“It is no disparagement to others to say that to no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so indebted for their successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Marcus Whitman,” he added. In 1843, the trickle of emigrants into Independence, Missouri, began to swell. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. The Applegate train began to assemble in late April, the best time to get rolling. At the Ice Slough, not quite 80 miles west of Independence Rock, a bed of ice lay about a foot beneath the sod even in the heat of the day. That changed in 1836, when newlywed missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman took a small party of wagons from St. Louis to the Walla Walla Valley to minister to Cayuse Indians. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Those who took the California Trail veered southwest through an arid, rocky landscape and eventually, after 525 miles and a month’s travel time, reached the Sierra Nevada. They were adept with wagons, livestock, rifles and axes. The next year, John Bidwell and John Bartleson traveled what would later be christened the Oregon Trail on the first planned overland emigration west to California. For instance, you may have never heard these 12 unusual facts … By the time the 1843 party started the river run they had been on the trail nearly five months. As traffic on the Oregon Trail increased, a bustling industry of frontier trading posts sprang up to supply food and equipment for the five-month haul. But far more prevalent on the trail than Indian attacks were the everyday trail hazards of accident and disease. The emigrants were sometimes disappointed with South Pass, for this passageway in the Wind River mountains was nothing like the deep gorge they had envisioned. American Oregon Trail pioneer and writer Ezra Meeker. Ignorance allowed travelers to advance where fuller knowledge might have rooted them with apprehension. The thunderstorms of eastern Kansas, wrote one traveler, “rolled the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful vibration.” Another diarist reported a gale that covered the ground with a foot of water, drove rain through the wagon covers “like as though they had been paper,” and scattered cattle “to the ends of the earth.”. Jesse’s brother Elisha and the two men in their 20s made it safely to shore. A path lost in time when the magic and mystery of earthbound exploration was on its last legs, when the wild unknown was becoming less wild and more known. It was no wonder that, in places, ruts along the Oregon Trail are still visible today. Boys and young men on horseback kept the loose stock from straying too far, as they trailed along behind the wagons. The children of Oregon Trail pioneers were engaged in eastward migration. Fish included salmon and trout. In 1842, Dr. Elijah White, the newly appointed Indian agent in Oregon, successfully led 125 men, women and children there. Travelers would chop out big chunks for their water casks, and some even made ice cream. For all other uses you must first obtain permission. After traversing a 22-mile tableland, the emigrants had to lower their wagons down a dangerously steep drop to what seemed an oasis to them—Ash Hollow, a woodsy glen that provided sweet spring water and shade. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. In 1844, there were 1,475 Oregon-bound emigrants; in 1845, 2,500 emigrants. Livestock were driven out to pasture, tents were pitched, fires built, and supper was on its way. Indians were more likely to be allies and trading partners than adversaries, and many early wagon trains made use of Pawnee and Shoshone trail guides. The emigrants were prone to dose themselves with great quantities of medicine at the first sign of illness—the theory being that the larger the dose, the quicker the recovery. Online Photo Tour of the Oregon Trail from Independence Rock. The emigrants marveled at the Great Plains. Definition: The Oregon Trail began as a network of unconnected trails used by Native American Indians and Fur Traders. Fifty-five miles beyond Soda Springs, at Fort Hall, another supply depot operated by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the wagon trains split up, one part going to California and the other to Oregon. They were now 460 miles west of the Missouri River. Buffalo along the Oregon Trail Food supplies were supplemented by hunting and fishing. While pioneer trains did circle their wagons at night, it was mostly to keep their draft animals from wandering off, not protect against an ambush. I ate about all I could get my hands on but experienced no bad results—they were ripe and mellow.”. He was given a fair trial and, if found guilty, was sentenced according to the nature of his offense. