Backtracking the Oregon Trail

Backtracking the Oregon Trail

Janet Fisher

Afterword

462.one lg wagonI hope you’ve enjoyed our journey retracing Martha’s footsteps as we backtracked the Oregon Trail. As noted in the beginning it took us five days to cover the miles that took them five months. We streaked across modern highways in an air-conditioned car. Martha walked all the way, one step at a time. She trudged through fantastic mountain scenery and wide lonely prairies and deserts. I’m sure she embraced nature’s wonders while despairing of the next climb, the uncertainty of water and sustenance, the heat and cold.

It was a thrill to see the places again, some for the first time. Certainly I saw landmarks on this trip with new appreciation.

Returning home by air, I happened to notice the Columbia River below me, somewhere near The Dalles where we met Martha coming the other way.

598.columbia river from airYou can see the blue line cutting through the middle of the photo. The highway—and the Oregon Trail—follow it for some distance on the east side of the Cascades.

Years after her long trek Martha marveled at news of the newly built railroad crossing the country. Could she even imagine flying through the sky? About five hours in the air to go the distance that took her five months? I was happy to get home in less than a full day, rather than five long days on the road.

If you missed any post in this series and would like to find it, go to the right-hand side of the page and scroll down to “Categories.” Click on “Backtracking the Oregon Trail” to find them all listed. (Or just scroll down the main page. There aren’t very many intervening posts.)

Thank you for joining us.

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #9

Janet Fisher

Day Five ~ Back to the Beginning

464.two wagonsThe land was mostly dry and dusty. . . . The Platte River making its lazy way between sandy bluffs, curving along a wide swath of bottomland. The shallow stream could sometimes be as much as two miles wide and a few inches deep. . . . Islands and sandbars, quicksand. Muddy, warm.
They were finally on their way. . . . The weight of troubles slipped from her shoulders as she looked west toward a new land and new possibilities. . . .
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), pp. 109-110, 104.

Saturday, May 25. Still traveling up the Platte. The road is a little monotonous. The scenery does not change much. The river has a winding course and contains many islands. Some are little more than sand bars, others are covered with low willows. The road is at times along the river bank, and again near the bluffs on our left.
—The diary of Margaret A. Frink, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 89.

Took up camp after dinner & started up the Platte. . . . The road is level being between the bluffs & the river. The Bluffs are very high & picturesque. The river ranks among the first class as to width but is very shallow as indicated by the many islands with which it is filled.
—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 89.

June 17th Traveled near the Platte all day and encamped near it at night. This is a turbid river, no trees of any size to be seen. We make out to use the water by sprinkling in a little corn meal This makes it a little cleaner.
—The diary of Rachel Taylor, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 164.

May 10th [at St. Joseph] Crossed the [Missouri] river without any difficulty . . . The surrounding scenery is delightful The soil is fertile and lacks nothing but improvement to make it one of the first places in the world in agriculture;; My sister and I ascended to the summit of a hill and with the aid of a spy-glass took a farewell view of St. Joe. and the United States.:
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 49.

I could not begin to tell you how many their [are] in St Joseph that are going to Oregon and California but thousands of them it is a sight to se the tents and wagons on the banks of the river and through the country
—The diary of Mary M. Colby, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 48.

462.one lg wagonBy Day Five we had to push forward without delay. We followed the trail a ways, along the main fork of the Platte River, lush and green now with farming, bluffs on either side. You can tell where the river is by the line of trees that marks it.

Martha wouldn’t recognize this any more than she could have recognized the land along the North Platte. She would have remembered a much drier place with fewer trees, and those often limited to the islands of the wide, meandering waterway.

Pushing eastward into the tall grass country, we saw more farms where Martha would recall prairie grasses that could grow six feet tall, and flowers in swashes of color reaching into an arc of blue sky.

509.chimney rock & sunflowersThe native North American prairies west of Missouri changed gradually going westerly—from tall grass to mixed grass to the short grass of the high desert. From the diaries it sounded as if the tall grass had pretty well played out by Fort Kearney, soon after they reached the Platte. Somewhere in there you begin reading about lack of wood and the need for that substitute fuel offered by the buffalo that ranged across the region—buffalo chips. Different companies of wagons spread out so their livestock wouldn’t overgraze along a single track, here where the land stretched wide enough so they could.

I didn’t take any pictures on Day Five, maybe because the landscape seemed monotonous, mostly flat, green, looking nothing like the place described in the diaries. A monotony of a different kind. As we continued eastward the flat land spread farther to the horizon so the bluffs on each side sometimes disappeared in the distance. And a gradual greening occurred the farther east we drove—probably as that earlier vegetation once changed from shorter mixed grasses to the tall prairie grass, going the opposite direction the emigrants were.

The Weston plow, invented in the late 1850s, changed this landscape. Before the Weston, no plow could cut through the tough root system of the tall grasses. But this new plow had the power to turn the turf over. Farming was born in the tall grass prairie. A few industrious souls today are trying to return portions of this land back to its native state, but they have strong competition from agribusiness.

We left the trail around Kearney for the shortest route to our destination, finally reaching the Missouri River and St. Joseph, one of the popular jumping-off places for emigrants embarking upon the Oregon Trail.

463.wagons high plainsFolks couldn’t just march west when they had a mind to. They faced a small window of time when it was advisable to go—to jump off into the wilderness and one of the most profound adventures of their lives. They had to wait until the prairies greened up in the spring to offer feed for their livestock, and they had to cross the last mountain before the winter snows. Towns like St. Joe, Independence, and Westport (which became Kansas City) grew up where people waited, and businessmen set up shops to offer supplies in case folks still needed goods. Business could be brisk while folks waited and shored up the wagons.

Reading the diaries you feel the gradual shift as the bright hope at the outset begins to fade. Exclamations of “beautiful scenery” and “good roads” turn to words like “tedious” and “monotonous.” The good roads turn dusty. The lush grass becomes scanty. The way ahead feels longer, less certain. I am reminded of Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey. Isn’t that the way of every major endeavor? We leave the familiar because something compels us. And if we knew in the beginning how hard the road would be, we might never have the courage to go. Hope compels us, and though things get rough in the middle, we come out on the other side, having triumphed or at least having learned something.

