mill $1.00 For grinding coffee beans
coffee pot $0.75 For brewing ground coffee
frying pan $1.50
stew kettle $0.50
bread pan $0.25
butcher knife $0.50
tin table settings $5.00 Includes plates, cups, knives, spoons and forks for a family of eight
candles $0.15 per pound
10-gallon wash tub $1.25
whetstone $0.10 for sharpening knives and axes
bucket $0.25
tar bucket $1.00
"tar buckets" for storing axle grease had tight-fitting tops to keep flies out and cost $1.00
axe/shovel/hoe $1.25 These are sold separately
hand tools $2.50 Augurs, Planes, and Saws
$2.50 for one tool
1 set of handkerchiefs $1.08
1 tea set $24.00 Tea Kettle, Cups, Saucers, Creamer and Sugar Bowl
1 flannel shirt $8.00
1 pair of pants $18.00
1 pair of boots $24.00
1 gross matches $1.00 1 Gross = 144 matches
rope $2.50 75' coil of 3/4" hemp rope

WEAPONS
rifle - For hunting or protection $15.00 - Double barreled rifles were sometimes seen on the frontier. Repeating rifles were not widely available until after the Civil War (1865)
shotgun - For hunting or protection $10.00
There were also double barreled shotguns, as well as hybrids fitted with
one rifled barrel and one smooth-bored shotgun barrel powder & shot $5.00 Powder and Shot were sold by the pound
hunting knife $1.00

FOOD
flour $0.02 per pound
corn meal $0.05 per pound
bacon $0.05 per pound
sugar $0.04 per pound
coffee $0.10 per pound
dried fruit $0.06 per pound
salt $0.06 per pound
pepper $0.08 per pound
lard $0.05 per pound
vinegar $0.25 per gallon
baking soda $0.12 per pound
tea $0.60 per pound
rice $0.05 per pound
beans $0.06 per pound

Recommended for each person:
150 lbs. of flour
20 lbs. of corn meal
50 lbs. of bacon
40 lbs. of sugar
10 lbs. of coffee
15 lbs. of dried fruit
5 lbs. of salt
1/2 a pound of baking soda
2 lbs. of tea
5 lbs. of rice
15 lbs. of beans
1 pound box chocolate $40.00
1 pound tin of crackers $8.50

Cooking on the Western Trail

by Anna Kathryn Lanier 

Wow.  You’d think that the diaries of those who travelled West would be full of cooking trials and tribulations.  But no. After choosing this subject, I searched through my many ‘wagon trail diary books’ and found very few references on cooking. In fact, several of the books didn’t even have ‘cooking’ in the index. However, I think I found enough references to make this blog worthwhile.

One of the many tasks women performed on the trail was cooking. Though cooking and baking was second nature to most women (the highly born women didn’t always know how to cook, as they had hired help to do that job back East), cooking on an open flame was not something the women were familiar with. Even Keturah Belknap, who had never cooked on a stove, but rather a hearth, had to learn the ins and outs of cooking on a camp fire.

Helen Carpenter, a new bride making her way west on her honeymoon, wrote: “Although there is not much to cook, the difficulty and inconvenience in doing it amounts to a great deal—so by the time one has squatted around the fire and cooked bread and bacon, and made several dozen trips to and from the wagon—washed the dishes….and gotten things ready for an early breakfast, some of the others already have their night caps on—at any rate it is time to go to bed.” (1)  She also comments, “It is hurry scurry to get breakfast and put away things that necessarily had to be pulled out the last night…nooning is barely long enough to eat a cold bite—and at night all the cooking utensils and provisions are to be gotten about the camp fire, and cooking enough to last until the next night.” (2)

When the wagon train took a break from traveling, either to observe the Sabbath or to give the animals a rest, women “boiled a big mess of beans, to be warmed over for several meals,” relates Catherine Haun in her diary. (2)

Even in wind and rain, the cooking must go on.  According to Amelia Stewart Knight, “(Dreary times, wet and muddy, and crowded in the tent, cold and wet, uncomfortable in the wagon. No place for the poor children [she has seven].) I have been busy cooking, roasting coffee, etc. today….” A month into the journey she writes, “Fine weather; spent this day in washing, baking, and overhauling the wagons” and the next day, “I have been cooking, and packing things away for an early start in the morning.” (1)

When food was found on the trail, it was not wasted.  Eliza Ann McAuley writes “In cutting a way for the road, the boys find thickets of wild currants. There are several varieties, the black, the red and the white. The boys cut the bushes, some of them ten feet long and loaded with ripe currants, which we strip off and make into jelly, currant wine and vinegar, dried currants and currant pie.” (3)

I’ve camped out with my Girl Scout troops and we did a few campfire meals, so I know from experience how much work it is.  I have to admire the women who did it day in and day out, rain or shine for five to six months at a time!

