Danger on the Westward Trail

By Anna Kathryn Lanier (Guest Blogger)

My current work in progress is set during the 1860’s and takes place on a wagon train heading to Oregon. I’ve taken to read diaries of the brave women who took this arduous journey. In some cases, truth is stranger than fiction, but in all journeys, the trip was fraught with danger.

In “Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865,” Sarah Raymond Herndon’s diary relates the accidental death of a fellow traveler. As was the custom, the men often hunted for wild game while the wagons moved across the prairie. In this case, they were hunting prairie chickens. All the men and boys fired at once, but one boy’s gun failed to go off, so he tossed it into a wagon. Soon thereafter, the wagon passed by Mr. Milburn, who dropped to his knees, saying “I am shot.” It was thought he’d shot himself, but whileholding his cold gun, they knew he hadn’t. Upon investigation, it was discovered that when the wagon struck a hole, the gun the boy had thrown into it had fired, striking and killing Mr. Milburn.

Disease was very common among the travelers, cholera being especially rampant. In “Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849,” Sallie Hester’s diary relates “a great many deaths; graves everywhere.” Anna Marie King writes in a letter “sickness and death attended us the rest of the way…whooping cough and measles went through our little camp…and a lingering fever prevailed.” She goes on to say that “eight [in] our two families have gone to their long home.”

River crossings were numerous and very dangerous. Elizabeth Dixon Smith tells of a man “swam after the cattle…sunk and was seen no more.” Sallie tells of “a lady and four children were drowned” on the Platte.

An unfortunate, but common danger for the emigrants was taking the suggestion of a guide to follow them on a “short-cut.” Often, these short-cuts were undeveloped trails not worthy of wagon travel. Sallie Hester and Tabitha Brown’s families both fell victim to “rascally” fellows. Believing the route to be faster, Sallie’s train finds “neither wood nor water for fifty-two miles.” (The average daily mileage was 10-20 miles; in rough terrain, it could be as little as two miles a day). Tabitha’s wagons faired much worse. The men had to hack and clear a trail after their guide ran off. They were caught in a canyon for two to three weeks, their food running out and they themselves dying from fatigue and starvation.

With winter setting in and two mountains still to climb, they group decided to settle in for the winter. Her son-in-law went ahead in the hopes of at least bringing back provisions. He didn’t have to go far, however. Tabitha’s son, who had already made it to Oregon, had heard of a “wayward” train and he had set out with provisions to find it. The two men met up and returned to the starving emigrants. With the help of mixed-blood French-Indians as guides, the train soon found a settlement to spend the coming winter.

Six and half months after starting their journey, Sallie’s family arrives in Vernon, California. “Our party of fifty, now only thirteen, has at last reached this haven of rest.”

Many of the diaries note the number of graves passed each day. Others keep note of the deaths in their own party. One estimate states that one in seventeen emigrants died on the trail. That’s 20,000 people of the more than 350,000 who travelled westward between 1840-1860.

I do not know if I would have had the fortitude to make such a long, hard journey, but we should be grateful to those who did.

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Anna Kathryn Lanier writes both contemporary and historical westerns. Her novella Salvation Bride is a best seller at The Wild Rose Press and won the Preidtors and Editors Reader’s Poll for best short story of 2009. You can discover more about Anna Kathryn at www.aklanier.com or www.annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com.