502.painted wagon & oxen scotts bluffNearing the end of our journey we decided to stop in St. Joe for dinner. We were so ready for a decent meal. Our own struggles paled in comparison to those of the intrepid pioneers, but we were anxious for a few of the comforts.

Christiane had hoped to arrive at her house before dark, having rented the place sight unseen, except for pictures.

Maybe with a quick meal we could have made it, but our desire for something better outweighed her plan. We enjoyed a delicious sit-down dinner and reached Kansas City in the dark.

The map of freeways and streets looked as if a drunken spider had gone on a spree and built a crazy web. It took careful watching for signs, but our directions led us right to the house, and we were pleased to see the canopy of large trees in the neighborhood. When we stopped in the driveway and opened the car doors, a strange sound reverberated around us. It seemed almost like an electronic buzz and I wanted whoever was doing it to turn off the music or machine or whatever was making that noise. We were so exhausted we just wanted to go in and make our beds on the floor—to sleep and await the moving pod and real beds the next day. But what was that sound?

We learned there were huge cicadas, and maybe some tree frogs adding to the chorus, and over time we began to get used to them. We could barely hear them inside the house with doors and windows closed. So they didn’t keep us awake. They did make our chirpy critters back home seem like soft crooners.

So our journey ended near where Martha’s started. She began with hopes high, marching out onto the wild prairie. We entered the city—one of those jumping-off places—tracking a wild network of freeways in the dark. But we shared her sense of hope for new adventures and possibilities.

—Scotts Bluff National Monument: Landmark on the Overland Trails, A History and Guide, Dean Knudsen, Historian, National Park Service, pp. 34-36.

—Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail, Susan G. Butruille. (Boise, ID: Tamarack Books, 1993), pp. 21-22.

NEXT: Afterword

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #8

Janet Fisher

Day Four ~ The North Platte River

516.north platte westNorth Platte River looking west

Martha looked up the long dry slope they had to climb. Bluffs came right to the river’s edge here, so they couldn’t pass. They had to go around and that meant up. She clasped a child in each hand and started walking. . . .
Thank goodness for the women. What would she do without other women to laugh with and share stories with? Much as she loved Garrett and her brothers, they didn’t see life in quite the same way.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 113, 110.

It is singular that on the north side of the Platte here is not a vestige of a tree in sight—save one “Lone Tree” for 200 miles & yet on the South side there is an abundance of Cedar fastened in the rock Bluffs & some Cottonwood. But the feed for cattle to all appearance is much better on the N. side
—The diary of Polly Coon, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 191.

13th Monday . . . the road soon leaves the bottom & leads upon the bluffs which are here of a rocky formation which seems to be a mixture of sand & lime In about three miles we came to Ash hollow so called from the ash trees which grow there. We had looked to this place as one where we should have plenty of wood & water . . . The glen is very picturesque rocks rise almost perpendicular two hundred ft or more We had scarcely encamped in a prettier place . . . 
—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 91-92.

june 23 [Sunday] we camped in ash holler fifteen miles from whare we campe before and their was a tremendous thunder sawer one role after nother till it killed a horse that was onley one rod from our wagon that night Sarah was taken sick we had no super
June 24 we camped on the north fork of the plat river and sarah was very sick . . . I soon saw she would die and she did die before noon o how lonely I felt to think I was all the woman in company and too [sm]all babes left in my care it seams to me as if I would be hapy if I only had one woman with me
—The diary of Sarah Davis, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), pp. 179-180.

July 21. We again are pursuing our teadious journey. For the first 3 miles it was up hill then we came to a ridge. This extended to Ash hollow & when we came to it we found ourselves on the top of a high hill, precipices & deep ravines. In these ravines & on either side of the bluffs are trees growing in crevises, ash & red cedar. It is the most romantic place we have seen yet.
—The diary of Lucena Parsons, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 251.

515.north platte eastNorth Platte River looking east

Martha wouldn’t recognize today’s North Platte River. With passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, people started taking a second look at that land west of Missouri. And completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 insured easier transportation to markets.

Instead of seeing the Platte River Valley as a long impediment to a West Coast destination, folks began to see the farming possibilities right there. Add more water with irrigation and the possibilities increased dramatically. So farmers came. They dug plows into the rich soil, built irrigation canals—and changed the character of the valley.

As we traveled along the North Platte, I felt the need to conjure up long-departed images. Massive herds of buffalo. Grassy plains. And where exotic trees and shrubs flourish along the riverbanks today, I imagined a land with few trees in sight and scarcely a stick of wood for a campfire. The buffalo herds may have eaten down the grass along the way, but they left a perfectly good substitute for campfire fuel—buffalo chips. Yes, that’s manure. Folks said it didn’t smell so bad and didn’t give the food a bad taste when used for cooking.

517.ash hollow bluffBluff above Ash Hollow

As you drive along the high plateaus you can still see some of the drier landscape the emigrants might have seen. Maybe the soil is too thin up there for farming, so this land has been left to its earlier state. The land has broken away on the edges of some of those plateaus, as if chopped away by a cleaver, baring the rocky interior, like the one overlooking Ash Hollow (above). Soil looks pretty thin at the top.

Before reaching Ash Hollow, most emigrants, traveling on the south bank of the main fork, had to cross the South Platte to make their way over a high plateau to the North Platte where the trail continued. At that river crossing they found that the lazy Platte had turned quite rough, although it was shallow enough to ford. From that harrowing plunge across the water, they met with the strenuous climb to the plateau.

520.Windlass HillWindlass Hill

But after following the trail across that high plateau they found no good way down. The gentlest slope appeared to be Windlass Hill. So they stopped at the top of this hill and lowered the wagons with ropes. There would be worse to come, but anytime you have to lower a wagon with ropes it’s a treacherous undertaking. Quite a bit of excitement after the flat prairie they’d followed for many long days. When they got to the Oregon Cascade Mountains and saw Laurel Hill, though, this one would pale in comparison.

From Windlass Hill they made their way to nearby Ash Hollow where even in that day a refreshing grove of trees awaited them. But the Ash Hollow springs held a deadly secret. In bad cholera years that spring water harbored the lethal cholera bacteria. It could strike with sudden force, killing a healthy person overnight. The diary of Sarah Davis (above) touches my heart on so many levels.

We weren’t able to get into Ash Hollow park but could see a little of it from the gate. The park was closed the day we passed through. I had hoped to meet with someone who would let us in, but we got there too late in the day.