References:

(1)    WOMEN’S DIARES OF THE WESTWARD JOURNEY by Lillian Schlissel

(2)    PLAINS WOMEN: Women in the American West by Paula Bartley and Cathy Loxton

             (3) COVERED WAGON WOMEN:   Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1852 by Kenneth L. Holmes

Promo alert: Next month, I’m doing a month-long workshop PIONEERING WOMEN OF THE WEST on Hearts Through History’s Campus.  Click HERE to find out the details and to register. WIN A FREE WORKSHOP - Just leave a comment and with a contact email and you will be eligible for the drawing.  I'll draw for a winner on July 16th.

All photos are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere without purchasing them from dreamstime.com.

Anna Kathryn Lanier
www.aklanier.com

www.annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com

HEADING WEST - LOAD THE WAGONS!

Jeanmarie Hamilton is overwhelmed today, so I’m filling in for her. Actually, Linda Hubalek has graciously allowed me to quote from her book TRAIL OF THREAD, in which Dorothy Pieratt describes preparing for the trip West from Kentucky to Kansas.

Dorothy Pieratt's words:

We debated, but finally packed two wagons for each family. We felt it was better for the animals’ sake to limit the weight on each wagon to around 2000 pounds instead of overloading one wagon....Since we need six oxen per wagon, we bought extra animals a few weeks ago. John decided to use oxen instead of mules because the oxen are easily managed, patient, and gentle--even with the children--and not easily driven off or prone to stampeding like mules and horses...After much discussion, John agreed to hitch a cage of chickens on the back of the wagon.

Yesterday we sold everything that wouldn’t fit in the wagons at a public auction on our farm. The strain of the day is still on my mind. This morning I’ve been ready to fetch something and then I stop in midstep, wondering if it’s tucked in the wagon or was sold yesterday. It was hard to see most of the animals and all but a few chickens leave the place. But we can’t take everything along, and we need the money.

New wagon beds were built using seasoned oak boards. Sides were jointed together. No nails were used that could work out along the bumpy road and spell disaster. Along the inside of the three-foot-high sides, John built long boxes running the length of the wagon for storage. These boxes will serve as seats during the day if the children want to ride inside. We just add boards cut to fit across the storage boxes, put bedding on top, and the wagon is outfitted for sleeping. The boards fit in a wooden holder that runs along the outside of the wagon. They can also be used to make a bench or table when laid across stumps, or, heaven forbid, as lumber for a coffin.

I had a big hand in preparing the wagons, too. The wagon beds were fitted with a framework of hickory bows high enough to give head clearance, and I hand-sewed long pieces of cloth together for coverings. It was quite an undertaking. It had to be tight, strong enough to withstand heavy winds, and rainproof so things inside don’t get soaked. Even though it was extra work, I ended up making them a double thickness to keep out the cold. A dark muslin went over the framework first, then a heavy white linen. The dark cloth cuts down on the brightness of the reflection as we walk beside the wagon. I coated the outside material with a mixture of hot beeswax and linseed oil for waterproofing. It turned the material a sand color, which should help the reflection, too.

The covering is drawn together on the ends by a strong cord to form tight circles. End flaps an be buttoned on to completely seal the wagon top. My stitches and buttonholes will be tested by the first storm we run into. I even stitched pockets on the inside covering to hold little things like our comb, sunbonnets, and other personal things I didn’t want out of reach.

John borrowed a guidebook to Oregon and California from a neighbor, which suggested that for each adult going to California, a party should carry 200 pounds of flour, 30 of hardtack, 75 of bacon, 10 of rice, 5 of coffee, 2 of tea, 25 of sugar, 2 of saleratus, 10 of salt, a half-bushel each of cornmeal, parched, and ground corn, and a small keg of vinegar. We’re not going to California (unless the men change their minds), so we shouldn’t need that much per person, but we’ll need supplies until we get crops and garden planted and harvested. Who knows how long it will be until towns with stores get established in the new territory?

I’ll take one barrel of pickled cucumbers along to prevent scurvy...the decision of what kind and quality of item to trade for had to be made...The mill sells different grades of flour. I wish I could have bought the superfine flour, sifted several times...I bought the next grade, middlings, for our cooking. It’s much more coarse and granular, but it serves the purpose...The mill’s shorts, a cross between wheat bran and coarse whole wheat flour, looked clean, so I also bought 125-pound sack of it...