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The train included nearly 1,000 persons of both sexes, more than 200 wagons, 700 oxen and nearly 800 loose cattle. After they had been floating downstream for several days, the Applegates encountered approached the first set of rapids. Since they were unable to drive wagons through the Columbia’s steep-walled, heavily timbered gorge, the men in the Applegate party spent about two weeks at Fort Walla Walla sawing lumber and building skiffs. Civil War Times Editor Dana Shoaf shares the story of how Battery H of the 3rd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery found itself in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the spring of 1843, the first ripple of a coming tide of would-be settlers piled everything they owned into canvas-covered wagons, handcarts and any other vehicle that could move, and set out along a dim trace called the “Emigrant Road.” They went by way of a route that was a broad ribbon of threads, sometimes intertwining, sometimes splitting off into frayed digressions. Doctors came to be a welcome rarity along the trail. By May 13, 1843, more than 900 emigrants bound for Oregon were encamped on the prairie at Fitzhugh’s Mill, several miles from Independence, preparing to embark, dividing into companies, electing wagon masters and engaging veteran and self-proclaimed frontiersmen who professed to know the country to guide them. It ran beside waterways, stretched across tall-grass and short-grass prairies, wound through mountain passes, and then spanned the Pacific Slope to the promised lands of Oregon and California. It was one of the two main emigrant routes to the American West in the 19th century, the other being the southerly Santa Fe Trail from… Wagons, cattle and horses had to be left behind. The Oregon Trail opened at a time when the westward settlement and development of the trans-Mississippi West had stalled at the Missouri River; Mexico still claimed all of California, and Alaska remained Russian territory. Food supplies would inevitably become low and water scarce. They endured every hardship from a mule kick in the shins to cholera. The trail followed the north fork, but first the travelers had to cross the south fork. Along with his uncle, Jess traveled with his parents, four brothers, one sister and numerous other relatives. Sometimes the officers of the train got together at noon to consider the case of someone who had violated the rules or had committed a crime. Even so, their warnings about the road to Oregon—described as a deplorable succession of dangerous rivers, hostile Indians, famine and winter storms—were not far from reality. © 2021 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Hostile encounters increased in the years after the beginning of the Civil War, but statistics show only around 400 settlers were killed by natives between 1840 and 1860. Indian danger would be such a problem in the summer of 1867 that the U.S. Army would forbid travel by single wagons in western Kansas. Dr. Whitman’s first practical counsel was: “Keep traveling! While most Oregon-bound emigrants traveled a route that passed by landmarks in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon, there was never just one set of wagon ruts leading west. Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a 2,000-mile route running overland across the North American continent from the Missouri River in the East to the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. The overloading meant that many sections of trail became junk heaps filled with discarded food barrels and wagon parts. Jesse A. Applegate, who would die at age 88 in 1919, wrote: “Oh, how we could have enjoyed our hospitable shelter if we could have looked around the family circle and beheld all the bright faces that had accompanied us on our toilsome journey almost to the end. The oxen and mules would be exhausted—as would the patience of their owners. Many of these restless souls had heard of the success of Joe Meek and his friend Bob Newell, who had made it to Oregon in 1840. The many offshoots of the trail and the main trail itself were used by an estimated 350,000 settlers from the 1830s through 1869. After traveling 70 miles in seven days, they would arrive at Soda Springs, where the naturally carbonated water was a treat for the travelers. We had to up stream. By the time the last wagon trains crossed in the 1880s, mass migration on the Oregon Trail had left an indelible mark on the American frontier. The Oregon Trail wasn't an unbroken dirt road running direct from one place to the next; rather, it was a series of paths, trails, and wagon roads. More than 2,000 miles of trail ruts and traces can still be seen along the Oregon National Historic Trail in six states and serve as reminders of the sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs of early American settlers. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. This also served as an enclosure for the livestock. The rear wheels were five or six feet in diameter, but the front wheels were four feet or less so that they would not jam against the wagon body on sharp turns. Our line of historical magazines includes America's Civil War, American History, Aviation History, Civil War Times, Military History, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vietnam, Wild West and World War II. Others mixed it with sugar and citrus syrup to make lemonade. Out on the plains in the middle of May, the grass was luxuriant and the wildflowers out in force. Perhaps hunters came in with choice parts of buffalo or antelope, and everyone enjoyed a feast. These early American mobile homes were called “prairie schooners” because they resembled a fleet of ships sailing across a sea of grass. He had traded nails and bits of metal with Indian children and thrown buffalo chips at other white children. More than a third of the emigrants’ supplies was likely to have been used up by this time. Pioneer Companies Usually Consisted of More than One Family. May be downloaded for personal reading convenience or to be chief guide as far Fort. 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