519.bunny windlass hillI don’t know if this is a native bunny species that we saw at Windlass Hill, but we observed many of them and would see them frequently—right outside the door—in Christiane and Calliope’s new home.

We stayed that night in the town of North Platte, Nebraska, which lies just east of where the main Platte River splits into the North Platte and South Platte. We were relieved to get in before dark that evening and rested up for the final day of travel.

—Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail, Susan G. Butruille. (Boise, ID: Tamarack Books, 1993), pp. 165-166.

NEXT: We’ll head over that flat prairie along the main fork of the Platte, then take the shortest route to the Missouri River, back to the Oregon Trail’s beginning.

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #7

Janet Fisher2 Comments

Day Four ~ Chimney Rock

508.chimney rockHer left boot was getting a hole in it, letting the gritty dust in to nestle between sole and foot and bite in worse than the grit outside the sole. . . . Step after step . . . past natural wonders . . . Chimney Rock . . . Scotts Bluff. . . . She couldn’t get her breath. She was three months pregnant.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 116.

Wednesday, June 5. The weather to-day was quite hot and oppressive. We had to cross a long stretch without water. The road we took led us close to the base of Chimney Rock, where we stopped for some time to satisfy our curiosity. The base is shaped like a large cone, from the top of which rises a tall tower or chimney, resembling the chimney of a manufacturing establishment. . . . It is composed of marl and soft sandstone, which is easily worn away. Mr. Frink carved our names upon the chimney, where are hundreds of others.
—The diary of Margaret A. Frink, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 95.

Came opposite Chimney Rock which has been sight since yesterday. It has been seen 30 miles off on a clear day. Three of us went to it. I was struck with amazement at the grandeur of the scene.
—The diary of Lucena Parsons, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 253.

June 14th Traveled twenty four miles:. We have seen very romantic scenery all day; The Chimney rock has been in full view all day:; It is represented as being three hundred feet high but from the road we are traveling it does not appear to be more than one hundred feet.;. Palmer in speaking of this rock very truly says that it has the unpoetical appearance of a hay stack with a pole extending far above its top
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 65-66.

To day we come to the river opposite Chimney Rock which has been visible most of the way for the last 35 miles It is said to be 3 miles from the opposite side of the river but on these level prairies we cannot judge much of distances by the eye It does not appear more than half a mile It consists of a large square column of clay and sand mixed together with a base of conical form apperantly composed of sand, round base cone. and appears as if the column had been set up and the sand heaped around it to sustain it It is said to be 500 feet high but doubt it some
—The diary of Cecelia Adams & Parthenia Blank, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 271.

At night we came to Chimney rock which had been visible to us for 15 miles. . . . We camped near the river about two miles from the rock. After tea uncles, Mr Long, Julia Martha & I went to see it by moonlight The sight was awfully sublime The sides of the base on which the pillar rests are so steep that it was with the utmost difficulty we could climb up it at all. We however succeeded in climbing up some distance. We found it covered with names We got back to the camp about 10 O’clock
—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 92-93.

502.painted wagon & oxen scotts bluffDownriver from Scotts Bluff my family and I finally came upon another of the famous landmarks along the Oregon Trail, Chimney Rock. Traveling eastward, we didn’t see it right away. But perhaps even more than Scotts Bluff, this one cannot be mistaken once seen. Many a pioneer commented on this remarkable feature that points a jagged finger to the rich blue skies.

The pinnacle rose before us, one of the more amazing sights on our journey from Oregon to Kansas City, as we retraced the footsteps of our pioneer ancestors who took this trail westward. My daughter Christiane and I had seen it years ago when our family took a camping trailer over this route. And having traveled the trail again in my mind as I wrote Martha’s story, A Place of Her Own, I thrilled to see it firsthand once more and show my granddaughter as well.

By the time we reached the visitor center for this geological marvel, the thermometer was inching up to 100. And at this site we didn’t see a speck of shade. We dismissed any notion of trekking to the monument’s edge, but I hurried into the visitor center while my daughter and granddaughter stayed with the dog in the air-conditioned car, the motor running. I had previously sent a copy of my book to be reviewed for their gift shop and stopped in to introduce myself.

Thinking about our pioneers ancestors, I could only imagine how miserable it would have been for these people and their animals to trudge across the barren land here on days such as this. The photo above of a painted wagon and oxen from the Scotts Bluff site helps bring the image to life.

As with Scotts Bluff, the sediments on the unusual Chimney Rock landmark show the many layers set down by nature over time. Travelers along the Oregon Trail must have wondered how these imposing features happened to be here. The formations appear to hold the strength of the ages, but they’re gradually disintegrating, much as they’ve been doing for thousands of years.

Scientists say it all started with a major geological uplift along North America’s west coast 70 million years ago. A huge inland sea once covered this central part of North America, but that land rise on the coast created the Rocky Mountains, displacing the inland sea. Water on the east side began to wash into the Mississippi River Basin. Wind and water carried huge amounts of sediment from the Rockies and deposited it here in layers of sand and silt, the accumulated weight compressing the deposits into sandstone and siltstone. Periodic volcanic activity added layers of ash.

Then about 10 million years ago the uplift increased, and streams moved faster, carving deep into the deposits. Here and there, denser stone held firm, where hard capstones of limestone at the top held down the layers so they still show like a layer cake of varied flavors.

509.chimney rock & sunflowersWe saw lots of wild sunflowers along the way. They looked pretty next to these unidentified white flowers near Chimney Rock (directly above). We saw many bunnies and a magpie or two, but none of the prairie rattlesnakes that signs warned us about.

Life forms no longer seen in this area walked these lands 30 million years ago. Their fossils have been preserved in the sand and silt layers—animals like rhinos, camels, giant hogs, and a few stranger creatures, as well as huge turtles.

Humans began appearing around 10,000 years ago, or possibly earlier. People developed agriculture along the North Platte River, then abandoned the area around 1400 AD, probably due to drought. Later, eastern tribes were pressed into the area by European settlement. When the Spanish reintroduced the horse to this continent in the 16th century, that animal changed the lives of the tribes then living on the plains, providing mobility and prowess in battle. These were the people American emigrants met on their way west over the Oregon Trail.