We can’t afford to carry the flour in heavy barrels, so it is mostly stacked in fifty-pound cotton cloth to cut down on weight. Because the flour is not kiln-dried, we double-sacked it in a leather bag. If the flower absorbs too much moisture, I’ll end up with a heavy loaf and will have to add more flour to my baking.

Sorghum molasses, our main sweetener, will make the trip in small wooden kegs...For special occasions, I bought three cones of white sugar. The New Orleans sugar we buy reasonably in the stores her may fo for top dollar on the frontier. The cones resemble pointed hats. They are molded at the factory, and wrapped in blue paper. Usually I leave the cones whole and use sugar snippers, a cross between scissors and pliers, to break off lumps as I need them. To save space on the trip, I ground up the cones and divided the two types of sugar (the white sugar on the top gradually changes to brown sugar on the bottom), then sifted to remove the impurities. The storekeeper said I should pack it in India rubber sacks to keep it dry, but I decided not to add that extra expense. I tucked the cone papers in the wagon because I can extract the indigo dye from it to color yarn and material blue.

I also bought a small quantity of low grade brown sugar since it is ten cents cheaper than the cones. It’s dark, smelly, sticky, and sometimes dirty, but it still gives sweet taste to cooking.
Parched corn is another sacked commodity in the wagon. The kernels were sun dried last fall and I’ll grind them into meal with the mortar when I need it.

Smoked bacon was double-wrapped in cloth, put in wooden boxes, and covered with bran to prevent the fat from melting during the trip. I cooked the crocks of cut meat I had left into a thick jelly. After it set up in pans and dried, we broke it into pieces and packed it in tins. If I add boiling water to some, we’ll have portable soup on the trail.

Smaller sacks of beans, rice, salt, saleratus, and coffee are wedged around the whiskey jugs underneath the wagon seat. The medicine box, filled with tiny cloth sachets holding dried medicinal herbs and little medicine bottles, is wedged on top, ready for an emergency.

I put the sacks of yeast cakes, dried bead, and hardtack inside one of the long boxes, along with the box of homemade soap bars. I’ll have small sacks of each staple in the back box and refill them from the bigger sacks when I need to.

The back end of the wagon drops down partway on chains and will serve as a preparation table for food or for other jobs. The provision box faces the back so it can be opened up without hauling the box out of the wagon every time. It has my tinware, cooking utensils and small sacks of necessities for cooking everyday.

Wish I could have brought all my kitchen utensils, but I settled for two spider skillets, three Dutch ovens of various sizes, the reflector for baking, the coffee pot, the coffee mill, the mortar and pestle, a few baking pans, knives, and my rolling pin.

Walking out to the wagons for the umpteenth time, it struck me that they are starting to look like a peddler’s caravan. They are overflowing with items attached to the sides. The wooden washtubs and zinc washboard are fastened to one side of the wagon. The walking plow is lashed to the other side. Small kegs of water, vinegar, and molasses fit in where needed to balance the wagon. Everybody can see what we own because it’s hanging in plain sight.

The second wagon is packed even tighter than the first with household and farming tools we’ll need after we get to our new land. All the boxes are packed tight so they won’t slide around, rattle, or spill. I hope we won’t have to unpack it until we reach our destination.

You can learn more about preparing for a wagon train trip and pioneering in a new land from Linda Hubalek’s TRAIL OF THREAD, the series of the same name, and at http://www.lindahubalek.com/
　

Donner Party Tragedy

By the mid-1800s land and opportunities in the East were no longer plentiful. Cholera outbreaks had become common place in the overpopulated eastern cities where sanitation was poor. People began to cast wistful eyes in a westerly direction. Thousands of pioneers packed family and belongings for the move west.

George Donner, a sixty-five year old farmer, eagerly responded to a proposal by neighbor James Reed. He promptly posted a bulletin in the Springfield Gazette that began “Westward Ho!” and promised free travel to California for up to eight able-bodied young men capable of driving a team of oxen.

The Donners and the Reeds left Springfield, Illinois on April 16, 1846, for Independence, MO. Their party consisted of thirty-two people. The twenty-five hundred mile trip from Independence to San Francisco was expected to take four months. Survival would depend on nearly perfect timing: they could not leave until the spring rains stopped and they had to make it over the Sierra Nevada Mountains before the first snowfall. Neither Donner nor Reed was worried. They would follow the new Hastings route over the mountains and cut three to four hundred miles from the trip.