—Scotts Bluff National Monument: Landmark on the Overland Trails, A History and Guide, Dean Knudsen, Historian, National Park Service, pp. 2-7.

NEXT: The North Platte and Ash Hollow

COMMENT

 

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #6

Janet Fisher

Day Four ~ Scotts Bluff

501.one wagon scotts bluffShe walked past natural wonders . . . Chimney Rock . . . Scotts Bluff . . . the Devil’s Gate. The oppressive heat sucked her energy. Dust filled her nose and eyes, even her ears. Sounds dimmed—the creaking wheels. Cattle bawling. Thudding hoofbeats. Ropes squeaking. . . .
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 116.

June 27 thursday we started on and traveled ten miles and stoped to noon in sight of scots bluffs whare their was plenty of grass for the catle we traveled twenty miles and encamped in sight of scots bluffs right on the plat river and I washed some that evening we had plenty of wolfs to visit us that night
—The diary of Sarah Davis, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 180.

July 28. We currelled last night opposite the most splendid scenery we have met with on our travels. They are sand hills intermixt with rock or a hard substance resembling rock that rise & tower over the other like splendid mansions with numerous chimneys rising to a great hight. They are called Scotts Bluffs . . .
—The diary of Lucena Parsons, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 2, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1990), p. 253.

About noon we stopped nearly opposite the “Scott bluffs” sometimes called capital hills These hills have a truly grand romantic appearance calculated to fill the mind with indescribeble amazement approaching almost to sublimity. There are numerous cedars growing uppon them, which gives them a still more grand appearance.
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott (entry by Margaret Ann or Maggie because Abigail has cholera), in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 66.

All day the scenery was most enchanting intirely surpassing in loveliness & originality any thing I had ever beheld. Bluffs the most picuresque and resembling to the life some old castle of ancient times. About noon we came to Scotts Bluff which much resembles an old fortification.
—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 93.

506.scotts bluff visitor ctrDay four brought our backtracking trip right back to the Oregon Trail along famous landmarks for the emigrants on their way west. The emigrants would gauge their progress by the number of days it took them to reach these notable places. On our journey eastward to my daughter Christiane’s new job in Kansas City near the trail’s beginning, we planned to stop at several of these locations, where visitor centers provide information.

The towering landmark of Scotts Bluff rises like a beacon in the vast high plains of what is now western Nebraska, layers of multicolored sediment marking the deposits placed there by great upheavals of nature over time, water and wind whisking away the edges to let the monument stand high above the surrounding plain and expose its turbulent history.

We watched for the famous bluff out the car window, as those emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail must have watched. Several lesser bluffs rose around us, scattered over the flat. Was that it? No, not prominent enough. Then a sign marked the way, and when we came closer there could be no doubt. Nothing in the area matched the monumental geological feature. The emigrants with their slow travel might have seen it for days, growing slowly larger before them. This was one of the great mileposts. They knew from the guidebooks they carried that reaching this landmark along the North Platte River meant one-third of their trip lay behind them. And what a marvel, seeing it up close!

Now a visitor center nestles against the sheer height of Eagle Rock. Between that and Sentinel Rock, three covered wagons appear to roll through a wide gap, following the historic trail.

We stepped out of our air-conditioned car, and the heat struck. The hot weather was back. Not quite 100, but in the high 90s—in the shade. And precious little shade beyond the perimeter of the visitor center, where nice trees provide refreshing cover.

After checking in at the center—and giving them one of my books—we left the trees and started our own trek along the short stretch of the Oregon Trail within the park boundaries.

500.two wagons scotts bluffMy grand-daughter Calliope walks ahead at the far left edge of the scene.

There’s a bit of shade alongside the wagon, but when those wagons rolled, back in the day, the dust must have boiled up around them. A person could have shade with dust or blistering sun without. What a choice!

We reluctantly had to forgo the walk we had intended to make up to the wagon wheel ruts farther up the trail, hoping for another visit sometime on a cooler day or perhaps during the morning or evening hours. Unfortunately our schedule didn’t allow us to wait.

A haunting story tells how the bluff got its name, a story with moving parts that shift like sands along the Platte, depending on who does the telling. But apparently an employee of the American Fur Company named Hiram Scott had served as a clerk with the caravan that brought supplies to trappers at the 1828 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. On their way home, laden with furs from the mountains, Scott became too ill to ride. So the leader of the caravan put him in a bullhide boat and assigned two men to accompany him more slowly downriver the 60 miles or so to this bluff, where the rest of the men would wait for them.

Somehow the boat overturned, and the three men lost most of their supplies, including food and weapons. Unable to hunt or protect themselves, the two with Scott told him they would hurry on ahead to catch up with their company and return for him. Or they said they would go out and find food and natural medicines to take back to him, according to another version of the tale.

However, when the two reached the bluff they found that the company had gone on ahead, so they decided to abandon poor Scott and push forward as fast as they could, finally catching up with the others in two or three days.

A couple of the women diarists offer a kinder version. Abigail Jane Scott says the sick man requested that his companions abandon him. Celinda Hines brings in a robbery by the Indians, who supposedly wounded Mr. Scott. She says they all knew he wouldn’t last much longer, so Mr. Scott begged his companions to leave him, which they did.

504.scotts bluffAnd so the sand of story shifts. In any case, the next spring when the caravan rolled by the bluff again, men found a grinning skeleton they readily identified as Scott. With remarkable tenacity he had made his way those 60 miles alone, finally to die at the foot of this monument which would thereafter carry his name. The story in its variations was told around many a campfire as others pushed west, passing this magnificent marker.

—Scotts Bluff National Monument: Landmark on the Overland Trails, A History and Guide, Dean Knudsen, Historian, National Park Service, pp. 10-13.

—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 66.

—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 93.

NEXT: Chimney Rock

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #5

Janet Fisher2 Comments

Day Three ~ The High Plains

463.wagons high plainsWind whistled across the high desert. The sun shone warm on her back, not a cloud in the sky. Nights had been cold, though, everything white with frost in the mornings. The acrid smell of sage clutched her nose. She’d been tasting it for days. The scrubby plants dotted the landscape, along with other low, tangled brush, a spare coat of dry grass like a mangy dog’s hair.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 116.

Wedns Aug 4 Traveled 8 miles. Came to Soda Springs. laid by the rest of the day. Here is quite a curiosity. The water boils right up out of high rocks in some places and it boils out of the level ground quite . . . high. The water is not so strong but what a person can drink it very well.
—The diary of Martha S. Read, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 236.

July 6th We traveled 18 miles through the Pass;; The ascent and descent is very gradual it being impossible to exactly determine where the culminating point is. . . . The next stream we passed was a small one called Pacific Creek The water here runs West while every other stream we have passed runs either (East) or South
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 82.

August 1st Sunday To day we left the waters that flow into the Atlantic and proceed to those of the Pacific We let our cattle feed till about noon and then started on, for the South pass 10 miles distant – It ill comports with the ideas we had formed of a pass through the rocky Mountains, being merely a vast level sandy plain sloping a little each way from the summit and a few hills for we could not call them mountains on each side. Some few snowy peaks in the distance, and this is the South pass through the Rocky mountains
—The diary of Cecelia Adams & Parthenia Blank, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 278.

493.mountains to crossAs we continued our journey to Kansas City, retracing the footsteps of our ancestors over the Oregon Trail, I kept picturing Martha, subject of my new book A Place of Her Own, walking this rugged track in 1850 with her husband Garrett Maupin, all their worldly goods packed in an ox-drawn covered wagon. My great-great-grandparents. What hardy souls they were.

Leaving Fort Hall, my daughter, granddaughter, and I struck out eastward toward Soda Springs, where pioneers marveled at natural fountains of soda they could drink like a soda back home. My granddaughter Calliope was determined to buy a soda in the town of Soda Springs. Checking the label she found that the soda came right out of—well, Mexico. But she insisted it was delicious anyway.

Weather had turned cooler today, thankfully, perhaps because we’d moved into higher elevations, or the overall weather patterns had changed. We could enjoy getting out and walking around.

We soon crossed the modern border into Wyoming somewhere near the Oregon Trail with another looming ridge in the near distance. The range extended on either side of the road and looked too wide to go around. We would have to go over.

494.continuing rangeI couldn’t help thinking how the hearts of those pioneer travelers must have sunk, seeing ridges like this ahead of them and wondering what manner of mountains they were coming into now. As we followed the highway into this ridge, the road rose before us and we could hear the subtle change in the laden car’s engine. Imagine taking this step by step, one foot in front of the other, the oxen tugging that laden wagon up a slope with no smooth highway, only a rutted track.

Of course, they were coming the other way. They faced this mountain from the other side. Our uphill slope was their downhill grade. But downhill isn’t so easy either. While there isn’t the tug of hauling weight upward, a decline can be treacherous. A heavy wagon pushing down on you. Rocks in the path ready to trip a person or flip a wagon. Truckers today understand the danger of a runaway vehicle on a steep descent. A runaway wagon could happen too. Mountains, beautiful as they are, must have always evoked dread.

We left the Oregon Trail somewhere in western Wyoming. The main highways in Wyoming veer from that track, and we had limited time. We had a long drive ahead before we reached our day’s destination, and my daughter had meetings scheduled the morning after our scheduled arrival in the Kansas City area at the end of Day 5. We needed to take the fast route across Wyoming. And I do mean fast. Much of Interstate 80 is posted at 80 mph. That does make the miles slip by.

Again I thought of the pioneers who faced other kinds of time constraints. They had to get across the last mountain before winter snows came. They may have had some flexibility of days, but they didn’t dare delay too long.

Years ago when my kids were young our family had taken the more northerly zigzagged route across Wyoming on a road trip with a travel trailer—our version of a covered wagon—and we did our best to follow the Oregon Trail all the way. I well remember the surprising topography of South Pass where the trail crossed the Continental Divide which separates the waters that flow to the Pacific from waters that flow ultimately to the Atlantic. It doesn’t appear mountainous at all. It’s just a slight rise in ground in the midst of a dry plain, dotted with sagebrush and other scrub. Such luck for all who passed that way in the early days that they found this easy crossing through the otherwise craggy mountain range of the Rockies.

495.sediment on rocksOur crossing of the Continental Divide on Interstate 80 wasn’t much more noticeable. We saw a lot of country like the above, wide flat stretches of sagebrush and dry tufts of grass with multicolored bluffs rising here and there. Barren but beautiful. I liked the soft reds in the bluff above, which I shot while the car surged forward.

497.colored rimrockAnd this formation near Green River, Wyoming, was interesting with its strawberry tint in layer-cake slices. I think I was beginning to get hungry.

After two nights of drive-through fast-food dinners gulped down in the air-conditioned car because it was too hot to leave the dog, we decided this evening we would have a sit-down dinner in a restaurant. The weather had remained pleasant all day. The dinner couldn’t be anything fancy. We were still far from our motel in Laramie and needed something quick. But quick wasn’t in the cards that evening. Food took a long time to reach our table. My daughter, who did the driving, bolted hers down. My granddaughter and I got to-go boxes. And off we went again. So much for a relaxing dinner.

Dark fell much too fast, and it was 10 o’clock by the time we rolled in. I thought about Martha and other emigrants who made those night runs across the desert when the weather became too unmercifully hot to travel in the day. Ours was just a little miscalculation of the time this portion of the drive would take, a late start due to loss of sleep from parties next door, and slow dinner service.

One thing. We slept well this night.

[The wagon photo at the top was taken at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker, Oregon.]

NEXT: Scott’s Bluff, famous landmark of the trail

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #4

Janet Fisher2 Comments

Day Three ~ Fort Hall

481.Ft Hll exteriorMartha batted away mosquitoes as she sat in the shade with the girls and several other women and children outside the sturdy structure. Fort Hall. What a relief to find this semblance of civilization so far out in the wilderness. It also meant they’d covered a fair amount of their journey, but when she asked Larry if it would be downhill from here, he wouldn’t answer.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 118.

July 23rd We traveled 18 miles;;, twelve and a half miles brought us to fort Hall. . . . This fort is built of sun burnt brick (adobes), It is a rather shabby looking concern, but in case of an attak from without its inmates would be tolerably well protected It has port holes through the walls for the admission of guns,; This fort is now abandond by the government and is occupied by some traders;;
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 94.