The Donner party left Independence on May 12th, just one in the thousands of wagon trains heading out that spring. There was hardship from the beginning. Thunderstorms soaked the trail daily, creating muddy bogs that mired the wagons and oxen down. Progress was limited to two miles a day.

Despite the poor beginning, they reached Fort Laramie on the edge of the Rockies just one week behind schedule. James Reed ran into an old friend, James Clyman, who emphatically warned Reed to take the old, established route; the wagons would never make it through the pass. Reed respectfully declined the advice.


The wagon trains pressed on toward the Continental Divide. On July 17th a horseman rode up with a message from Hastings urging the emigrants to keep on to Fort Bridger where Hastings, himself, would be present to escort them over the new pass. Three days later the caravan came to the Little Sandy River where the old trail turned north to cross the Sierras well above San Francisco. While most of the pioneers elected to take the known route, Reed remained convinced that Hastings had been right about the shortcut. So the nine wagons comprising the Reed and Donner parties along with the eleven wagons of people who had elected to join them turned south towards Fort Bridger.

On arrival, they discovered Hastings had left with another wagon train. Undaunted, James Reed led the company of nine families and sixteen single men onto the new trail. The party made the excellent time of ten to twelve miles a day. Then on August 6th a note from Hastings urged them to find an alternate route, as the way ahead was impassable. Leaving the trail, the wagons started down the canyon. Their progress through the thick brush and cottonwood trees was grueling and agonizingly slow. When they reached the Great Salt Lake, they were a month behind in the journey and eighty miles of Great Salt Desert lay ahead.

It took the party five days to cross the desert. Wagons, foundered axle deep in a quagmire of wet salt, had to be abandoned. Oxen went mad from thirst and ran off or died. On the far side of the desert, an inventory of food was taken and found to be less than adequate for the six hundred mile trek still ahead. That night, the first snow powdered the mountain peaks.

They reached the Humbolt River on September 26th. The diversion had cost them an extra one hundred and twenty-five miles. Nerves were shattered and fights began to break out. James Reed killed a man in self-defense and was banished from the party. He left his family and rode on to California alone.

By October 19th a relief party loaded with extra food found the weary pioneers fifty miles from the summit and assured them that the pass wouldn’t be blocked for at least another month. They were wrong.

October 31st, only one thousand feet from the granite peaks, on the edge of Truckee Lake, snow began to fall. The party raced to climb through the pass, but the women were too exhausted from carrying their children. The decision was made to stop for the night and cross the pass the next morning. Heavy snow continued falling. By morning the pass had been completely blocked by twenty-foot snowdrifts. The tired and hungry emigrants had arrived one day too late.

Over the next four months, the eighty-one remaining men, women, and children huddled together in two abandoned cabins, make shift lean-tos, and tents. The cattle had all been killed and eaten by mid-December; one man had died of malnutrition. The people began to eat bark, twigs, and boiled hides.

In desperation, a group of nine men, five women, and a twelve year old boy packed scanty rations and on snowshoes made from oxbows and rawhide, set out to cross the pass for help. Nine days later they realized they had become lost in the snow-covered mountains. Completely without food for three days and on the verge of starvation a suggestion was made to draw lots; the loser would sacrifice his life to save the others. Patrick Dolan drew the fatal slip, but no one could bring themselves to kill him. Malnutrition soon carried out what the group could not do. Two other men followed quickly. Ten members of the party butchered their dead companions, then wrapped and carefully labeled the packages so no one would have to consume their relatives. Eighteen days after they had started from the main camp, six survivors stumbled to a cabin and repeated the horrendous tale of death and cannibalism. Fort Sutter was notified that there were people on Truckee Lake who needed immediate rescue, but it would be nearly a month before the first search party reached them.

On February 19th, the rescue team found forty-eight survivors at the camp. Bodies had been spread on the snow and covered with quilts. No one at the camp had yet been forced into cannibalism, instead subsisting on boiled rawhide. The noble resolution would not last.

It took four relief parties two months to get all the survivors out. The second relief party, led by James Reed, reported that when they arrived at the camp, “half-eaten bodies” littered the ground and the survivors “surrounded by the remains of their unholy feast, looked more like demons than human beings.”

Reed had been spectacularly lucky, his wife and all four children had survived the ordeal. All of the Donners, save one child, succumbed.

Eighty-seven people had started over the new passage to California. Two thirds of the women and children along with one third of the men had survived. Forty-one people had died.

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.