[August] 19 Thursday To day came to Fort Hall on snake River and passed it at one in the P.M. It is made of unburnt bricks and is little larger than a good sized barn. It is not now occupied by the soldiers but is used for a trading station. Some 50 or 100 wagons, markd U.S. in large letters stand there rotting. Encamped about 2 miles from the fort on Pannock creek and had very good feed – Made 14m
—The diary of Cecelia Adams & Parthenia Blank, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 284.

28th Thursday . . . We almost suffered with dust & want of water Near night we came to the Port Neuf river which we had to ford it is large & deep we had to raise our wagon beds. Ft Hall trading post is near . . . The men from the post came to see us . . .
29 Friday Our road was through sage brush . . . The mosquitoes were very annoying.
—The diary of Celinda Hines, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1850, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 106.

474.inside ft hallAnd so continued the journey of my daughter and granddaughter and myself as we retraced the footsteps of our Maupin ancestors who traveled west over the Oregon Trail in 1850. Now we were backtracking the trail, heading east on our way to Kansas City, where my daughter was moving to take a new job.

We got a late start on day three after a rocky night of sleep the night before when our neighbors in the motel made a little too much noise partying. I was reminded of complaints by some emigrants on the Oregon Trail concerned about Indian drums pounding all night, keeping them awake.

To add to our delay, we also had some trouble finding Fort Hall. But once we found it, we took our time to see this fine replica in Pocatello, Idaho.

Fort Hall became another milepost for the weary emigrants trekking across the Oregon Trail. It meant they had come about two-thirds of the way on this incredible journey. Although the fort may have become a little dilapidated, some found comfort in the presence of an actual man-made structure in this wilderness.

The tidy structure today is a replica, built a few miles from the original. The builders did their best to create an authentic reproduction, using plans maintained by the Hudson’s Bay Company. I had a nice chat with the staff people. A man I’d spoken to earlier by phone met me there, and I left them a copy of my book, A Place of Her Own, about my great-great-grandmother Martha Maupin who took that trek west with her husband and their two small daughters.

The original fort came into being somewhat by accident. Nathaniel Wyeth, an American businessman from New England, became interested in the fur trade sometime in the early 1830s. Wyeth visited the annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous of mountain men, Indians, and traders in 1832. There he negotiated with leaders of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, one of the American companies that took supplies from St. Louis to the mountains for that annual gathering where they would trade supplies for furs that trappers and Indians had collected during the year. Wyeth offered to bring trade goods to the 1834 rendezvous, hoping to do a good business.

429.palisades like wyeth's - cropHowever, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company had financial difficulties and didn’t accept Wyeth’s goods. With $3,000 worth of supplies on hand and no buyer, Wyeth decided to build a trading post, which he named Fort Hall.

He constructed a wooden fort with palisade walls like those shown here (on the right), put up a handmade American flag, and left a man to run the post.

The British Hudson’s Bay Company didn’t look so kindly upon this American intrusion in the territory they wanted to claim for themselves. They built another fort a few miles downriver, Fort Boise, and soon put Wyeth out of business. By 1837 Wyeth gave up and sold his fort to the HBC at a loss.

The HBC covered the palisade walls with adobe. The place was still in the hands of the HBC in 1850 when Martha saw it, but the HBC abandoned it in 1855 or 1856, according to the Fort Hall Replica website (link below). Butruille (cited below) indicates the U.S. took it over in 1855. However, a couple of diarists (above), writing in 1852, suggest a former U.S. military presence at the time they passed through. Writers of history often disagree, I’ve found, and the diarists may not have been aware of the fort’s history.

In any case, the original was eventually abandoned as it began to crumble, and bits and pieces were carted off for other uses. But residents of the area later decided to replicate it. Since they could not build on the original site they put the structure on a lovely rise in ground at Ross Park in Pocatello.

477.blacksmith shop ft hallChristiane and Calliope and I traipsed through the interior, where many rooms have been set up like the originals. In the above photo of the blacksmith shop you can see the large bellows for raising the fire’s heat, an anvil, and other equipment. A blacksmith shop would have been a welcome convenience for the travelers whose wagons were often in need of considerable repair after so many jolting miles.

We took our time exploring each room and imagining what it must have been like to see Fort Hall in its original state, its adobe walls looming boldly in this land of wild rivers and mountains and plains of sagebrush. It must have looked a little out of place. And yet for people longing for any suggestion of civilization, the sight could well have provided a moment’s sigh of remembrance.

It was almost noon when we left the fort, so we found a nice shady table in Ross Park and ate our lunch before going on our way. A pleasant stop, but we began to feel rushed as we thought of the long road to this night’s destination of Laramie on the far side of Wyoming. We weren’t even out of Idaho yet.

—Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail, Susan G. Butruille. (Boise, ID: Tamarack Books, 1993), pp. 187-189.
—http://www.forthall.net/history/index.html

[The small photo of the palisade walls was taken at the replica of Fort Umpqua in Elkton, Oregon, near where Martha Maupin ultimately settled.]

NEXT: Soda Springs and the sagebrush plains of Wyoming

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #3

Janet Fisher

Day Two ~ The High Desert

468.diorama mother & childThe tattered wagon covers didn’t look white anymore. Gray dust coated every surface, working its way down into every nook. . . . Animals and people alike looked thin. So little grass. Even when they heard about grass ahead, they’d find much of it eaten off already by the companies that came through before. . . . She was five months pregnant.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), pp. 119-120.

Most women who traveled the trail were mothers or soon to be mothers. It was the mothers who, more than anyone, looked both forward and back, remembering home and how it was made. It was the mothers who tried to stretch the protective fabric of home across the 2,000 miles to a new place.
—Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail, Susan G. Butruille. (Boise, ID: Tamarack Books, 1993), p. 89.

13 Saturday Travel 5 miles this morning, then stopt to water at a spring; it is near night we are still traveling on, through dust and sand, and over rocks, until we find water, had none since this morning.
14th Sunday morn, Campt last night after dark after traveling 15 miles in a large bottom, near some puddles of very poor water found out this morning that it needed straining Afternoon, after traveling 10 miles we have campt on the bank of Powder river about 1 oclock another ox sick, we will rest here untill morning—
—The diary of Amelia Knight, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 6, 1853-1854, Kenneth L. Holmes, ed. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 65.

460.high desertOnce out of the mountains we came into high desert country with scattered sagebrush on rounded hills. The emigrants coming the other way were just beginning to see the occasional tree and a few touches of green after endless dusty expanses that could scarcely support life. Did they know what awaited them in the blue ridges on the horizon? Many carried guidebooks that described the various landmarks along the way. But those guidebooks often glossed over the looming difficulties.

First stop for us on this second day of travel was the remarkable National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker City, Oregon, in that high desert country—definitely a worthwhile stop for any Oregon Trail history buffs, or anyone with an interest in this era of the nation’s history.

The day was heating up fast, and no shade to park in. Fortunately someone had built shaded areas with tables where we ate lunch. We carried lunch supplies with us. Here, windbreaks gave some protection against the battering winds, but breezes still whipped our hair and grabbed at packages. Then I took my granddaughter Calliope inside to tour the place while my daughter Christiane stayed by the sheltered table with the dog.

The interpretive center offers many life-sized dioramas of typical Oregon Trail scenes that put you right into that world, as well as artifacts and informative presentations. Several of the photos on this post and the previous one show these realistic dioramas, while my first post in the series, “Backtracking the Oregon Trail #1,” includes photos of the interpretive center’s outdoor display of actual covered wagons. The photo of the high desert on this post was taken from our shaded table there.

Inside, as I remained watchful of Calliope, I looked upon the diorama of the mother and child (above), and my heart went out to the mothers on that trail. Martha had two little girls to watch out for along that trek. Nora was almost four and Louisa going on two. Little ones can be a handful when you’re stationary, let alone on a trail into the wilderness with all the potential for danger. A child climbing in or out of a moving wagon could get run over and either injured or killed. Many died of cholera, a dread for emigrants of all ages. And Martha had the added burden of being pregnant during the whole trip.

466.diorama horseThe animals in the dioramas are real, the handiwork of an expert taxidermist. But, my granddaughter was assured by one of the staff members, the people are not. Even so, these human statues are created with exquisite detail so you can even see the veins in their hands. Wonderful realism.

And you hear the sounds. The creak of wheels on the rocky track. The clip-clop of hooves. The cry of voices. Free your imagination and you’re there on the trail, experiencing, feeling.

I had a pleasant visit with a woman in the office who I’d spoken to earlier by phone and left a copy of my book for them to consider for their gift shop.

Driving southeast from Baker City, we watched the temperature. It crept up to 101 in the shade and virtually no shade. Yet as the day wore on we appreciated the raw beauty as the sun lowered, casting a smoky glow to paint pinks, golds, and oranges on every ridge.

Bugs splatted the windshield like scattered rain. They must have pestered the weary oxen and the people that trudged through here. And the heat kept bearing down—until evening, when the nights cooled—unlike nights Martha would have remembered back home in Missouri or Illinois.

Pocatello, Idaho, our destination for the night, seemed far away. We’d be coming in after dark once again.

NEXT: A stopover at the Fort Hall replica at Pocatello

COMMENT

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #2

Janet Fisher

Day Two ~ The Blue Mountains

469.diorama oxen & wagon[The roads] were harder than before. Steeper. Rockier. Dustier. Rivers wilder. There was an occasional tree now, sometimes wooded areas even, with tall conifers and cottonwoods. . . . The trail here was littered with the bones of oxen and fresher dead beasts—along with discarded trunks and furniture—and another human grave. A chill raked Martha despite the heat. The smell of death assaulted her nose.
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), p. 119.

Sep 3d We came, I think, eleven miles; over the mountains; the scenery was delightful all day but the road was extremely hilly and rough . . .
September 4th We came, I think, fourteen miles this day over the principal range of the Blue mountains, traveling all day through a densely timbered region . . .
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 121-122.

3d Sunday . . . Traveled along the west side of the valley at foot of mount about 3 miles when we came to a small stream and then commenced ascending the mountain, very steep in many places and continues to ascend for about 6 miles. very hard drive but at the top found the grass burnt off and there was no water, so had to go on till we came to Grand Ronde [River], ten miles, worst hill to go down that we have found yet. long, steep and rocky. . . .
5th Tuesday . . . Hard times. many cattle are failing and all are very poor and a good many get lost among the thick timber. . . . Traveled on about 7 miles on a mountain ridge sometimes on one side sometimes on the other. pretty sidling in places . . . begin to hope we are getting out of the mounts.
—The diary of Cecelia Adams & Parthenia Blank, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 302-303.

Tues Sept 21 Traveled 20 miles. . . . Here we commence climbing the Blue Mountains. . . . Had to camp without water. Found hard hills to day and very stony. Saw 5 graves and 5 dead cattle.
—The diary of Martha S. Read, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), p. 245.

455.road uphill blue mtsA formidable barrier loomed in front of us as we drove southeast from Pendleton, following the Oregon Trail pretty closely. Rising suddenly from a wide, flat landscape, the ridge looked barren except for a few tree clumps in the hollows. The highway took a wide sweep to zigzag up the hill. You could feel it on the heavily loaded car. Ears popped. My breath caught, imagining wagons rolling down this grade from the other direction.

We soon climbed into rugged timbered mountains. Mostly pines. And worked our way across, with lots of ups and down. Ridge after ridge. These were the Blue Mountains, the worst mountains the emigrants had crossed so far on their entire journey.

You don’t give much thought to those rising and falling grades while driving a car on a smooth highway—although we saw a few cars stopped with raised hoods. But when you let your thoughts drift back to a time when every rise meant a long, hard pull for weary oxen and every drop meant the danger of a wagon rolling out of control—forward or sideways. And every stone on a gravelly track meant the risk of losing a wheel or even overturning the whole vessel. Then the ups and downs become a whole lot more serious.

458.blue mts long view (crop)And think of where they were on that incredible journey. They were nearing the end. They’ve been trudging across a seemingly endless track for almost 2,000 miles. How daunting for them to reach the roughest part now. The oxen are so weary, many are just giving it up. Not enough food. Sore feet. Loads feeling heavier by the day. Now this. They drop and die. And sometimes people do too. Still, in their weariness, some diarists remarked on the splendid beauty of it. The fine timber.

After a long haul across this range we came alongside a gravelly creek which tumbled into a large flat expanse surrounded by a ring of mountains. Out ahead we could see where we would have to climb another ridge. This was the Grande Ronde Valley, admired by many travelers. The name comes from the French grande ronde, meaning “fine large valley” or “big round valley,” so named by the early French-Canadian trappers. A respite before the next rise. The Grande Ronde River mentioned in the above diary flows out of the Blue Mountains.

Our next climb brought us into sparse pine woods, which offered scattered shade amid jutting rock bluffs and scanty tufts of dry grass. This ridge wasn’t nearly as rugged or deep as the last. Reverse the direction of travel and you realize this was only a hint of worse to come for those westbound pioneers. Could they even imagine what was awaiting them in the ridge ahead?

[The photo at the top was taken in the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City, Oregon]

NEXT: A stopover at the interpretive center just outside Baker City, a highlight on our journey

COMMENT

 

Backtracking the Oregon Trail #1

Janet Fisher4 Comments

Introduction

I recently returned from a road trip with my daughter Christiane and granddaughter Calliope. Christiane got a new job as Assistant Professor at Kansas City Art Institute and was moving back to the Kansas City area. I decided to join her on the drive east to help with my granddaughter, who’s nine years old, then help set up their new house before flying home. On our eastbound route we chose to backtrack Martha’s journey over the Oregon Trail as roads and time allowed.

It took us five days to cross what took five months for my great-great-grandparents Martha and Garrett Maupin. And for my flight home I was in the air about five hours.

I’m adding this new category to my blog to describe our trip, offering related quotes from my book about Martha, A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, as well as quotes from the diaries of other pioneer women who made that journey. The diaries are taken from a series called Covered Wagon Women, edited by Kenneth L. Holmes. Like Holmes I present these diaries as written, using the spellings and punctuations of the original writers. A few additional sources add information. This is the first of ten posts in our story.

462.one lg wagonDay One ~ The Dalles

[T]he heat of the day radiated with scorching fury. . . . Now Martha worried about their own food supply. Her food bags had gone flabby for lack of contents. They’d traded with some Indians–shirts for fish–large dried salmon to add to the meat supply. But they were nearly out of flour. How long until they reached The Dalles, where they might buy more?
—A Place of Her Own: The Legacy of Oregon Pioneer Martha Poindexter Maupin, Janet Fisher. (Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot/Globe Pequot Press, 2014), pp. 119-120.

Here the Doct. met us on his way back from the Dalls. . . . He brought some flour, pork, Salt, and saleratus. Prices are coming down at the dalls. flour can be had at 15 cts. Pork at 37½, Salt at 25, Salertus 25, Sugar 25 to 30 . . . Have long been convinced that we are too late to cross the Cascade Mountains with safety so we concluded to leave our cattle and wagon at the Dalls and proceed down by water. . . . Traveled to the Dalls, 5 miles, and found a boat ready for sail
—The diary of Cecelia Adams & Parthenia Blank, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 308, 310.

We this morning sent two of the wagons by the way of the Dalles to be sent to Oregon City by water
—The diary of Abigail Jane Scott, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Vol. 5, 1852, The Oregon Trail, Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway, eds. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1986), pp. 129-130.

461.circle wagonsWe crammed everything into the car that we possibly could, to add to what Christiane had sent by U-Haul pod. Martha and Garrett crammed everything into the wagon they possibly could, and left behind anything that wouldn’t fit or that would be too heavy for the oxen to pull.

Starting out on the main roads, we planned to meet up with Martha and Garrett’s route at The Dalles, Oregon. The Dalles was one of those mileposts for the American emigrants, a place to replenish depleted supplies and to stop and rest before the most harrowing part of the journey. While the Rocky Mountains offered a gentle pass across their summit, the Cascade Mountains did not. The first several wagon trains in the early 1840s stopped well before this rugged range. Wagons were dismantled, broken down, left behind—either at The Dalles or before—and people took boats down the treacherous Columbia River or followed long, perilous trails on horseback over the mountains.

But wagons carried a lot of stuff they wanted. And getting those treasures to the west side without the wagons proved a problem. Some ferried the loaded wagon boxes down the river, or reloaded the goods onto boats. But many wanted to take the wagons west with them. Men decided to cut a road over the Cascades south of Mount Hood. They called it Barlow Road. Not much of a road, but hardy folks like the Maupins took their wagons across the Cascades over it, all the way to their destination in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley. I had previously visited part of that route just prior to writing Martha’s story, so we bypassed that and went straight toward The Dalles.

We had talked about eating dinner at The Dalles, but were getting hungry before we got there. I couldn’t help being reminded of Martha’s concerns about their food supply before reaching The Dalles. We decided to stop for dinner at Hood River instead. The car has a temperature gauge, and had been warning us, but we were comfortable with the air conditioner blowing. The numbers had hit 98 in Portland, unusually high for that city, and reached 100 by Troutdale on the city’s eastern perimeter. At Hood River it had climbed to 102.

We stepped out of the car. Heat pressed down like a living force. We had Christiane and Calliope’s dog Penny with us. We couldn’t leave the dog in the car, even in the shade. Looking for a place where we could eat outside and tie her next to us, we finally found a possibility. The restaurant had tables on a covered patio and the waitress set a place for us—in the sun! No way could I sit in the sun to eat when it was 102 in the shade. Nor could they promise food in less than 30 to 40 minutes. I figured we’d be cooked ourselves in that amount of time.

Our thoughts of a nice dinner evaporated like water on a sizzling sidewalk. We pushed on to The Dalles. It was drive-through time. Eat in the car with an occasional blast of cool air from the AC.

464.two wagonsAgain I thought of Martha and the relentless heat bearing down on her, often without shade except for a little alongside the wagon. No blast of cool air from anywhere. How desperate she must have been for a tree, a stream of water, anything to provide relief. At least, here on the east side of the Cascades it was a dry heat. But when it’s over 100 it still takes your breath away.

Anyway, a quick dinner got us back on the road faster and we drove on toward our first night’s destination in Pendleton, Oregon. It had taken us longer than expected to load up that morning, and the estimated travel times we got online appeared to be a little optimistic. We wouldn’t reach Pendleton before dark. A sense of urgency compelled us. But with the long summer days, we saw most of our route, dark settling just before Pendleton so when we approached it, the town appeared like a jewel of lights nestled in dark velvet.

[The photos for this post were taken outside the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon, which we would visit on Day Two. All photos in the series are by the author.]

NEXT: First thing the following morning, we reach the Blue Mountains, the most difficult road the emigrants have seen on their entire journey.

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